AMD’s brand-new Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPUs are pretty, expensive & powerful

Today, AMD has revealed its brand-new Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 CPUs, which look extremely promising, though their pricing still remains relatively expensive, compared to the competition.

AMD’s hotly-anticipated Zen 4 CPUs have finally been officially revealed, and come with them a brand-new socket, and platform. The CPUs will be officially launched on September 27, and start at $299.

This marks the first-ever platform change for AMD’s Ryzen lineup, which previously has only used the AM4 socket up until now. AM5 is an LGA-based socket, meaning that there are no pins to bend, and more closely resembles something from Intel, rather than AMD in recent years. Though, we have seen leaks of BIOS issues for the chips.

However, their unique cutouts make them look extremely pretty, and with a larger surface area to cool, you should hope that you’ll also be able to sool these behemoth CPUs, which require quite a bit of power to run.

AMD boasts that the in-game performance of the lowest-end Ryzen 7000-series CPU, the Ryzen 7600X, will manage to beat Intel’s flagship i9-12900k by up to 17% in certain benchmarks, with 5% faster performance on average, in comparison to the rival high-end chip at 1080p resolutions. However, we’ll need to see further proof of these claims once we actually manage to get our hands on one.

AMD Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPU lineup

AMD

	Ryzen 5 7600X	Ryzen 7 7700X	Ryzen 9 7900X	Ryzen 9 7950X
Cores & Threads	6C / 8T	8C / 16T	12C / 24T	16C / 32T
Base clock	4.7GHz	4.5GHz	4.7GHz	4.5GHz
Boost clock	5.3GHz	5.4GHz	5.6GHz	5.7GHz
Cache	38MB	40MB	76MB	80MB
TDP	105W	105W	170W	170W
Price	$299	$399	$549	$699
Release date	September 27	September 27	September 27	September 27

As we’ve previously talked about in our Ryzen 7000 roundup, the Zen 4 CPUs are looking to be incredibly powerful. AMD states that there’s been a 13% IPC uplift in comparison to Zen 3 5000-series processors, with a maximum boost frequency of a blistering 5.7GHz, though they might boost further than that, with some manual tuning, according to leaks.

For those sitting on earlier generations of Ryzen CPUs, particularly the extremely popular 3000 series, you might be compelled to upgrade, considering the huge jump in performance, especially when compared to

Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPU gaming performance

In terms of generational performance uplift, AMD’s Ryzen 7950X flagship gaming CPU managed to significantly improve performance in certain titles when compared to the 5950X. You can expect increases in performance on titles like Rise of the Tomb Raider by up to 35%. In DOTA2, you can expect a 32% performance uplift, and in CS:GO, you can get up to 13% better performance.

As we previously stated, the baseline Ryzen 7600X manages to outperform the i9-12900k in certain gaming benchmarks at 1080p. However, considering the conditions of the results, we’d be hesitant to call a 7600X faster than the 12900k until we’ve actually had our hands on it.

Until then, it looks like the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPUs will be extremely powerful, and will likely give your system a significant boon. But, AMD’s own slides should always be taken with a pinch of salt, until their claims can be verified by independent testing.

Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPU creator performance

AMD boasts huge gains in creator-based benchmarks, with the 7950X managing to be up to 48% faster than the 5950X in the Chaos V-Ray render benchmark, with a 45% uplift in POV Ray benches, a 37% uplift in the Arnold Renderer, and 32% in the Corona renderer.

For those looking for a CPU that manages workstation-style workloads, but an accessible consumer pricepoint, the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPUs just might be for you.

Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 CPU pricing

AMD

Starting at $299, AMD’s Zen 4 CPU pricing does not look too bad on the surface. However, if you delve a little bit deeper for context, then you should take some pause before running out to pre-order. In the Ryzen 3000 years, just two years ago. Ryzen CPUs offered a viable, cost-effective alternative to Intel’s “default” lineup of gaming chips.

However, once they ate at Intel’s marketshare, and while Intel couldn’t really meaningfully compete against the innovation that Ryzen was bringing to the table, AMD decided to raise their baseline MSRP pricing when the Ryzen 5000 series arrived on the scene. The baseline pricing of the Ryzen 5 3600X was $249, which was then raised to $299, when the Ryzen 5000-series landed, and that seems to be where the lineup is sticking for now.

However, most notably is the Ryzen 7 7700X, whose pricing lands at $399, which is $100 more expensive than its predecessor. However, it lands at a strange impasse, the 5700X launched mid-way through the cycle, whereas the 7700X is launching along with the rest of the platform. Therefore, it might be more sensible to compare it against the 5800X, which launched at $449. It appears that AMD is keenly positioning itself for raising a potential 7800X to be placed at the $500 point.

We can’t help but think that the mainstream market is slightly missed out here, with the best option for most still remaining to be the Intel i5-12400F, which comes in at a lowly $180. We will just have to wait and see if AMD releases a SKU that is able to compete in that segment with Intel, especially if Intel has a lower-priced alternative in its Raptor Lake CPU lineup.