AMD Ryzen 7 9700X: Specs, Price and Whether You Need X3D
The short answer: eight Zen 5 cores, 5.5GHz, 40MB of cache and a 65W power budget, with no 3D V-Cache. It is the sensible eight-core Ryzen rather than the fastest gaming one. If the machine only plays games at 1440p or below, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is £123.00 more on the G6 Fusion 800 X2 and it is the better buy: we would rather tell you that here than take the order. If the machine works as hard as it plays, the 9700X is the one that makes sense, and the cheapest Ginger6 build with it fitted is the G6 Fusion 800 X2 at £1372.99. Hand-built in Wolverhampton with free UK mainland delivery.
Kevin fits both the cache chips and the plain ones every week. Call him on 01902 714533, tell him what the machine does when it is not gaming, and he will say which of the two belongs in it.
What the 9700X Is, in Buying Terms
Four numbers, and one of them is a number this chip does not have. Every figure below is AMD's published specification, checked against the label in our own processor dropdown.
Eight Zen 5 cores, sixteen threads
Eight cores is the count that games are written for and the count that stops most people needing to think about processors again for years. Sixteen threads means the machine keeps its manners when a game, a browser with thirty tabs, a chat client and a capture tool are all open at once. Zen 5 is the current architecture, so this is a chip AMD is still supporting rather than clearing out.
3.8GHz base, 5.5GHz boost
The base figure is what every core holds when all eight are loaded. The boost figure is the top speed a core reaches for a short burst, and at 5.5GHz the 9700X is 300MHz faster in a burst than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which tops out at 5.2GHz. That is why the 9700X feels quick in the ordinary work between the heavy jobs, even though it loses to the X3D chip in a game.
40MB of cache, and none of it stacked
32MB of L3 plus 8MB of L2. This is the number the whole page turns on, because the Ryzen 7 9800X3D takes the same eight cores and adds a 64MB slab of cache underneath them, reaching 96MB of L3 and 104MB in total. The 9700X has the standard amount, which is plenty for everything except the specific thing extra cache is good at. The next section is about what that thing is.
65W, against 120W on the X3D parts
TDP is the heat a cooler has to shift, and 65W is genuinely modest: this is the lowest power budget of any eight-core chip in the current Ryzen 9000 range, a little over half the 120W of the 9800X3D. It runs cooler, it runs quieter, and the standard cooler that comes with a Fusion build handles it without argument. It sits on the AM5 socket with DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0, a platform AMD has said it will keep supporting for years yet, so a processor swap later on does not drag the motherboard along with it.
Do You Need 3D V-Cache? Here Is the Honest Test.
Every review video will tell you to buy an X3D chip. Most of them are right, because most of them are testing games at settings chosen to make the processor the bottleneck. That is a fair way to measure a processor and a poor way to choose one for your desk.
Extra cache helps in one situation: when a game keeps asking the processor for the same small pieces of world state faster than system memory can hand them over. That describes competitive shooters at high frame rates, sim racing and flight sim, big strategy maps late in a campaign, and busy open worlds at 1080p and 1440p. In those, the 9800X3D pulls clearly ahead and the gap is not subtle.
It describes almost nothing else. At 4K the graphics card sets the frame rate and the processor is waiting either way. In a video export, a Blender render, a compile or a Lightroom catalogue, the extra cache does close to nothing, because those jobs stream through far more data than any cache can hold.
So the test is short. Write down the five things the machine will do most. If three or more of them are on the cache list, pay the £123.00 and take the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. If they are not, the 9700X gives you the same eight cores, a higher burst clock, half the heat and £123.00 back, and that £123.00 in a bigger graphics card will do more for your frame rates than the cache would have.
That is what Kevin says on the phone, in both directions. Ring him on 01902 714533 and read him your five.
The Four Eight-Core Chips, Priced on One Machine
The G6 Fusion 800 X2 offers all four, so it is the fairest way to see what each one costs. Base build £1279.99 with an RTX 5060. Prices read live from the configurator at the time of writing.
| Processor | Architecture | Clocks | Total cache | TDP | On the G6 Fusion 800 X2 | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 7 8700F | Zen 4 | 4.1 / 5.0GHz | 24MB | 65W | £1279.99, the default | Anyone whose budget is the constraint |
| Ryzen 7 7700X | Zen 4 | 4.5 / 5.4GHz | 40MB | 105W | £1306.39 | The value pick, close in games |
| Ryzen 7 9700X | Zen 5 | 3.8 / 5.5GHz | 40MB | 65W | £1372.99 | Games and work in the same week |
| Ryzen 7 9800X3D | Zen 5, 3D V-Cache | 4.7 / 5.2GHz | 104MB | 120W | £1495.99 | Gaming, and gaming is the point |
Three honest readings of that table. The 8700F is already in the price, so if money is tight you keep £93.00 and still get eight cores and sixteen threads, which is enough for most people playing most games. It gives up Zen 5, a third of the cache and PCIe 5.0, and for a 1080p machine that is a trade worth making. The 7700X is £66.60 less than the 9700X and lands within a few percent of it in games, so if the last £66.60 would otherwise come off the graphics card, take the 7700X. And the 9800X3D is £123.00 more, which is the right spend if your five tasks came out orange in the chart above.
