If the rumor mill is correct, AMD might boost its Ryzen 7 9700X, which will be a mid-range workhorse for the next-generation Zen 5 series.
Here’s a quick bit of background to understand, which is that AMD recently admitted that Ryzen 9000 models won’t be the fastest gaming chips, because while they’ll outperform Intel, they’ll still lag behind the current generation. 7000X3D – at least for gaming. And specifically the 9700X was mentioned by the AMD executive who gave the interview, in terms of the Ryzen 7800X3D being faster than the 9700X.
This is evident from information from sources Wccftech has spoken (sprinkle those spices on it, and don’t be stingy either) AMD has released an update to partners – presumably based, at least in part, on some of the disappointed responses to the above statement – detailing the effect the 9700X could have on power consumption increased significantly.
We’re apparently talking about a TDP of 120W, instead of 65W (as announced earlier this month), which is almost double. And of course, power consumption is directly related to performance (clock speeds), so this would mean a significantly faster 9700X than we expected – and no doubt a chip that leaves the aforementioned current-gen 7800X3D in its rearview mirror.
Analysis: Team Red’s late-game gamble?
Such a drastic change seems unlikely at this stage of the game, with AMD Ryzen 9000 processors set to hit the market next month. The rumor mill thinks they will be released at the end of July.
With just a month to go, a near doubling of TDP seems like quite a risk to take. Remember that much higher power consumption will affect not only performance, but also the thermal properties of the processor and other design considerations that – one would very much hope – have been carefully balanced and tuned during the Zen 5 desktop silicon’s lengthy development process. .
A sudden statement, despite a negative response, that boils down to, “Oh wait, let’s just double the TDP,” makes AMD look a little desperate, let’s be honest, or even clueless.
Still, we can entertain the possibility that AMD is considering boosting the TDP of this mid-range CPU to some extent. After all, the 9700X has been tamed considerably by AMD and has dropped to that 65W TDP compared to the 105W of its predecessor, the 7700X – and to achieve that the base clock has been reduced by a fairly large 700MHz (from 4.5GHz on its predecessor to 3.8GHz).
So if Team Red adjusts so that the image is more similar to the 7700X in terms of power and clock speed seems more reasonable, to limit any PR damage caused by the earlier admission regarding the 9700X’s gaming chops.
We don’t have long to find out. It will be interesting to see if AMD will indeed increase TDP with a key mid-range component.