(Image credit: Future)
Planning to upgrade to AMD’s AM5 platform? Now is a great time to save some of your hard-earned money. Prices for the Ryzen 7000 series desktop processors have been slashed, with the top-of-the-line Ryzen 9 7950X dropping to $450, down from its original price of $699. The Ryzen 9 7900X also has a steep price cut, now retailing for $303, which is $246 off its usual retail price of $549. For more budget-conscious builders, the Ryzen 5 7600X is the value-for-money option, available at $162 —a solid $137 discount from its usual $299 MSRP during the Amazon Prime Day sale.
All-time low price!
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is a high-end desktop processor with the 5nm Zen 4 architecture, offering 16 cores and 32 threads. With a base clock of 4.5 GHz and boost speeds reaching up to 5.7 GHz, it delivers top-tier performance for both gaming and heavy productivity tasks. Despite being a previous-gen chip, it still holds its ground against newer CPUs in most real-world scenarios and drops into the modern AM5 platform.
All-time low price!
The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a step-down version of the Ryzen 9 7950X, but it remains a powerful CPU. It features 12 cores and 24 threads along with a base clock of 4.7 GHz that can boost up to 5.6 GHz. It also comes with 76MB of cache, a TDP of 170W, and drops into the modern AM5 platform.
All-time low price!
The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is a suitable candidate for budget-friendly PC builds. The six-core, 12-thread processor is based on AMD's Zen 4 architecture and should offer enough grunt for gaming and everyday productivity. It operates at a base clock of 4.7 GHz and can be boosted up to 5.3 GHz, providing decent single-threaded performance. While not the most powerful chip, it punches well above its weight for its price and drops into the modern AM5 platform.
The Ryzen 9 7950X comes with 16 cores and 32 threads. It features a base clock of 4.5 GHz and a boost clock of up to 5.7 GHz. With 80MB cache, 170W TDP, and support for DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 storage, the CPU was originally launched at $699.
The Ryzen 9 7900X is a step-down version offering 12 cores and 24 threads with a base clock of 4.7 GHz, boosts up to 5.6 GHz, 76MB of cache, and a similar TDP of 170W.
Moving on to the budget-friendly Ryzen 5 7600X, this processor features a six-core, 12-thread design and is clocked at 4.7 GHz, with up to 5.2 GHz boost support. The processor also features 38MB of cache and a TDP of 105W.
While it is generally advised to opt for the latest hardware, it is important to note that the performance difference between AMD’s Ryzen 7000 and the newer Ryzen 9000 can be relatively small, especially when it comes to gaming, and pricing obviously favors the 7000 series, making it a strong value option.
According to our CPU hierarchy data and benchmarks, the Ryzen 9000 series doesn’t offer a massive generational leap over the Ryzen 7000 lineup. In gaming performance, the Ryzen 9 9950X is around 7% ahead of the 7950X, while the 9900X and 9600X show similar modest gains of around 4–7% over their predecessors. Single-threaded performance tells the same story, with only an 8–9% improvement across the board. The most notable uplift is observed in multi-threaded workloads, where the 9950X outperforms the 7950X by 11%, while the lower-tier chips exhibit roughly 6–9% gains. However, the pricing delta is much larger between the two generations of chips.
For PC builders on the hunt for value, a Ryzen 7000-based system still makes a lot of sense. Although it may be marginally slower compared to the Ryzen 9000 series, it offers better pricing and slightly improved thermal efficiency, along with long-term support on the modern AM5 platform, providing a pathway for future upgrades.
We are working hard to find the best computer hardware deals for you this Amazon Prime Day. If you're looking for more savings, check out our Amazon Prime Day deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.