We're mere days before the official launch of AMD's upcoming Ryzen 2000 series CPUs on the 19th of April and the performance benchamrks are pouring in. The latest of which comes courtesy of a review from Spain, which includes both professional and gaming benchmarks to quench the thirst of excited enthusiasts looking to snag a Ryzen 7 2700X for $329 in a few days' time.
So without any further ado, let's dig into the juicy bits!
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, X470 Review Out, Beats i7 8700K in 7/10 Game Tests
Let's start with one of the more surprising upsets, gaming performance. First generation Ryzen was quite known for its exceptional performance in multi-threaded workloads and professional applications.
However, Coffee Lake was generally regarded as the better gaming CPU in most cases. This appears to have drastically changed with the Ryzen 7 2700X, which has managed to outperform the i7 8700K in no less than 7 out of 10 gaming tests conducted.
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Continues Legacy of Leading Multi-Threaded Performance
Paired with an X470 motherboard the Ryzen 7 2700X got to really spread its wings and run at higher clock speeds, resulting in overall better performance across the board.
The $329 Ryzen 7 2700X absolutely dominates in multi-threaded tests like wPrime, Cinebench R15 and x264 transcoding, all whilst maintaining a maximum temperature of ~65c, thanks to the incredible Wraith Prism cooler.
According to the reviewers, switching out the Wraith Prism with an H80i GT cooler, which features a single double thickness radiator, actually resulted in slightly higher temperatures. Although the stock cooler was tested on an X370 motherboard, which doesn't support XFR2, resulting in lower overall clock speeds, which might have contributed to the lower temperatures.
In terms of power, overall system power consumption was around 210W, about 40W higher than the Ryzen 7 1700X.
Test System :
- X470 Motherboard (Under NDA)
- G.Skill FlareX DDR4 @ 3200 MHz
- MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming Z
- Corsair H80i GT
- Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W
- SSD Adata SU900 256GB
- SSD Corsair LX 512 GB
- Windows 10 64 bits
Ryzen 7 2700X Overclocking Performance - 4.3GHz on H80i GT
Finally we come to the overclocking performance of the chip, the reviewers managed to push it to 4.3GHz on all 8 cores using an H80i GT.
4.3GHz appears to be the limit that most reviewers have hit with similar single radiator all-in-one liquid coolers. More elaborate cooling solutions will no doubt help push these chips even further.
All-in-all the Ryzen 7 2700X appears to be all things to all people. It absolutely excels at multi-threaded performance with 8 cores and 16 threads, the six core Coffee Lakes simply can't keep up. It also manages to edge out the higher clocked Coffee Lakes in gaming performance more often than not, making it an all round superb performer.
At $329, it also undercuts Intel's i7 8700K to win the bang for buck contest. The Ryzen 7 2700X appears to have hit the holy trifecta of silicon, superior overall performance, performance per watt and performance per dollar compared to the competition.
AMD 2nd Generation Ryzen Specs:
| CPU Name | AMD Ryzen 3 2300X | AMD Ryzen 5 2500X | AMD Ryzen 5 2600 | AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | AMD Ryzen 7 2700 | AMD Ryzen 7 2700X |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU Family | Ryzen 2 | Ryzen 2 | Ryzen 2 | Ryzen 2 | Ryzen 2 | Ryzen 2 |
| CPU uArch | 12nm Zen+ | 12nm Zen+ | 12nm Zen+ | 12nm Zen+ | 12nm Zen+ | 12nm Zen+ |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 4 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| CPU Threads | 4 | 8 | 12 | 12 | 16 | 16 |
| Base Clock | 3.5 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 3.4 GHz | 3,6 GHz | 3.2 GHz | 3.7 GHz |
| Boost Clock | 4.0 GHz | 4.0 GHz | 3.9 GHz | 4.25 GHz | 4.1 GHz | 4.35 GHz |
| Total Cache | 10 MB (L2+L3) | 18 MB (L2+L3) | 19 MB (L2+L3) | 19 MB (L2+L3) | 20 MB (L2 + L3) | 20 MB (L2 + L3) |
| Memory Support | DDR4-2933 | DDR4-2933 | DDR4-2933 | DDR4-2933 | DDR4-2933 | DDR4-2933 |
| TDP | 65W | 65W | 65W | 95W | 65W | 105W |
| Cooler Bundle | Wraith Stealth | Wraith Stealth | Wraith Stealth | Wraith Spire | Wraith Spire LED | Wraith Prism |
| Price | $130-$140 US | $150-$160 US | $199 US | $229 US | $299 US | $329 US |
| Release Date | TBC | TBC | 19th April 2018 | 19th April 2018 | 19th April 2018 | 19th April 2018 |
