The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X Review: Zen 5 is Alive
by Gavin Bonshor on August 7, 2024 9:00 AM ESTProductivity and Web
Our previous sets of ‘office’ benchmarks have often been a mix of science and synthetics, so this time, we wanted to keep our office and productivity section purely based on real-world performance. The biggest update to our Office-focused tests for 2024 and beyond includes UL's Procyon software, which is the successor to PCMark. Procyon benchmarks office performance using Microsoft Office applications, and we've thrown in some timed compiler benchmarks such as Node.js, Linux, and PHP.
In the productivity section of our CPU suite for 2024, all of the desktop chips tested perform similarly in the UL Procyon office-based benchmarks, which use Microsoft Office and is an everyday piece of software most people will use, especially in a work or study-based setting. The benchmark where the Zen 5 chips seem to make an impact is in the Jetstream 2.1 web-based benchmark, which puts both the Ryzen 7 9700X and the Ryzen 5 9600X ahead of the competition comfortably.
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Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
This is an area where technical specifications and casual nomenclature have drifted apart.DDR5 channels are 32-bits each. A DIMM offers two 32-bit channels, for 64-bits altogether.
So AM5 takes two DIMMs. But it's technically four independent DDR5 channels.
Kevin G - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
This is going to be more divergent with DDR6 as the draft specs have four 16 bit sub channels for a 64 bit DIMM. However the DIMM format might only bee seen in servers with consumer products likely moving to a version CAMM which would ultimately have eight 16 bit sub channels for a 128 bit wide CAMM product.phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, August 13, 2024 - link
If CAMM is ever going to take off in desktops they're going to have to come up with a vertical-oriented version (similar to how DIMMs are inserted vertically into a motherboard). There's just not enough horizontal space on ATX motherboards for multiple CAMM boards to be attached.Would also be nice if someone came up with a vertical M.2 slot for NVMe drives.
Either that or extended ATX (or larger) motherboards are going to have to make a comeback. :)
'nar - Friday, August 16, 2024 - link
Get off my lawn! Geez I feel old now. These are "Dual Inline Memory Modules," but otherwise just as Ryan already explained. What threw me was that they've been called dual channel for so long calling them quad channel now is misleading.The DIMMs started back in the x486 days I think, maybe the Pentium? From 8086, 286, 386, 486, Intel increased the channel width(or the word length that the CPU can process), 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, then 32-bit x2. Processors calculated smaller chunks back then, but have mostly stayed at 32-bit, which are four 8-bit bytes, so it is a 4-byte word that equals 32-bit. The Processor is much faster than the memory, so they decided to double up on the data, hence, Dual inline memory modules. Before this they were SIMMs. But I don't believe we got "dual channel" (where we got A and B channels) until 64-bit CPU's, which use twice the data, And Quad channel is mostly found in servers and HEDT systems. So, in the end this seems to be a marketing decision meant to confuse people. Sales guys don't need us to understand, just buy, and we all like MOWAR Power eh? Even if we just think it is.
Terry_Craig - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
This architecture has some very serious bottlenecks. It performs slightly better than Zen4 or the same in almost everything, except where AVX512 is used (DL/AI software) there the performance shoots ahead.Disappointed to see such a wide design not deliver what it promised.
yeeeeman - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
yes, exactlyBulat Ziganshin - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
It was my first thought, but just look at Zen1-4 history. It kept the same width, but increased IPC 1.5x by going deeper (i.e. larger ROB and so on). It's the way AMD reduces their expenses - they increase width once and then slowly make CPU deeper to get small gains every year. So, I expect that Zen8 or so will be 1.5x faster that Zen4 by finally making it as wide as Apple M1.Bulat Ziganshin - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
sorry, I meant "Zen8 will be 1.5x faster than Zen4 by making it as DEEP as M1 while keeping the same width as Zen5"Khanan - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
Did we read the same article? Maybe you shouldn’t comment if you didn’t read or understand the article.And if you’re only about games, 5 games are nothing, go for the reviews where 20 games are tested (at least).
Bulat Ziganshin - Wednesday, August 7, 2024 - link
Zen5 has 6 ALUs - 1.5x more than Zen4. e.g. Apple M1 also had 6 ALUs, but Zen5 is nowhere near M1 IPC or 1.5x Zen4 IPC. even in the official benchmarks IPC improved only by 16% on average