AMD Ryzen 5 7600X review – is the 7600X worth it?

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series CPUs are here, here’s what we think of the Ryzen 5 7600X.

Table of Contents Table of Contents

AMD has finally launched its AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPUs. It seems like we’ve been waiting for this for years, and now that they’re here, we have a lot to say. From the brand new architecture to the new IHS design, we analyze everything new with this CPU. Here’s our AMD Ryzen 5 7600X review. 

Now read: Ryzen 9 7900X review.

In the crosshairs today is the Ryzen 5 7600X. This may be the SKU on the low end of the Ryzen 7000 series line-up, but don’t let that fool you. This CPU packs a punch. 

If you want a fantastic CPU for gaming then the Ryzen 5 7600X is definitely one you should consider.

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

Cores

6

Threads

12

Base speed

4.7GHz

Boost speed

5.3GHz

Cache

L3 32MB

Socket

AM5

How We Review

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Pros

• Incredible single-core performance
• Interesting IHS
• Very power efficient
• surpasses other CPUs with more cores

Cons

• Hard to cool, runs very hot

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X specifications 

Before we jump into the performance of the Ryzen 5 7600X, it’s vital to outline what sort of specifications we’re working with. 

The specifications of the Ryzen 5 7600X are as follows. 

As you can see, even for a CPU considered to be in the “low end” of the Zen 4 generation, it still has a pretty impressive list of specifications. Some of which aren’t accurate, more on that later. 

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X what’s new? 

There’s a lot that has changed in AMD’s newest CPU generation. So to kick things off, let’s start with the architecture itself. 

5nm manufacturing process

AMD’s new CPU architecture is named Zen 4 and is built upon TSMC’s 5nm manufacturing process. This is compared to the 7nm process the 5000 series CPUs were built upon. 

But what does this mean?

Essentially, the smaller the manufacturing process, the smaller the transistors inside the CPU core. Transistors are little yes/no gates that comprise the fundamentals of computing as we know it. Lots of transistors put together are capable of complex instruction, so the more you have the better. 

More transistors mean more instruction processing capabilities, this in turn means the CPU core’s IPC is higher. AMD aimed for an IPC increase of 10% over Zen 3 when designing the Zen 4 CPU core, but overshot the mark and achieved a massive 13% IPC increase. 

AM5 CPU socket 

You might be surprised to know that AMD has finally ditched AM4 and has opted to upgrade to the AM5 socket. Socket AM4 as amazing as it was can no longer keep up with the advancement of PC hardware technology so it had to be ditched in favor of a newer, more up-to-date solution. 

Check out our AM5 motherboard piece if you want to know more.

Don’t panic though, AMD still plans on supporting AM4 through BIOS updates. 

AM5 brings with it a new socket type, LGA 1718, named so for its number of pins. AMD has opted to adopt Intel’s socket of choice for two main reasons. 

LGA offers way more pin density than PGA, allowing motherboard manufacturers to pack more features into their motherboards. And the cost of AMD is far less when manufacturing LGA-based CPUs, allowing the CPUs to be less expensive. 

DDR5 exclusive 

AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPUs as of now are all DDR5 memory-based CPUs. As far as we know AMD has no plans to support the older DDR4 memory standard on the new AM5 and Zen 4 platforms. 

AM4 cooler compatibility 

This is a strange one, it’s technically both old and new. AM5 retains AM4 cooler compatibility, meaning that you can use the AM4 portion of your CPU cooler’s mounting hardware to extend your CPU cooler to the AM5 platform. 

This doesn’t mean you should, however. As Zen 4 CPUs report record high CPU temperatures across the board. So we recommend you only retain your CPU cooler if it’s a high-performance model. 

New IHS design 

Lending somewhat into the last new feature, the IHS design looks like something out of a terminator movie. The rugged industrial look of the CPU makes for an interesting study. Just don’t overload it with thermal paste because it’s almost impossible to clean off. 

The reason the IHS is designed this way is so AMD can retain the AM4 cooler compatibility with AM5 CPU sockets. But was this a good choice? We’ll get into that later. 

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X performance 

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X’s performance is far better than even we expected, and we’ve been following the development of Zen 4 for about seven months now. Whilst every CPU in the Ryzen 7000 series is exciting in its own right, we think the 7600X takes the cake. 

We performed both synthetic and real-world benchmarks with the 7600X using a high-end system to not reach a GPU bottleneck in games. 

The test system is comprised of the following. 

For the majority of the performance segment, we will be comparing the 7600X against the last generation’s Ryzen 5 5600X. As this is the predecessor to the Ryzen 5 7600X. 

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X Synthetic benchmarks 

We performed the standard synthetic benchmarks you’d expect to see in any CPU review worth it’s salt. 

