AMD Ryzen 7 9700X could get a last-minute TDP boost before launch

In a interview earlier this year, AMD straight up said the last-gen Ryzen 7000X3D chips would trounce the newly-announced Ryzen 9000 chips in gaming, which are slated to hit shelves by the end of July. AMD's TDP segmentation this time is is interesting, with the upper-mid-range Ryzen 7 9700X limited to just 65 Watts of power. Wccftech has learned that could change before launch.

AMD could up the Ryzen 7 9700X's TDP to 120 Watts before launch, effectively putting it on par with the Ryzen 9 9900X. Whether or not it comes with a corresponding clock uplift remains to be seen. This makes it a tad more power-hungry than the last-gen Ryzen 7 7700X (105 W). Our Ryzen 7 7700X review showed the CPU could pull up to 130 Watts of power under load, and it'll be interesting to see how the Ryzen 7 9700X fares in comparison.

So far, Zen 5 has performed well beyond expectations, with the Ryzen 9 9950X offering a 2x uplift over the Ryzen 9 7950X in certain workloads. Even laptop chips, such as the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, are punching well over their weight class by offering desktop-grade performance in Cinebench 2024. Plus, their X3D counterparts could arrive as early as September/October and high-end models could offer 2x the 3D V-cache over their last-gen counterparts.