Ryzen 7600X and 7950X review: Zen 4 starts expensive but impressive

Here are the latest AMD Ryzen processors along with the Zen 4 CPU architecture they are based on. And if you don’t want to wade through a bunch of words, tables, and graphs, the short version: they’re pretty good! Even if we skip the days when AMD prioritized mid-range systems as much as high-end ones, and even if Intel’s offerings are more compelling now than they were in 2020 when Zen 3 competed against Intel’s fifth consecutive iteration of the Skylake architecture, there’s something here. value.

For those of you willing to read on, this article will focus on two Ryzen 7000 processors. AMD sent us a six-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 7600X for $299 and a 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 7950X for $699. These are (respectively) the youngest and youngest members of the Ryzen 7000 family that exists today. (The company also provided a motherboard and DDR5 RAM, as well as travel and lodging for the Ryzen 7000 presentation and tech sessions we attended in August.)

We’ll compare both chips to each other, as well as to various members of the Intel Core Ryzen 5000 and 12th Gen processor families, to see how Ryzen 7000 and Zen 4 are better than their immediate predecessors and competitors. If you’re more interested in a general overview of the Zen 4 architecture, socket AM5, and 600-series chipsets that AMD is also releasing today, as well as other Ryzen trivia, this information is available in a separate section for your reference and convenience.