AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

Wider platform costs and potentially better value options are small blemishes on a processor that delivers great performance and cutting edge features.

There are some valid reasons to opt for the Ryzen 5 7600X, but right now we feel that the chip needs a price reduction or more affordable motherboard availability.

All in all your use case and budget will be the deciding factors. If you want a good all-rounder that games like a champ, the Ryzen 5 7600X is a star and wins our OC3D Gamers Choice award. However, if you want good gaming and excellent creativity performance then the Ryzen 9 7900X is great and worthy of our OC3D Performance Award, but we would urge you to consider saving a little harder and going for the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X.

The Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X bring the Zen 4 architecture and new connectivity, like PCIe 5.0 and DDR5. The Ryzen 9 7950X slots in as the overall performance champ for PCs, while the Ryzen 5 7600X is unquestionably the fastest gaming chip on the market for $300.

AMD is coming out swinging with its new generation of Zen 4 Ryzen processors, with the 7600X providing an exceptional level of performance for a more affordable CPU. However, the total cost of upgrading your system to AM5 right now means this isn’t a cut-and-dry recommendation.

The 7600X is a great chip. It gives you great performance across productivity and workload related tasks, and of course, during gaming. The big issue right now is that it’s a new platform, it means buying a new chip, new board and new memory to get it functioning and that comes at a premium and for a similar premium, you could go Intel.

AMD wants $300 for the Ryzen 5 7600X, which makes it the most affordable Zen 4 option available—the 5600X launched at that price point, too, but is now available for $215, and there's also the 5600 non-X for $200. Both these older Zen 3 processors offer considerably less gaming and application performance than 7600X, but their price/performance ratio is a little bit better.

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is the best value gaming processor currently available, offering a similar gaming performance to rival chips that cost twice as much. Support for DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 also help to increase the performance ceiling of your PC, futureproofing it for years to come. The only major issue is that multi-core performance is underwhelming, while the imminent arrival of Intel Raptor Lake means it’s best holding off on a purchase for now.

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is an excellent processor for gaming and medium workloads. It can get seriously hot when pushed to its limit, but AMD has created something truly special here.

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is one of the best value CPUs we’ve ever seen. The single core performance of the 7600X rivals that of the 7900X which is great for gaming workloads. Obviously the Multi-core performance is nowhere near as strong, but it can beat lesser generation eight-core processors, which is no small feat.