AMD has quite a large catalog of Ryzen 7000 processors, and over the past few months we have been lucky enough to test almost all the versions that have hit the market. Now, with the latest price drops that have been taking place and with the almost permanent offers on some models, is a good time to take the leap to this new generation. and build a powerful PC for a price that, until relatively recently, would have seemed impossible.
However, I understand that the choice for some may be complicated, and it is normal, because within the catalog of Ryzen 7000 processors. we can find models with quite close prices and disparate core configurations.. There have also been some strange price movements that have made seemingly inferior models cost a bit more than theoretically superior ones.
I am aware of the doubts and confusion this has generated in some of you, and also of the questions you are asking yourselves when deciding if it is really worth upgrading from a particular processor to these new Ryzen 7000. Because of all this, I have decided that it is a good time to make a guide focused on helping you choose the Ryzen 7000. that best fits your specific needs, always keeping your budget in mind.
When is it worth it to jump to a Ryzen 7000?
The first thing we must be clear about is whether it is really worth upgrading our PC to a Ryzen 7000, or failing that to mount a new computer with these processors. It is a simpler question than it seems, as long as we have clear where the minimum levels are that we must assess in order to make this decision and not make a mistake.
In general terms, if you have a PC based on a Ryzen 3000, a Core Gen10 or below.If you are looking to upgrade to a Ryzen 7000, it would be worth making the jump to a Ryzen 7000 because the performance difference between those two generations and the new from AMD is quite large. By this I do not mean that you will not notice an improvement when moving from a Ryzen 5000 and a Core Gen11 to a Ryzen 7000, but this will be much smaller, and in the end the investment you have made will not be so worth it.
All in all, this rule of thumb. has nuances and exceptionsi.e. it is not universal. If you have, for example, a Core i5-11400F and upgrade to a Ryzen 7 7800X3D you will notice a huge performance improvement in games, and in that case the upgrade would be worth it if your main goal is to play, and provided that you accompany that processor with a very powerful graphics card, and when I say very powerful I am referring to those that suffer small bottlenecks even in 1440p and 2160p, such as the GeForce RTX 4080 and above, and the Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
Another exception to that rule would be when we are going to upgrade to a higher processor to do more demanding tasks. Let’s go with another example, imagine that you have a Ryzen 5 5600 processor and you use your PC for. video editing, animation and other tasks that take advantage of a multi-core CPU. high performance. In this case, jumping to a Ryzen 9 7900X would be a significant investment, but you would have a very large performance improvement, and yes it would be cost effective.
That rule of thumb I have given you. applies mostly to the more traditional usage scenarios, but it finds exceptions in specific specialized use cases, and also in the acquisition of processors such as the Ryzen 7000X3D which, as you know, are the most powerful processors available today for gaming.
A look at the enhancements of the Ryzen 7000 processors.
This new generation of AMD processors is based on Zen 4, an architecture that. Has improved IPC by 13% versus the Ryzen 5000. That is the difference in power core to core and MHz to MHz, i.e. with the same number of cores and threads and running at the same frequency. However, the performance difference between the two is greater because AMD has also raised the operating frequencies considerably.
The performance difference between both generations will be more noticeable in those applications that rely more on single-threaded performance, such as games for example. In this sense I can give you a very illustrative example, and is that the jump in single-threading that AMD has achieved with Zen 4 is so great that a Ryzen 5 7600 offers practically the same gaming performance as a Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
This gives us an idea of how big a difference there is between one generation and the other. We should also keep in mind that the Ryzen 7000 support DDR5 memorymemory, and which also allow us to access the PCIe Gen5 standardIf we mount them on a motherboard compatible with the PCIe Gen5 standard. In the end, mounting one of these processors will not only give us higher performance, but will also give us access to a next-generation platform.
Not everything is perfect, as I already told you in my reviews the Ryzen 7000. has higher power consumption and temperatures than previous generations, and this makes them not really viable without a fairly powerful cooling system. However, AMD itself said that this is totally normal, and that they are designed to work smoothly at a stable 95 degrees C. We would only have to worry if we approach 100 degrees C.