Being plain about where it is not: the 9700X appears on the G6 Fusion 800 and Fusion 1200 ranges only. It is not offered on the G6 Fusion 600 builds, it is not on the AMD, Ryzen 7000 or Workstation custom PC builders, and it is not on any Apex, which take X3D processors only. Everything else on those machines is still yours to change. Browse the range on the Ryzen 7 gaming PC page, where the dropdown on each product page shows today's figure.
The 9700X Is the Chip for a Machine That Is Not Only a Games Console
There is a reason this processor gets talked about less than it deserves. It launched into a market where AMD's own halo part did the one thing every benchmark chart measures, and against that chart the 9700X looks like the compromise. On a desk it is not the compromise at all. It is eight current-architecture cores, a higher peak clock than the chip that beats it in games, and a power budget so modest that the machine around it can be quieter, cooler and smaller without anything being engineered around the processor.
Consider what 65W really means once the machine is built. The cooler has an easier job, so the fans sit lower in their curve and the room stays quieter during a long evening. The power supply has more headroom left for the graphics card, which is the component that will be replaced first. Heat that a 120W chip pushes into the case is heat the graphics card has to breathe, and less of it is a real, if unglamorous, benefit. None of that appears in a frame rate chart, and all of it is noticeable in the room.
The other half of the case is what the machine does when it is not playing. A great many people buy a gaming PC and then use it for a job. Photographs, a side business, a dissertation, a Twitch channel, university coursework, a first year of learning to code. Eight Zen 5 cores at 5.5GHz handle all of that with room to spare, and they do it for less money than the cache chip that would have been slightly faster in three of the games and no faster at anything else. If you have been told by a dozen videos that X3D is the only answer, the useful correction is that X3D is the answer to one question, and you may not be asking it.
Where the 9700X is the wrong buy is worth repeating rather than burying, because it is most of the reason to trust the rest. If you play competitive shooters at 240Hz, or you spend your evenings in a sim rig, or your favourite game is a strategy title that grinds by turn two hundred, buy the 9800X3D and do not think about it again. If your budget is the thing that is genuinely tight, the Ryzen 7 8700F costs nothing extra on any Fusion 800 build and gives you eight cores anyway, and the £93.00 you did not spend belongs in the graphics card or in a bigger drive. We say all of this on the phone and it costs us margin on some orders, which is the only reason the recommendations we do make are worth anything.
How it is fitted matters as much as which one you pick. A Fusion 800 X2 leaves here with 16GB DDR5 5200MHz (2x8GB) Dual Channel, and it is two sticks on every build we make, because one stick gives the processor half the memory bandwidth it was designed around and the loss shows up in exactly the frame-rate dips people blame on the chip. That profile is switched on and proved here, not left as a setting you find six months later. The fan curve is tuned to the processor that is in the case, and Wi-Fi on a Fusion build arrives via the included USB adapter. The finished machine then sits under load for a full day and night on our bench in Wolverhampton, because a marginal part is far cheaper to find in the workshop than in your living room. Kevin has been doing this since 2001, takes the calls himself on 01902 714533, and anything that needs attention inside the 3-year warranty goes back to the person who put it together.
When the Answer Is a Different Eight Cores
The 9700X is right for a lot of people and wrong for plenty. Here are the three cases where we would move you off it, with what each one costs or saves on the G6 Fusion 800 X2.
You Mostly Game, at 1440p or Below
Buy the 9800X3D instead. Same eight cores, 104MB of cache instead of 40MB, and a clear lead in the games that lean on the processor. It comes to £1495.99 on the Fusion 800 X2.
Stay on the 9700X if: you play at 4K, where the graphics card decides the frame rate and the cache has little to do.
The Budget Is the Real Constraint
Keep the Ryzen 7 8700F. It is the standard processor on every Fusion 800 build at no extra cost, so the machine stays at £1279.99. Eight cores, sixteen threads, 65W, and enough for most people playing most games at 1080p.
Step up to the 9700X if: you want Zen 5, PCIe 5.0 and the higher clock, and the £93.00 is not coming out of the graphics card.
You Want the Money in the Graphics Card
Take the Ryzen 7 7700X. Zen 4, the same 40MB of cache, a higher base clock, and £1306.39 on the Fusion 800 X2. In games it is close enough to the 9700X that the saving is the better argument.
Step up to the 9700X if: the machine idles for long stretches or lives in a small room. 65W against 105W is a quieter, cooler build.
