AMD Ryzen 7 7700X Desktop Processor

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There was a time not that long ago when AMD was known to be a secondary alternative within the computing world. The brand diligently powered workstations and supplied technologies for other companies and production studios, but their reach in the consumer space was minor against their fiercest rival, Intel. That was until their Ryzen processors hit the market.

Unleashing the ‘Zen’ architecture back in 2017 was like catching lightning in a bottle, so much in fact it practically wiped away Intel’s dominance and ‘tick-tock’ production model overnight – leading many, myself included, to make the switch after experiencing the original Ryzen lineup. AMD had undoubtedly created excellent value for money and performance that lived up to expectations, even against Intel’s lauded Skylake-X HEDT processor equivalents (i7-7800X/i9-7900X/i9-7940X/i9-7960X/i9-7980XE).

But after five years of generational improvements and moderate price increases similar to what Intel charges, AMD has made their biggest leap forward yet with their Ryzen 7 7700X Desktop Processor.

The CPU: Generation “Raphael”

The long-awaited Zen 4 microarchitecture has some noticeable evolutions to the platform. Enhancements include DDR5 memory utilization, RDNA2 integrated graphics processor with TSMC 6nm at a 2.2GHz throughput, and PCIe5.0 (24+4) lane support for faster and broader connectivity for discrete GPUs and 2×4 compatible lanes M.2 storage drives. Other improvements include double the L2 cache at 1MB per core versus 512KB, AVX-512 instruction set extension for double-pumped 256-bit memory operations, and maximum boosted rate of 5.7GHz. The Ryzen 7700X in particular utilizes 8 cores (16 thread) capability, and a base 4.5GHz clock speed with boosted 5.4GHz.

Another major change is the move to the AM5 socket, which is now a land grid array (LGA1718) where the contact pins are now fixed to the motherboard itself—a connecting method that Intel adopted over a decade ago and their owners are well familiar with at this point. This is a departure because this makes 7000-series Ryzen CPUs and accompanying motherboards physically incompatible with older AMD Zen components, so forget about transplanting existing AM4 motherboards and DDR4 modules into your machine. When you upgrade, it’s pretty much a all-or-nothing commitment here.

The Road to AM5

The latest Ryzen CPUs don’t include a fan but AMD assures us that existing AM4 CPU coolers will work here, only they forgot to mention that fitment carryover greatly varies on whether AIO manufacturers prepared AM5 mounting adapters on launch. As of this writing, all the obtainable coolers we currently have from Thermaltake, Cooler Master, and Deep Cool could not be affixed on the socket mounts by default.

The only tangible solution was to rely on premium options like the air-cooled NH-D15 chromax.black from Noctua, where they had the forethought to provide all the right tools out of the box. Otherwise, you can try to improvise with their NM-AM5/AM4-MP78 mounting kit on your existing setup. It’s a probable workaround considering these Ryzen chips run powerful at 105W TDP and have hotter than expected temperatures wat an average 68-79°C range and reaching its peak of 95°C under considerable load. That maximum reading puts the 7700X right at its default operating limit before throttling occurs, so manual overclocking will be a cautionary liability and guaranteed warranty void for inexperienced users diving into I/O modification.

Test Build

With those details out of the way, I tested the Ryzen 7 7700X on a ASRock X670E Pro RS ATX motherboard with a 32GB (2x16GB) G.Skill Flare X5 DDR5-5600 dual memory kit. For cooling and efficiency choices I opted for the Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler mentioned earlier and a Cooler Master XG850 Plus Platinum power supply. On the graphic and storage side, a GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming OC (REV2.0) GPU and a 1TB Samsung 980 Pro MVMe (PCIe 4×4) SSD were also used during testing.

To be fair, other outlets were provided complete and optimized components by AMD for the best favorable review outcome, which is understandable. However, our setup was independently assembled and purchased with money from our own pockets. This effectively makes it a more indicative example of what buyers can expect to build with a realistic budget in mind.

Benchmarking

Let’s start with some benchmarks. If you’re coming from a CPU that’s at least a few generations old or don’t care about graphs and figures, then it’s obvious that the Ryzen 7700X will be a incredible advancement over previous performance-tier Zen2 and Zen3 iterations. When matched against current Intel offerings from 10th-Gen onward, the Ryzen 7000 family is on nearly equal ground for the majority of near-extreme multicore-dependent tasks.

It’s worth noting that despite the new architecture, the 7700X doesn’t break from hierarchy within the lineup. This isn’t so much of a revelation when compared to its Ryzen 9 7950X counterpart which has double the cores, or even the prior 5950X. The real surprise is how comparable the results are to the Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, where the real strength of the 7700X lies in its single-thread capabilities.

Workloads involving content creation and gaming shows that each of these processors are either close to or have nearly identical performance in their class. The difference in figures are negligible or at least running a few FPS away from each other (in single digits) when equipped with a RTX 3070 GPU. If you’re on a tighter budget and primarily want to create a PC strictly for gaming, some previous-generation CPUs (Ryzen 7 5700X or Intel i9-10900K/i7-11700K) are still viable alternatives.

There’s also an onboard RDNA2 IGP for display adapter output but that’s not something meant for gaming, so I can’t recommend using it outside of troubleshooting external graphic component issues or basic computing for office tasks. But it’s there if you absolutely need it.

Conclusion: A Brave New World for Zen

The original Ryzen release was hailed as groundbreaking for AMD in terms of relevancy, and the Ryzen 7 7700X Desktop Processor is another example of high-performing excellence. However, the underdog status the Zen microarchitecture once enjoyed isn’t as prevalent as before. The 7700X finds itself among rather healthy competition in price and benchmarking, from Intel’s low-power E-cores to the undeniable value of prior Ryzen models. You’ll also need to invest in new hardware and a mandatory Windows 11 OS upgrade, so there’s the unavoidable expense factor to take in as well.

Fortunately, the 7700X offers remarkable power bump that will satisfy most users. But with the 13th Gen Core processors from Intel right around the corner, there might be a reason to wait if tentative pricing is no object. We’ll have to wait and find out if the upcoming “Raptor Lake” family is worth the proverbial hype.