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AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
This Zen 5 chip from AMD features an impressive 5.4GHz boost clock, 6 cores and 12 threads, DDR5 support, and an amazing 65W TDP for excellent overall efficiency and thermal performance. For the price of just $279, it's hard to beat.
Per- Excellent performance for the base model
- Affordable price
- 65W TDP
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AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
This Zen 5 AMD chip offers boost clock speeds of up to 5.5GHz, 8 cores and 16 threads, DDR5 support, and an impressive 65W TDP for truly top-notch thermal performance and efficiency. If you have $359 to spare, this is a great processor choice.
Per- Efficient and does not get hot
- Overclocking headroom
- Great all-round performance
Disadvantages- Outperformed by Intel competitors like the i7-14700K
If you're in the market for a new chip, the best Intel CPUs and the best Ryzen processors are always worth considering. Ryzen's latest second-generation AM5 chips, the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, bring some serious power to the table, but which one is right for you?
Below you will find everything you need to know about 9600X and 9700X.
Price, availability and specifications
The Ryzen 9000 series is now available
Both the 9600X and 9700X are currently on sale, but since it's so close to launch, in-stock availability may vary. The 9600X retails for $279, while the 9700X costs $359. These are retail prices, mind you, so if these CPUs are around for a little longer, you can expect sales and discounts that bring their prices down. Both chips manage to undercut their direct Intel competitors like the i5-14600K and i7-14700K, even if they don't do so by a huge margin in retail prices.
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AMD Ryzen 5 9600X AMD Ryzen 7 9700X Socket AM5 AM5 Cores 6 8 Topics 12 16 Base clock frequency 3.9GHz 3.8GHz Increase clock frequency 5.4GHz 5.5GHz PCIe 5.0 5.0 Cache Datasheet Total size: 40 MB RAM support DDR5-6000 DDR5-6000 graphic AMD Radeon graphics (2 cores) AMD Radeon graphics (2 cores) architecture Zen5 Zen5 Proceedings TSMC 4nm, 6nm TSMC 4nm, 6nm TDP 65W 65W
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Thermals and architecture
4nm, Zen 5 and AM5
Both the 9600X and 9700X are Zen 5 chips with a 4nm design and support the AM5 platform. Zen 5 is undoubtedly impressive with features like AVX-512 support, but the 9000 series also offers other improvements over the previous generation chips, such as a 22% average performance per watt increase according to AMD. In short, both the 9600X and 9700X are incredibly efficient chips with equally impressive feature sets.
More specifically, the 9600X offers 6 cores and 12 threads with a boost clock of 5.4GHz, while the 9700X offers 8 cores and 16 threads with a boost clock of 5.5GHz. Both chips hit a TDP of 65W, meaning they consume significantly less power and run significantly cooler than their Intel counterparts like the i5-14600K and i7-14700K. However, aside from the number of cores/threads and minor clock differences, there isn't much that differentiates the 9600X and the 9700X.
If you're looking for a cool, power-efficient chip, the 9600X or 9700X are the right choices.
Performance
Lots of efficiency
As mentioned above, there are many similarities between the 9600X and the 9700X, but the main ones to focus on in terms of performance are the number of cores/threads and the clock speed. The difference in clock speed may be rather negligible, but with 2 extra cores and 4 threads, the 9700X has a significant advantage on paper when it comes to multi-core processing power. But it's not just on paper, as the benchmarks back up the results on paper.
We've tested the 9600X and the 9700X and you can see our raw data, but the bottom line is that the 9700X comes out on top in terms of multi-core performance across a range of benchmarks, including Cinebench, CPU-Z, Geekbench 6, PCMark 10, and Handbrake, to name a few. When it comes to single-core processing power, the 9700X sometimes has a slight edge, but in other cases it can be on par with the 9600X. As such, we wouldn't recommend buying a 9700X for the best single-core performance.
However, if you're looking for a power-efficient, cool chip like the Ryzen 9000 series but want to maximize your multi-core performance, it's worth investing in a 9700X. However, if 2 extra cores and 4 threads aren't that important to you, you'll still get most of the 9700X's multi-core performance out of the 9600X. Plus, competitors like the i7-14700K outperform both the 9600X and 9700X in multi-core performance if you really need the best of the best in that regard.
In short, the 9700X offers better performance, but you'll have to decide for yourself if a handful of extra cores and threads are worth a price jump from $279 to $359.
Ryzen 5 9600X vs. Ryzen 7 9700X: Conclusion
Ultimately, the 9700X is simply the better chip. It has the same efficiency and thermal performance as the 9600X, plus 8 cores and 16 threads, making it our overall winner. However, these specs don't tell the whole story, and you may still want to buy the 9600X, which is also an excellent choice.
winner
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
This Zen 5 AMD chip offers boost clock speeds of up to 5.5GHz, 8 cores and 16 threads, DDR5 support, and an impressive 65W TDP for truly top-notch thermal performance and efficiency. If you have $359 to spare, this is a great processor choice.
The 9600X isn't far inferior to the 9700X and still offers the same efficiency and thermal performance thanks to the 9000 series architecture. Most importantly, the 9600X is well under $300 at just $279, while the 9700X costs $359, which may not be worth it for you.
Second
AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
This Zen 5 chip from AMD features an impressive 5.4GHz boost clock, 6 cores and 12 threads, DDR5 support, and an amazing 65W TDP for excellent overall efficiency and thermal performance. For the price of just $279, it's hard to beat.