Still not sure which of the four? Call Kevin on 01902 714533 or email [email protected] with four things and he will name the chip and the build to put it in:
1. The five things the machine will do most often. 2. Your monitor resolution and refresh rate. 3. Whether you stream, record or edit alongside gaming. 4. Your approximate budget.
Every other component is yours to change on the AMD custom PC builder, though the 9700X itself is a Fusion 800 and Fusion 1200 option rather than a builder one. 0% finance available via PayPal Pay in 3 on orders over £500. Subject to status.
Common Questions About the Ryzen 7 9700X
The Ryzen 7 9700X is an eight-core, sixteen-thread desktop processor that AMD launched in August 2024. It runs at 3.8GHz base and 5.5GHz boost, carries 32MB of L3 and 8MB of L2 for 40MB of cache in total, draws 65W, and fits the AM5 socket with DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0. It is a Zen 5 chip without 3D V-Cache, which makes it the standard eight-core Ryzen rather than the specialist gaming one.
Yes, and it is not the best gaming chip AMD sells, which are both true at once. Eight Zen 5 cores at 5.5GHz will run any current game well, and at 4K the graphics card sets the frame rate so the processor is rarely the limit. At 1080p and 1440p in the titles that lean hardest on the processor, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is clearly ahead because of its extra cache. If gaming is the main thing the machine does and you play at 1440p or below, spend the extra on the X3D chip.
Write down the five things the machine will do most. Extra cache pays off in competitive shooters at high frame rates, sim racing and flight sim, big strategy maps and busy open worlds at 1080p and 1440p. It does very little at 4K, and close to nothing in video exports, 3D rendering, compiling or photo work, because those jobs move far more data than any cache holds. If three or more of your five are on the cache list, buy the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. If they are not, the 9700X is enough and the difference belongs in the graphics card.
No Ginger6 machine ships with it as standard, so it is chosen in the processor dropdown. It is offered on the G6 Fusion 800 range, where it adds £93.00 to any build, and on the G6 Fusion 1200 range, where it takes £24.00 off because it replaces a twelve-core Ryzen 9 7900. It is not offered on the G6 Fusion 600 builds, it is not on the AMD, Ryzen 7000 or Workstation custom builders, and it is not on any Apex machine, because the Apex range takes X3D processors only.
The cheapest Ginger6 build with one fitted is the G6 Fusion 800 X2 at £1372.99, which is the £1279.99 RTX 5060 machine plus the £93.00 processor step. The G6 Fusion 800 X5 with an RTX 5070 comes to £1722.99, and the G6 Fusion 1200 X1 with a 16GB RTX 5060 Ti comes to £1605.99, where the 9700X is a £24.00 saving against the twelve-core chip it replaces. Every price includes free UK mainland delivery and a 3-year warranty.
It is the newer chip and the better one, and the gap is smaller than the generation numbers suggest. Both are eight cores with 40MB of total cache. The 9700X is Zen 5 with a 5.5GHz boost at 65W, the 7700X is Zen 4 with a 5.4GHz boost at 105W, so the newer chip is a few percent quicker while running much cooler and quieter. On the G6 Fusion 800 X2 the 7700X comes to £1306.39 and the 9700X to £1372.99. If that £66.60 would otherwise come off the graphics card, take the 7700X.
No. At 65W it is the easiest eight-core chip in the range to cool, and the standard cooler fitted to a Fusion build handles it without the fans working hard. A 240mm liquid cooler is a £51.00 option and a 360mm is £64.99 if you want the machine quieter still or you plan to push the chip, but neither is needed for it to run at its rated speed. This is one of the practical differences against the 120W X3D parts, which concentrate more heat in a smaller area and reward a bigger cooler.
Three years as standard, with longer parts cover offered at checkout. The build is put together by hand at our workshop in Wolverhampton, cabled so the cooler and the graphics card both get clean air, fitted with dual-channel memory as a matched pair with the profile confirmed, and then left running under load for 24 hours so anything marginal shows itself here instead of at your desk. UK mainland delivery is free, Ginger6 has been building machines since 2001, and the Trustpilot score sits at 4.9 from more than 1100 reviews.
The Other Two Chips on This Page
Ryzen 7 9800X3D
The eight cores with 104MB of cache, and the chip we send most gamers to when the answer to the cache question is yes.
Read the GuideRyzen 7 8700F
The eight cores that cost nothing extra on a Fusion 800, and an honest look at what the £93.00 saving gives up.
Read the GuideEvery Ryzen 9000 Chip Explained
All ten of the chips we build with, side by side, with the price of putting each one in a machine.
Read the GuideReady to Build Around the 9700X?
Choose the build, set the processor in the dropdown, and the machine is put together by hand here in Wolverhampton, run under load for a full day and night, and covered for three years. If the honest answer for you is one of the cheaper chips on this page, that is the answer you will get on the phone.