If you’re in the market for a new gaming PC, you might be looking at either going Team AMD or Team Intel. Of course, for those of you with ‘bangsawan’ budgets, it doesn’t really matter which team you end up with, as long as it’s the best. However, for most of us regular folk, it’s usually the more bang-for-buck midrange options that we end up with.
In the last number of years, for AMD at least, this has meant the Ryzen 5 series of processors. Take the Ryzen 5 3600 for instance, which for a number of years was the go-to choice for anyone seeking to build their own budget friendly gaming PC. Late last year though, AMD launched their latest lineup of processors, the Ryzen 7000X lineup which has since been joined by the Ryzen 7000X3D and Ryzen 7000 non-X processors too.
Sitting squarely in the middle of all these new processors though is the Ryzen 5 7600X, their midrange processor for this generation. With that in mind, we wanted to see if the Ryzen 5 is still the king of value, especially for those looking to join the gaming PC scene for the first time.
The little Ryzen 5 that could
Right off the bat though, there are a couple of things we need to highlight. For starters, the Ryzen 5 7600X doesn’t come with a stock cooler in the box, so you will need to get your own aftermarket cooler. We used a Corsair H150 AIO cooler with a 360mm radiator which was actually a little overkill; the highest we saw the Ryzen 5 7600X peak to was at 90°C but that was at the tail end of a Cinebench R23 run.
You can realistically get away with something much cheaper like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Turbo that can be found online for under RM150, but do note that the 7600X does seem to run hotter than previous generation of Ryzen chips, with it running between 75 and 80 degrees when under gaming loads.
As for the rest of our setup, we had a Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master motherboard with 32GB of DDR5 6000MHz RAM along with a 256GB SSD we have for testing. Fun fact, we first tried it with an MSI X670E MEG ACE that failed on us due to faulty RAM slots; turns out other users on Reddit had similar issues. We also had an AMD Radeon RX 6750 XT along with a 750W power supply to keep things running.
So how’d it do? Pretty well actually—at least, in synthetic benchmarks. In Cinebench R23, the Ryzen 5 7600X scored a very respectable 1955 single core result, which puts it nearly as powerful as last generation’s Intel Core i9-12900K, which has an average single core result around the 2,000 mark. Similarly, in 3DMark CPU profile, the Ryzen 5 7600X scored a single threaded score of 1,100 and a 2-thread score of 2,167, higher than the average Core i9-12900K scores of 1,093 and 2,142. It also easily beats our other previous desktops we’ve tried, such as the Mac Studio and the Intel NUC 12.
Of course, being a six core, twelve thread processor does mean it runs at a slight disadvantage compared to the 16-core Core i9-12900K, but it’s still a respectable showing for the Ryzen 5 7600X. In Cinebench R23, the Ryzen 5 7600X scores a 14,464, while its max threads score in 3DMark CPU profile is 7,261. Here’s a quick run down of how well it compared to other systems that we’ve tested before:
But regardless of its synthetic scores, it’s in gaming that we cared the most about for the Ryzen 5 7600X, and we threw a gauntlet of games at it to see how well it does. Together with the aforementioned Radeon RX 6750 XT and 32GB of RAM, here’s how well the Ryzen 5 7600X did in our gaming benchmarks:
There are some things we didn’t like about the Ryzen 5 7600X though. For starters, the obvious lack of an included stock cooler, though this is likely due to the higher TDP of 105W, a not insignificant jump from the 65W TDP the Ryzen 5 5600X as well as the 95W TDP of the Ryzen 5 3600X. This is perhaps causing the higher temps under load we saw earlier too, though again I never saw it hit that 95 degree maximum.
There was one more thing that we didn’t test but is still worth mentioning here: Ryzen 7000 now feature integrated graphics. This means that you can use the Ryzen 5 7600X without a discrete graphics card, but that’s genuinely not a good idea if you want to use it for gaming. See, the Ryzen 5 7600X comes with RDNA 2 integrated graphics that only has 2 compute units in it, meaning that it’ll struggle in most gaming scenarios with external benchmarks showing performance to be around the mobile NVIDIA GeForce MX250 from years ago. The integrated graphics is really only there for when you’re troubleshooting your PC or if your graphics card dies and you temporarily need a video output.
Besides, if you’re already shelling this much for a solid CPU, it’s best that you balance that with a suitable graphics card too. As mentioned earlier, we paired this with an AMD Radeon RX 6750XT, which offers a great balance between computing power and graphics performance for one of the best bang-for-buck midrange gaming PC setups we can think of. Alternatively, you can go a little top heavy on the graphics side with enthusiast-tier GPUs such as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 or an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT especially if you plan on gaming at 4K.
