Following their announcement at Computex, Ryzen 9000 series processor specs seemed locked in. However, it appears that AMD may be rethinking the technical makeup of at least one chip prior to launch. The good news is, the rumoured changes don’t appear to be a downgrade but may disappoint power-conscious builders.
First impressions of AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series are positive. Despite no changes to core count, the performance uplifts Team Red touts leave us confident these chips will be among the best CPUs on the market. Of course, we’ll need to evaluate the company’s claims via our own testing, especially in light of these potential adjustments to processor specification.
The processor supposedly under AMD’s spotlight is Ryzen 7 9700X. It boasts eight cores and 16 threads, with a maximum boost clock of 5.5GHz and 40MB of cache. It was revealed with a TDP of 65W, but this may no longer be the case. In fact, it may now exceed its predecessor, Ryzen 7 7700X.
According to WCCFTech, Ryzen 7 9700X may now arrive with a TDP of 120W. This would make it a match for Ryzen 7 7800X3D in terms of power draw. This is an important comparison, as AMD may be trying to close the performance gap between the two processors following the company’s comments that 9000X won’t beat 7000X3D in gaming.
Of course, the 3D V-Cache on Ryzen 7 7800X3D gives that chip a distinct advantage. However, as we revealed, we may not have to wait long for the 9000X3D release date. Until then, though, the extra watts could help close the gap, and we’ll see how much of a difference they make once we get the processor in-house for review.
In the meantime, give our Ryzen 9 7950X review a read to reacquaint yourself with our current favourite AMD chip.