Upon its highly anticipated transition from OEM exclusivity to retail availability, the AMD Ryzen 7 5700 processor was expected to deliver competitive performance for its class. However, recent testing has highlighted a surprising performance discrepancy, revealing that the Ryzen 7 5700 is not only underperforming compared to its X variant but is also being outpaced by the more budget-friendly Ryzen 5 5600.
Initial benchmarking has brought to light that the Ryzen 7 5700 features just half the L3 cache of its X variant, with only 16 MB compared to the 32 MB present in the X model. This reduction in cache is a significant contributing factor to its performance shortfall. Furthermore, the Ryzen 7 5700 is confined to PCIe 3.0 specifications, unlike its contemporary counterparts which typically offer PCIe 4.0 support.
The performance gap was made evident through comprehensive game testing, where the Ryzen 7 5700 showed an average frames-per-second rate that was 16% slower than expected and exhibited a 19% reduction in 1% low fps measurements. Impressively, the Ryzen 5 5600, despite being priced lower at approximately $134.99 and equipped with a full 32 MB of L3 cache, managed to outperform the Ryzen 7 5700 in overall speed.
These revelations illuminate a quirk in AMD’s product lineup, as the Ryzen 7 5700 feels misnamed and potentially mispriced, posing a risk of misleading consumers who might anticipate a close kinship to the higher-performing X-suffixed sibling. The retail price of the Ryzen 7 5700 currently stands at around $175 and includes a CPU cooler, while the Ryzen 7 5700X is marginally more expensive at $180 but does not include a cooling solution. However, without a cooler, the cost of the Ryzen 7 5700 might be closer to $155, emphasizing the need for buyers to weigh the performance differential carefully.
It has been suggested that a more fitting name for the Ryzen 7 5700, such as ‘Ryzen 7 5700GF’, might have been better in representing its lineage from the mobile Ryzen 7 5800H and allaying potential consumer confusion. The main takeaway from these tests is that while the processor may come with cost savings, the trade-off in performance is noteworthy and should be a key consideration for potential buyers looking to make a well-informed purchase decision.