AMD’s new platform is simpler than before
I’ve built a number of PCs now on both the Team Red and Team Blue side of things, and there’s just no doubt that AMD processors and motherboards have been much more finnicky than Intel’s offerings prior to AM5. Without going into too much specifics, basically, up until the Ryzen 7000 lineup, AMD’s processors used to have the pins on the underside of the chip, which is then inserted into the motherboard socket. This had a couple of downsides, namely if you dropped the chip, there’s a very good chance you would have bent the pins on the processor leading to a dead chip.
However, with Ryzen 7000, AMD has moved the pins onto the motherboard side, with the underside of the processor only haveing the contacts to connect to the pins on the motherboard socket. This lessens the potential risks of mishandling the CPU, something that first time builders will probably have the most anxiety about.
On top of that, with Ryzen 7000 and AM5, AMD has also fixed an old issue it had with their processors that went way back. It used to be that if you wanted to disassemble an AMD system, there’s a good chance that when you took off the CPU cooler, the CPU itself would be stuck to the cooler thanks to the dried up thermal paste. With the new AM5 socket, it seems that they’ve finally fixed the problem with a much better designed socket lever. It’s yet another issue that first time builders using an AMD Ryzen 7000 series chip won’t have to deal with.
You can even check out this video guide from MSI on how to install and remove AM5 processors below:
AM5 will also last you longer than Team Blue
One thing that’s definitely worth mentioning here is that AMD has guaranteed support for the AM5 platform up till at least 2025. This means that in a couple of years time, if you feel that your PC is starting to show its age or maybe the latest games by then require a beefier processor, you could just get a new chip and pop it back into your system without needing to get a new motherboard altogether.
That’s one major benefit of going with Team Red over Intel’s options right now. The latter’s 13th Gen Intel Core processors are the second generation to be on the LGA 1700 socket, and all signs point to them switching to a new socket platform by the time 14th Gen processors roll around.
In contrast, by going with the Ryzen 5 7600X (or indeed any of the Ryzen 7000 series chips), you’ll be using the first set of CPUs to be supported by the AM5 socket. AMD also has a great track record when it comes to supporting their platforms; just look at the old AM4 platform. I mean, you can still put the Ryzen 5 5600 from 2022 into a B350 motherboard that debuted way back in February 2017—albeit with the caveat that you need a BIOS update. But still, it’s pretty impressive from AMD especially considering that they only promised to support the AM4 platform till 2020.
It may be pricey now, but will be worth it in the long run
Since it launched in Malaysia, many a PC gamer lamented the surprisingly high price tags of the AMD Ryzen 7000 lineup. When it debuted late last year, the Ryzen 5 7600X had a recommended retail price of RM1,399, which on its own isn’t too bad but when you factor in the new motherboard platform and the price of DDR5 RAM, the final tally starts to skyrocket. It was especially true in the first few months of its availability too, as only the higher end X670 and X670E boards were on the market at that point.
However, it’s been a number of months now since it launched, and if you wanted to build your own gaming PC right now, in my mind the Ryzen 5 7600X sits squarely on top of the bang-for-buck ladder. Yes, it’s not as powerful in general as its Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 cousins. Yes, it’s not as good in games as AMD’s X3D processors. And yes, it’s more expensive than the non-X Ryzen 5 7600. But when you step back a little and just look at the overall performance you’re getting and the price you’re paying, you’re not only getting a really good computer now, but you’re also putting your foot in the door of a long term platform that should serve you for years to come.
Our recommendation is to look out for the cheaper B650 motherboards instead of the X670 boards, seeing as the latter more often than not goes for over RM1,000. B650 boards meanwhile can now be found at sub-RM1,000 prices, some even closer to the RM700 mark. Of course, you’ll still need to make sure that whatever board you end up with has everything you need for your system, such as adequate I/O and enough PCIe slots. You’ll also want to get some solid RAM sticks preferably at 6000MHz though 5200MHz should be fine too, and feel free to cheap out by not getting ones with RGB—DDR5 can already get quite expensive.
It’s really AMD’s support of the AM5 platform that gives its processors the edge for first time PC builders in particular. You’re not only getting an easier build experience, but you’re also getting the longevity of AM5 that should last you for a good number of years. As we mentioned earlier, if in a couple of years time you’re feeling that your system isn’t as shiny and new as before, with your AM5 motherboard all you need really is to get just a new processor and you’re ready to go all over again.
The Ryzen 5 7600X sits perfectly in the middle of the AMD’s current generation of processors, offering that sweet spot of price-to-performance for both gaming and productivity workloads, and I can say for certain that if I was looking to build a brand new gaming PC for myself, this processor would be the first thing on my list of parts to get.
Special thanks to Azio Online for helping us out with this review by loaning us some of the hardware we needed. If you’re looking at getting your own gaming PC, be it a pre-built or building one yourself, be sure to check them out on their website or on the Azio Online Shopee store. Alternatively, you can also head over to their shop in Kelana Jaya.