Regarding consumption, a Ryzen 9 7950X can register. peaks of 225 wattsbut this only occurs when it is under a workload that pushes it to 100%. The Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 5 7600X are running at maximum values of 138 watts and 106 watts.respectively, which are much more moderate and better suited to the average user.
Finally, it should also be noted that the Ryzen 7000 comes with integrated GPU, which is not the case with the Ryzen 5000 unless we go for the “G” series, which are APUs with smaller L3 cache, and also support AVX512 instructionsinstructions, which were not present in the previous generation of AMD CPUs either.
Budget and equipment usage, two fundamental keys
Once we get past that prior assessment of whether or not it is really worth upgrading to this generation of processors we have to ask ourselves two questions, how much money we can (or want to) spend and what use we are going to give to the PC.. If we have a small budget but we want to build a computer to play all current titles without any problem we will need a specific processor, and if our goal is to build a computer for video editing or other demanding tasks we will have to choose a different model.
It is also important to keep in mind that if our main objective is to play games. we should always allocate more budget to the graphics card than to the processor.because in the end it is the former that will define to a large extent the experience we are going to enjoy with our new PC. So, for example, if we can invest 600 euros to be divided between both components, the ideal would be to allocate 200 euros, or a little more, to the CPU and invest the rest in a powerful graphics card.
In case we have a larger budget, we will be able to distribute in a more balanced way between CPU and GPU. the available money, but always keeping the priority to the graphics card. If we are going to build a PC for video editing and professional tasks that have a greater dependence on the CPU the distribution should be more equitable, and if our goal is to build a computer for basic use, occasional and undemanding gaming that has a good level of performance in general will suffice with the traditional CPU and integrated GPU combo will suffice.
The new Ryzen 7000s come with. an integrated GPU which fulfills its basic functions very well, and is capable of running many games in 720p and low quality, and can even handle relatively old titles in higher configurations. By dispensing with the graphics card we can save a lot of money, and we won’t need a very powerful processor or a very expensive motherboard.
Which Ryzen 7000 processor to choose
PC for office, browsing and occasional gaming.
The truth is that, for a team of this type, mount a Ryzen 7000. would not be idealsince we will not need so much CPU performance and we will be able to get more economical and very competent assemblies with other models within the Ryzen 5000G series, which also include integrated GPUs. However, if we want to mount a Ryzen 7000 to have a new generation platform and be able to easily expand the equipment in the future, it would be best to opt directly for a Ryzen 5 7600.
The Ryzen 5 7600 is the most economical model of this generation of AMD processors, but it is so powerful that it will offer us. excellent performance in any day-to-day taskand we will also have a perfect base for future upgrades, since this processor can move very powerful graphics cards without problems, not in vain is able to perform almost at the same level as a Ryzen 7 5800X3D in games, as I have already said above.
It would not be worth investing more money, in fact the Ryzen 5 7600. would already be “excessively powerful” for this type of equipment, but I wanted to give you the option to expand in the short or medium term. In the long term it would not make any sense, because there will already be more powerful and new generation models, and you will not have made this investment profitable.
We can buy it for 251,99 euros with free Starfield. The fan that comes standard is very tight, so be clear that the ideal is to change it.
Recommended companions
- A620 motherboard.
- 16 GB of DDR5.
- SSD.
- Higher power fan than the reference fan.
Gaming PC: medium to high budget
First of all a clarification, and is that I have not included the low budget because it does not fit with the idea of mounting a Ryzen 7000. If we have a low budget for CPU and GPU, such as about 300 euros, the ideal would be to go directly to a Ryzen 5 5600The Ryzen 5 5600 will cost almost 100 euros less than the Ryzen 5 7600, and the overall assembly will be more affordable.