We ran the Ryzen 5 7600X relentlessly through CPU Z, Cinebench R23, and Geekbench 5. Reporting on both single and multi-core scores. As we’ve said many times throughout this review, we’ve been incredibly impressed with AMD’s latest budget CPU. And now you’re going to see why. 

Here’s the performance of the 7600X compared to the 5600X. 

Ryzen 5 7600X CPU-Z Benchmarks 

First off, we start with CPU-Z. CPU-Z is one of the most widely used CPU identifier tools in the world, handy since it has an inbuilt benchmark feature with lots of data on other processors. 

The multicore benchmark results are incredibly strong, the Ryzen 5 7600X scores 6,075.6 points in the multi-core benchmarks. This is the highest score achieved in CPU-Z benchmarks by a 12-thread processor. 

By comparison, the Ryzen 5 5600X scores 4,881 in the multi-core benchmark. This is 1,200 points behind the 7600X. 

It’s no surprise that AMD has made such advancements in the area of multi-core performance, as they’ve been leading in this area for a long time, but what about the 7600X’s single-core performance? 

The single-core performance on this CPU is incredible when you consider its price. The Ryzen 5 7600X managed a very respectable 766.4 points in CPU-Z’s single-core benchmarks. 

This is about on par with the core i5-12600KF, it’s not quite the 11% gap over the 12900KS that AMD showcased. But nether the less, it’s still very impressive for the least powerful CPU on offer in the Zen 4 architecture. 

When compared to the Ryzen 5 5600X’s score of 642 points, it’s easy to see how this is the best-performing six-core CPU to date. 

These results equate to an overall performance increase of around  23% for the Ryzen 5 7600X. 

Ryzen 5 7600X Cinebench R23 benchmarks 

Cinebench is a notorious benchmark software, famous for being relentless on CPUs that dare take on the challenge. Cinebench R23 is a fantastic measure of a CPUs ability to render images. 

Onto the single-core benchmark results. 

The Ryzen 5 7600X managed an impressive 1,954 points, almost 2,000 points out of a single CPU core is pretty impressive. The feat becomes even more admirable when you see the Ryzen 5 5600X’s score of 1,527 points, trailing 427 points behind. This improvement is mostly thanks to that 13% IPC improvement we discussed earlier. 

Multi-core performance depicts an even larger performance increase. 

In the Cinebench R23 multi-core benchmarks, the Ryzen 5 7600X scored very impressive and satisfyingly even 15,000 points. When we compare this with the 5600X’s 10,981 points, the performance improvements become clear. 

All in all, these results state an (overall) performance improvement of around 34% for the 7600X in Cinebench R23.  

Bear in mind that both of these CPUs have the same number of cores and threads. The 7600X is getting this performance improvement from the higher clock speeds, the smaller 5nm process, and the subsequent IPC improvements. 

Geekbench 5.4.5 benchmarks 

In Geekbench once again, we compared both the Ryzen 5 7600X and the Ryzen 5 5600X. 

We didn’t note the complete Geekbench results, it’s just the bottom line that’s important for this comparison. However, Geekbench is a pretty extensive benchmark that tests a boatload of CPU functions against your CPU. 

As you can see the 7600X dominates the 5600X, with the 7600X scoring 2,183 points in the single-core benchmarks and 11,120 points in the multi-core tests. This is compared to the 5600X’s 1,653 and 8,583 respective scores. 

This benchmark score is even higher than Intel’s Core i9-12900KS, which only managed to score 1,998 points in the Geekbench single-core benchmarks. 

All these scores make for an overall performance improvement of around 29% for the 7600X in these tests. 

Ryzen 5 7600X real-world gaming benchmarks 

Here, we tested the 7600X in five popular games and pitted it against the 5600X in a true benchmarking fashion. 

The settings of each game were all 1080p LOW settings, apart from CS:GO which we left on high because it doesn’t need any help running well. 

The reason we test in 1080P is to eliminate any potential GPU bottleneck, we’d eventually run into a GPU-shaped wall if we were testing these games at 4k. 

Ryzen 5 7600X benchmark results 

As you can see, the Ryzen 5 7600X does exceptionally well and manages to squeeze more FPS out of the game in every scenario. 

We can see that in Battlefield V the 7600X managed 190 FPS on average, whilst the 5600X only achieved 175 FPS. That’s a performance improvement of 8% for the Ryzen 5 7600X. 

The 7600X also stayed ahead in Cyberpunk 2077, bringing in 170 FPS, and the 5600X only offered 147 FPS on average, that’s a performance improvement of 14% for the 7600X. 

Elden ring tells a similar story, the Ryzen 5 7600X scored 157 FPS whilst the 5600X presented a 143 FPS average. These results show a performance improvement of 9% for the 7600X. 

