AMD Ryzen 7 7700X VS Ryzen 7 9700X: What’s the Difference?

AMD recently unveiled their new Ryzen 9000 series processors, packing a 16% IPC (Instructions per clock) uplift and even better power efficiency - no need for PSU upgrades this time around! In this entry of our comparison series, we’ll be taking a look at what will most likely be the bestseller of the lineup - the 9700X, and seeing where it stacks up vs the current 7700X.

With the IPC uplifts, AMD seems to have chosen to clock the 9700X more reservedly than its predecessor, which likely also helps to account for the TDP decrease down to 65W.

AMD also announced this year that the AM5 socket will continue to receive support until 2027. Similar to the AM4 platform, this should mean that your AM5 motherboard will be capable of running new Ryzen chips for many more years to come. That being said, the new 800-series chipsets bring welcome upgrades, like USB4 (on X870 and X870E boards) and PCIe Gen 5 SSD requirements.

• Ryzen 7 7700X price: $294/£289
• Ryzen 7 9700X price: $359/£340

With the new 9700X priced at £359, it presents a mild price increase over the current price of the older 7700X. However mild the price increase is, some might find it hard to swallow given the similarity when it comes to performance. Speaking of which:

While the Zen 5 chips run base clock speeds that are significantly lower across the board compared to their predecessors, AMD claims their performance will continue to be superior to the 7000-series chips, seeing performance uplifts of as much as 45% in some workloads. This is largely due to the IPC improvements in this generation - IPC, or instructions per clock, is a metric many may not pay as much attention to. Still, it’s equally important as the other specs when comparing processors.

Ryzen 9000 also boasts significant efficiency improvements, with both the 9700X and 9600X reducing their base TDP to 65W, down from 105W previously. Most impressively, the 9900X has a base TDP of just 120W, 50W lower than the 7900X. Upgraders rejoice; your existing power supply and CPU cooler will be plenty capable of running Ryzen 9000 at full power.

We expect the Ryzen 9000 to be a performance uplift across the board, but at the same time, we expect previous-gen Ryzen 7000 chips to drop in price once their successors hit the shelves. The final purchase decision is primarily constrained by budget - be on the lookout for inventory-dumping sales on Ryzen 7000 chips in the coming months. As mentioned before, you’ll be able to drop in new CPUs to AM5 sockets until at least 2027 - a big benefit of buying AMD motherboards.

If you plan on picking up a new Ryzen chip, be sure to also check out our lineup of cooling products to keep it running cool.