Gaming benchmarks: Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X vs. 5950X and 12900KS

How fast is Zen 4 in games? This is clarified by the test with Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X, which compete against Core i9-12900KS, Ryzen 9 5950X and Ryzen 5800X3D, among others. It turns out that Zen 4 is noticeably better than Zen 3 – but it's getting close to the top spots.

Table of contents

< li>1 Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X vs. 5950X and 12900KS
1. AMD takes on Alder Lake and itself with Zen 4
2. Two tests, this one focusing on gaming benchmarks
3. Game selection, test system and drivers
1. 2 benchmarks with RTX 3090 Ti, clock rates and power consumption
   1. Benchmarks in games in 720p
   2. The power consumption in games
   3. The clock speeds in games
2. 3 DDR5-OC, IPC comparison and conclusion
   1. Faster DDR5 memory only brings a small gaming boost
   2. The better IPC is just as effective in games as in applications
   3. Conclusion
   4. Two tests, this one with a gaming benchmark focus

AMD takes on Alder Lake and itself with Zen 4

AMD's new Zen 4 processors not only have to prove themselves in applications, because there are also major challenges in games – and they come from the same company. In this test, which is purely focused on gaming performance, the Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X not only compete against the older models such as the Ryzen 9 5950X based on Zen 3 and Intel's Alder Lake offshoot Core i9-12900K(S) ( Test) down to Core i5-12600K (test) and Core i5-12500.

After all, AMD is also competing with itself – with the previous generation. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D (test) with the new 3D V-Cache has proven to be surprisingly strong in games and since the Ryzen 7000 series will not have a 3D V-Cache offshoot for the time being, this will not be an easy task for the new processors. This test clarifies how fast Zen 4 is in games, how high the CPUs clock and what the power consumption is.

Two tests, this one with a focus on gaming benchmarks

As with the tests on Intel's Alder Lake CPUs and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D test, ComputerBase has also divided the Zen 4 premiere into two different articles. While this test only deals with the performance of the Ryzen 7000 processors in games, “Ryzen 9 7950X & Ryzen 7 7700X in the test: performance, efficiency, IPC, clock, iGPU and more analyzed” on the application performance and further analyzes about the new architecture.

All benchmarks have been recreated

All tests for this article have been recreated to provide the most accurate assessment of in-game performance. A total of 14 current games from Age of Empires IV to Call of Duty: Warzone and Spider-Man Remastered to multiplayer titles such as Fortnite and Valorant are in the benchmark. Sometimes ray tracing is used optionally. On the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti (test), more precisely the overclocked Asus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF OC, Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5800X, Ryzen 7 5800X3D, Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 9 5950X as well as Core i5 -12500, Core i5-12600K, Core i7-12700K, Core i9-12900K and Core i9-12900KS against AMD's Zen 4 processors Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X.

Games selection, test system and drivers

Since ComputerBase worked with several editors and test systems on the Ryzen 7000 tests, the settings and test procedures differ in detail. It is important to mention that all CPUs, unless explicitly mentioned, work according to the AMD and Intel factory specifications. The memory expansion is always 32 GB, while the memory configuration differs. Alder Lake is powered by DDR5-4800 32-32-32-61-2T, Ryzen 5000 by DDR4-3200 14-14-14-32-1T and Ryzen 7000 by DDR5-5200 32-32-32-61-2T.

For the test, the current version of Windows 11 with all updates is used, all drivers including those for the chipset are up to date. The BIOS versions for the individual mainboards (Asus Z690 Maximus Hero with BIOS 1601, Asus X570 ROG Crosshair VIII with BIOS 4201) have also been updated.

The Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero is used as the mainboard for the gaming benchmarks with Zen 4. The first boot process including memory training was completed in less than two minutes with the Ryzen 9 7950X, the BIOS version 0420 from August 10 was preinstalled. For the tests, the editors used the newer BIOS 0604 from September 6th, which AMD recommends for testing. The update process took around six minutes. With the new BIOS, the system boots to the POST screen in less than 20 seconds after the initial memory training.

The Asus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF OC in the test download

The game selection

A total of 14 different games take part in the test, some of which support raytracing. Ray tracing is used when the rays generate a higher CPU load in the game, otherwise the feature remains switched off. The only exception is Spider-Man Remastered. Since the game produces completely different results depending on whether RT is on or off, Spider-Man is tested both with and without the feature.

In order to shift the load from the graphics card to the processor as much as possible, all benchmarks were carried out in 1,280 × 720. In addition, some upsampling is used to further reduce the GPU load. Although this is not realistic, further resolutions would increase the workload too much without glaring differences – the editors preferred to invest the additional time in detailed analyses. An Asus GeForce RTX 3090 Ti TUF OC is used as the graphics card, and the GeForce 516.94 driver is installed.

The exact graphics settings for the games can be found in the following table. In addition, if available, the ComputerBase technique test is linked to learn more about the PC version.

In the individual games, the editors almost exclusively used the benchmark sequences used in the respective technology tests or in the current graphics card test course. The only exception is Age of Empires IV, since the savegame of the old sequence is no longer executable, and Guardians of the Galaxy, since the new sequence puts more strain on the CPU than on the GPU. All tests are 25 seconds long; the data was logged using CapFrameX.

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