CS:GO wielded the best results yet, showing the Ryzen 5 7600X pulling a blistering 378 FPS on average, and the 5600X falling behind with an average FPS of 352. That’s a performance improvement of around 7%.

GTA V was a bit of a strange one, as the 7600X brought home 187 FPS, however, the 5600X scored an average FPS of 186 FPS. We either hit a GPU wall in GTA V which we see as very unlikely or the game is no longer CPU bound when we reach CPUs of this magnitude. 

Both CPUs managed to feed the RTX 3080 at 1080p low. This test was repeated several times, yielding the same results over and over again. 

Ryzen 5 7600X Performance Overview 

Each time we benchmarked the 7600X, the games incredibly smoothly. The CPU didn’t so much as stutter in any game we benchmarked on it. 

The 13% IPC improvements have helped propel the 7600X into the future with exceptional gaming performance. 

The advancements AMD and TSMC have made to chip manufacturing technology in recent times have been nothing short of astonishing. We owe all this performance to AMD’s 5nm Zen 4 CPU cores. 

This CPU packs a punch, in both single and multi-core benchmarks, and would be a fitting addition to any AM5 system. AMD started strong with the 7600X. And spoiler alert, it’s only up from here. 

The Ryzen 7600X’s ability to push frames has improved by a decent margin over the 5600X, we’d have liked to have seen a little more frames in games, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this CPU’s multi-core performance rivals that of the Ryzen 7 5800X from the last generation. May I remind you that the 5800X is an eight-core CPU? 

All in all, the 7600X is a very impressive CPU with a serious punch in both single and multi-core scenarios packed under that whacky IHS. 

Ryzen 5 7600X iGPU performance 

The iGPU contained within every Ryzen 7000 series CPU is the exact same across the 

board. The 5600X’s iGPU is an RDNA 2-based Radeon iGPU with two compute units (graphics cores) clocked at 2200 MHz. 

This may seem normal or nothing to get excited about on the surface, but just wait to see how it performed in benchmarks. 

7600X iGPU synthetic benchmark results 

We tested the Ryzen 5 7600X synthetically in 3DMARK’s Timespy, where it performed pretty well to say that the iGPU contained within the 7600X only has two compute units. 

Timespy was benchmarked at 1080P. 

As you can see the Ryzen 5 7600X managed a pretty good performance in Timespy, scoring 737 points. That’s just two points less than the 7900X, but as we mentioned before both of the iGPUs are the same, so we’re chalking the two points up as a discrepancy. 

Ryzen 5 7600X iGPU real-world gaming benchmarks 

The 7600X’s iGPU did very well in the games we ran on it. These results show just what can be achieved with very minimal hardware. We tested the 7600X in GTA V and CS: GO to get a nice feel for how well the CPU does in different scenarios. 

In GAT V then, the Ryzen 5 7600X managed 56 FPS. That’s exactly the same value that the 7900X achieved, as again these are exactly the same iGPU. 

There is a little difference in CS:GO results, however, with the 7600X scoring a little lower than the 7900X. We can’t attribute this to core speeds or differences in the CPU as they’re the same, so again it’s just being chalked up as a discrepancy. 

The Ryzen 5 7600 scored 126 FPS in CS:GO, while the 7900X managed 131 FPS. 

All in all, the performance of the RDNA 2-based iGPU is pretty spectacular given the limited number of two compute units. If AMD decided to pack more commute units into a CPU later down the line, it could be a fantastic gaming APU. 

However, AMD will have to get over the temperature issues first, before they go packing more tech under the 7000 series’ IHS. 

Ryzen 5 7600X temperature issues 

This is a pretty glaring issue, although it didn’t directly affect performance we know for sure a lot of people will not be happy with the current state of things. 

The Ryzen 5 7600X runs hot. Very hot.

There were rumors of a pre-production sample of the Ryzen 5 7600X hitting its maximum temperature of 95°C. Hitting this temperature would result in thermal throttling and a loss in performance. 

Thermal throttling is a defense mechanism of sorts that forced the CPU to reduce its clock speeds and voltages in order to lower its temperature. 

Although we didn’t see this occur in our testing, we did manage to get the Ryzen 5 7600X up to 91°C using AIDA64’s stress test functionality. We achieved this using the ASUS Ryujin ii 360, a beast of a cooler in its own right. 

The Ryujin ii CPU cooler (per our testing) is the second-best CPU cooler we have ever tested, second only to the Lian Li Gallahad. And it was a very close test. 

So to achieve 91°C on a CPU cooler with such a massive cooling potential is astounding. We never saw the 7600X higher than 55°C whilst gaming. But in rendering and Synthetic scenarios, that temperature quickly increased into the high 80s. 

