AMD is not having the greatest time at the moment, the chips didn’t quite make it out in the UK today, but they’re not missing much. The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, the supposed budget offering for the 9000 series has been slammed relentlessly by big names in the PC hardware industry. The latest of which (as of the time of writing) was Hardware Unboxed.

In his Video, Hardware Unboxed lets his feelings toward the 9600X quickly known as he calls it a disappointment faster than my parents did for, well, just existing. Hardware Unboxed then goes on to say that the efficiency of Zen 5 is basically a lie because the 7000 series were never efficient CPUs to begin with. Though he was specifically referencing the 7700X at the time.

In a Cinebench test, the 9600X managed to maintain a 5.1GHz all-core speed, and under a single-core workload, hit the advertised speed of 5.4GHz. So that rules out any possible faults with the chip itself contributing to HU’s disappointment. As we know, other creators, such as Gamer’s Nexus, had problems with the 9600X so severe that the review could not be completed.

Despite the lead in single-core benchmarks that Zen 5 has over the competition and other Ryzen CPUs, this didn’t seem to help gaming performance. In the 13-game average, HU noted that the 9600X is only 1% faster than the 7600X, but it costs 40% more right now. He expressed his dislike of the price, stating that to make the 9600X more viable, it needed more CPU cores or better performance. In some tests, the 9600X even regressed from the 7600X.

Now that’s not the whole story, but it’s yet another nail in the coffin of the 9600X. If you want to see the whole review by Hardware Unboxed, check out his video.

We thought Intel was in trouble, but at least when they release a new CPU generation, it generally does better than the last. It seems AMD has focused too much on power efficiency, so much so that they have neutered the performance of their own chip. Even last generation, the power consumption was nowhere near the levels of Intel CPUs. AMD had a lot of wiggle room in the CPU power consumption department. Let’s hope some extensive PBO tweaks can dig AMD out of this performance hole. Either that or the 9900X and 9950X need to take performance to the next level.

About the Author

Jack Howarth

Jack Howarth, a Tech Writer at PC Guide, is deeply passionate about technology. He started his journey during college, earning an Extended Diploma in ICT, and CompTIA A+ later in life.