Recently, PC Games Hardware received a sample of the illusive 7600X3D, which was announced last week, and revealed to be sold by a sole retailer in the US. However, 7600X3D should be coming to other markets at some point, showing up outside of the US in Germany so far. Nevertheless, this CPU’s benchmarks have revealed some very interesting results in gaming workloads. Though this is just a sample, performance is usually very similar to the full-release product, unless you are the 9600X or 9700X.
On paper, the 7900X3D is much more impressive than the 7600X, it features 6 more cores 12 more threads, and a 900MHz higher boost clock. Yet, according to the testing done by PCGH, the 7600X3D still manages to beat the 7900X in the games that they tested on average.
Ryzen 5 7600X3D gaming benchmark revealed
However, the interesting point is the 7600X3D doesn’t manage to surpass the capabilities of the 7800X3D, which is still the favorite gaming processor released by AMD. The 7600X3D is locked to traditional overclocking, so you cannot manually improve the performance of this CPU to make the price-to-performance ratio more appealing. As this CPU is launching at around $299, it’s a harder sell with the performance it pumps out now.
One thing that the 7600X3D has going for it is the efficiency value, and likely the reason it cannot compete a little better with the Intel equivalent 14600K, though it still isn’t far off. The 7600X3D only has a TDP of 65W, with an 88W PPT. This is much less than the power draw of the 14600K, which has a PL1 and 2 of 181W, almost 120W over the 7600X3D. So if you are concerned about power usage, this CPU might still be a good option, especially if you want to game efficiently.
Essentially, this CPU is a turned-down version of the 7800X3D with two fewer cores, probably the reason it can go toe to toe with the 7900X3D. PC Games Hardware noted a maximum temperature of 89 degrees Celsius under load and didn’t indicate any thermal throttling. So it looks like the TJmax is still the same as the rest of the Zen 4 lineup.