For a mid-range budget the best option will undoubtedly be a. Ryzen 5 7600X. With this processor we will have 6 cores and 12 threads, a high IPC and a high working frequency, which equals an optimal configuration to run any present and future game. I know that some will be thinking of buying a Ryzen 7 7700X, but the difference in gaming performance will be minimal between the two, and it is more worth investing the money we save in mounting a superior graphics card.
I give you an example, mounting a Ryzen 5 7600X would cost us. 263 eurosa Ryzen 7 7700X costs around 340 euros. The price difference between the two is €77, with that money we could, for example, go from a Radeon RX 6600, which costs €209.99, to a Radeon RX 7600, which can be bought from €289.99. If we put in a little more money we could go for a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which can be bought for €349, or a Radeon RX 6700 XT, which can be bought for €349.90. The jump in gaming performance in both cases would be huge.
Recommended companions
- A620 motherboard.
- 16 GB of DDR5 at 6 GHz.
- Minimum PCIe Gen3 x4 SSD.
- 240 mm liquid cooling kit.
If we have a high budget and we want to enjoy the highest possible gaming performance we should not look at the Ryzen 9 7900X or the Ryzen 9 7950X, our choice should be the Ryzen 9 7950X. Ryzen 7 7800X3Dan 8-core, 16-threaded processor specialized in gaming thanks to its 96 MB of L3 cache. This huge amount of cache improves gaming performance tremendously, so much so that it is capable of outperforming the Intel Core i9-13900K with no problems while maintaining lower power consumption and lower temperatures.
The only drawback we can put on the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is that its price is high, but it makes up for it by offering excellent gaming performance.and compared to other solutions, its power per watt consumed in such applications is simply fantastic. Obviously, for this processor to make sense we must pair it with a very powerful graphics card, such as a GeForce RTX 4080 or higher, or a Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
Recommended companions
- B650 motherboard.
- 32 GB of DDR5 at 6 GHz with CL30 latencies.
- PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD with DRAM as cache.
- 280 mm or 360 mm liquid cooling kit.
PC for professional editing and applications.
This level is where processors with more than 8 cores and 16 threads start to make sense, although we must keep in mind that. in the end everything will depend on our level of demand and the specific applications we are going to use.. For example, in Adobe Photoshop the real difference in performance between a Ryzen 7 7700X and a Ryzen 9 7900X is minimal, and with a simple Ryzen 5 7600X we would already have a good level of performance.
If we use Lightroom Classic things change, although the difference is still not too big. With a Ryzen 9 7950X we would have an average performance improvement of 15.65%. The difference between the two would be bigger in After Effects, with 23% in favor of the Ryzen 9 7950X and in DaVinci Resolve it would be 22.15%. The differences are smallbut there are other tests where the Ryzen 9 7950X makes a huge difference.
In V-ray in CPU mode the Ryzen 9 7950X performs 246% better than the Ryzen 5 7600X, i.e. it outperforms it by more than double. There is also a huge difference between the two in other applications such as Blender and Cinebench R23, and in Unreal Engine the former also outperforms the Ryzen 5 7600X by more than double. To give you all this relative performance data I have taken into account my own tests, and also those of recognized media such as PugetSystems.
If your goal is to assemble a PC for editing the truth is that from a Ryzen 7 7700X you will already get good results, although obviously a higher model will offer some performance improvement in certain scenarios. For computers focused on content creation, we should opt, in most cases, for a Ryzen 9 7900X or a Ryzen 9 7950Xdepending on our budget and our aspirations.
Ryzen 7000XD processors are not an option to consider in this category because the L3 cache does not make a substantial difference at the performance level, and because these processors run at lower frequencies than the standard models, which causes them to underperform slightly in most cases. As if all this were not enough, it should also be noted that they are more expensive than their counterparts without 3D cache.
Recommended companions.
- X670 motherboard.
- 32 GB or 64 GB of DDR5 at 6 GHz with CL30 latencies.
- PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD with DRAM as cache.
- 360 mm liquid cooling kit.
Note: This selection contains some links from our affiliates, but none of the products included have been proposed or recommended by them or their manufacturers, but chosen at our own discretion.
