AMD Ryzen 9 7900X vs Intel Core i5-14500HX vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

AMD Ryzen 9 7900X

The AMD Ryzen 9 7900X is a fast high-end desktop processor of the Raphael series. It offers 12 cores based on the Zen 4 architecture that supports hyperthreading (24 threads). The cores clock from 4.7 (base) up to 5.7 GHz (single core boost). When all 12 cores are fully loaded, 5.1 GHz is the max. clock speed. The 7900X is the second fastest Ryzen at launch, only bested by the Ryzen 9 7950X with 4 more cores.

The performance of the R9 7900X is clearly better than the old Ryzen 9 5900X thanks to the improved architecture and modern 5nm process. Compared to Intels Raptor Lake Core i9-13700K the single-core performance is slightly lower and the multi-core performance slightly faster. The gaming performance is a bit lower, and is on average only on par with the Core i5-13600K and also lower than the old Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

The Raphael series still uses a chiplet design with two CCD-clusters (each with 8 possible cores) in 5nm and an IO-die (including the memory controller and the Radeon Graphics iGPU) in 6nm.

Intel Core i5-14500HX

The Intel Core i5-14500HX is a high-end CPU from the Raptor-Lake-HX Refresh series (RPL-H). The CPU offers all 6 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove or Raptor Cove architecture) and 8 efficiency cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support hyperthreading (therefore 20 threads together) and clock from 2.4 to 4.9 GHz (single-core turbo). The E-cores clock from 1.9 - 3.7 GHz and should offer comparable performance to old Skylake cores (e.g. i7-6920HQ).

Performance

Thanks to the higher clock rates of the Rocket Lake series, the i5-14500HX can reach the level of the old Core i9-12900H and is therefore a very fast mobile CPU that is ideal for all areas of application.

Graphics unit

Like its predecessor, Intel integrates an Intel Xe-based graphics unit. In the 14500HX, all 96 EUs are activated and clock at up to 1.55 GHz.

Features

Like Alder-Lake-H, Raptor-Lake-H has partially integrated WiFi 6E and Thunderbolt 4 (4x). The integrated memory controller now supports faster DDR5-5200 memory. The integrated Gaussian and Neural Accelerator (GNA) is still installed in version 3.0. The Quick Sync 8 media engine is the same as in Rocket Lake and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC and AV1 decode. The chip supports PCIe 5.0 x8 for a dGPU and two PCIe 4.0 x4 for SSDs. The PCH also offers PCIe Gen3 x12.

Power consumption

The Intel Core i5-14500HX is specified with 55 watts TDP (PL2 157 watts). The processor continues to be manufactured using the improved Intel 7 process (10 nm SuperFin).

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is a fast mid-range desktop processor of the Raphael series. It offers 6 cores based on the Zen 4 architecture that supports hyperthreading (12 threads). The cores clock from 4.7 (base) up to 5.7 GHz (single core boost). When all 6 cores are fully loaded, 5.3 GHz is the max. clock speed. 

The performance of the R5 7600X is clearly better than the old Ryzen 5 5600X thanks to the improved architecture and modern 5nm process. The single core performance is very good thanks to the high turbo clock speed (-400 MHz compared to the high end CPUs like the Ryzen 9 7950X). The multi-threaded performance is of course not that competitive due to only 6 cores.

The Raphael series still uses a chiplet design with two CCD-clusters (each with 8 possible cores) in 5nm and an IO-die (including the memory controller and the Radeon Graphics iGPU) in 6nm.

The R5 7600X is rated 105 Watt TDP and Raphael is rather power hungry compared to the 5000 series.