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AMD’s Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series processors were introduced with a positive reception when they launched back in September 2022. Performance was strong, frequency was impressive, and the overall platform features were very user friendly. With that said, it wasn’t all plain sailing. The 170W TDP Ryzen chips guzzled power and they ran at lofty temperatures – often hitting 95C. And the story wasn’t too dissimilar for the 105W TDP Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5, either.
With those points in mind – as well as the proven excellent performance even at lower power levels – AMD has made the decision to release 65W TDP non-X chips in the form of Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700, and Ryzen 5 7600.
Other than the reduced TDP and therefore operating frequencies, these non-X chips are practically the same as their X-rated siblings.
It’s the same TSMC 5nm process, the same 32MB of L3 cache per core chiplet, and the same IO Die with PCIe Gen 5, DDR5, and RDNA 2 iGPU support.
AMD does, however, include a Wraith Prism cooler with the Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 and the Wraith Stealth for the Ryzen 5.
MSRP is $429 USD for the Ryzen 9 7900, $329 USD for the Ryzen 7 7700, and $229 USD for the Ryzen 5 7600. Those price seem pretty reasonable given the current retail market competition.
Pricing in the UK, however, is different. The Ryzen 9 7900 is £439.99, the Ryzen 7 7700 is £339.99, and the Ryzen 5 7600 is £239.99. Even by the usual dollar-to-pound standards, that is a very poor conversion for us Brits.
I guess the weak pound and strong dollar really does not help.
Will those price points and the inclusion of a Wraith CPU cooler make the non-X chips a tempting proposition? Let’s look at the performance and find out.