These temperatures seem okay to first glance, but this is with an incredibly capable cooler, that can absolutely handle the highest-end CPUs on the market currently. A cooler with a lesser cooling capacity than the Ryujin ii may see the 7600X reaching those throttle temperatures. 

This is probably why all of the AMD Zen 4 CPUs do not come boxed with a stock CPU cooler. AMD probably hasn’t created a cooler capable of cooling them properly. 

To be honest, we don’t think it’s possible to adequately cool some of the Zen 4 CPUs effectively with just air coolers. 

A cautionary tale about AM4 coolers 

AMD has worked very hard to integrate AM4 cooler capacity into its new AM5 motherboards, but you have to be smart about it. 

Out of curiosity, we decided to fit a Be Quiet Dark Rock 4 to the 7900X. The Dark Rock has a rated TDP of 200, which is more than the 7900X’s rated TDP of 170W. Of course, we know that the 7900X is capable of 230W at boost speeds. 

Needless to say, the CPU overheated in under eight seconds into an Aida64 test. Just because the cooler fits and the manufacturer boasts AM5 compatibility, doesn’t mean it will be of any use to you. 

Take more than you need, if you think your cooling is good enough, it probably isn’t. 

Ryzen 5 7600X price 

Normally, this goes at the top of the review, but we wanted to save it until near the end because it’s truly astonishing that the Ryzen 5 7600X is so inexpensive. 

The launch price of the Ryzen 5 7600X is $299 USD (UK price is unconfirmed but the price translates to £264 GBP) 

This is the same price as the 5600X at launch, it’s a running theme this time around to keep prices consistent with previous generations’ releases. All bar one of AMD’s Zen 4 CPUs are priced the same as their Zen 3 predecessor. 

If you’re already sold on this GPU, here’s our Ryzen 5 7600X where to buy page.

It’s incredible to see such a budget CPU perform so well, we know that AM5 motherboards and DDR5 memory aren’t exactly cheap. But hopefully, the price-to-performance efficiency of the 7600X helps ease the pain of forking out for all this new equipment. 

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X pros and cons

Here we will discuss some pros and cons of the new Ryzen 5 7600X. 

Pros

• Incredible single-core performance
• Interesting IHS
• Very power efficient
• surpasses other CPUs with more cores

Cons

• Hard to cool, runs very hot

 This Ryzen 5 7600X is an incredibly inexpensive and high-performance CPU, the performance increases over its predecessor is certainly something to celebrate. And the fact the 7600X brings those increases for the same launch price as the 5600X is astonishing. 

The Ryzen 5 7600X’s baseline Multi-core performance is the same as a Ryzen 7 5800X, this CPU is armed with more cores and threads. But still manages to fall short of the “lowest-end” Zen 4 CPU in the lineup.

A CPU with a performance metric this high must get hot, and hot it is. The Ryzen 5 7600X is a little on the toasty side reaching up to 91°C in our testing. Even with one of the best CPU coolers money can buy the temperatures are somewhat of an issue.  

It’s undoubtedly for this reason that AMD has chosen not to include a stock cooler in the box of AMD Ryzen 7000 series CPUs. 

Final word 

So what do we think of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X? Truth be told we love it. We received both the 7600X and the 7900X from AMD to review and we have to say that the 7600X takes the cake for us. 

The single core performance is almost identical to the 7900X, with the obvious difference in performance coming from the 7900X’s increased clock frequencies. If you’re purely a gamer, you can’t go wrong with the 7600X. 

Team Red is coming out swinging with this release, especially in relation to the 7600X. To get this amount of power and performance out of something that costs $299 is nothing short of incredible. 

We understand that the value of this CPU is somewhat overshadowed by the parts you have to buy to make use of it, but if you’re not happy with the prices right now, you can always wait. There are lower-end B-motherboards releasing later in the year that will prove to be much less expensive than the X-series motherboards. 

Nether the less, we think that the 7600X is worth every penny you pay for it. 

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

Cores

6

Threads

12

Base speed

4.7GHz

Boost speed

5.3GHz

Cache

L3 32MB

Socket

AM5

How We Review

4.5/5

Editor’s Rating

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is one of the best value CPUs we’ve ever seen. The single core performance of the 7600X rivals that of the 7900X which is great for gaming workloads.

Obviously the Multi-core performance is nowhere near as strong, but it can beat lesser generation eight-core processors, which is no small feat.

This is possibly the best budget CPU we have ever seen, great for efficiency and cost effective enough to allow you to save some money to spend elsewhere on your system.

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Is the Ryzen 5 7600X good for gaming?

Yes, the single-core performance of the Ryzen 5 7600X makes it an ideal choice of you’re going to be primarily gaming on your PC.

How much will the Ryzen 5 7600X cost?

The Ryzen 5 7600X is the most inexpensive CPU in the 7000 series line-up, costing just $299 at launch.