AMD RYZEN 9 7900X, Cooler not included

We can’t really show you what the retail package looks like since the Ryzen 9 7900 we have here is not a retail unit, but rest assured, the actual retail unit will come with a Wraith Prism CPU cooler that can handle up to 105W TDP. While you won’t be facing any thermal throttle issues if you use the Ryzen 9 7900 as it is with the Wraith Prism, AMD never really locks the overclocking capability on this CPU like what Intel did on its non-K SKUs and you can technically get a bit more extra performance out of this CPU by using a better cooling solution i.e AIO liquid cooler, big tower heatsink, etc.

As mentioned earlier, we have tested the Ryzen 9 7900 against the standard Ryzen 9 7950X and 7900X, and an Intel Core i7-13700 that we happen to get our hands on by chance to gauge the performance of this CPU.

While you can still overclock the CPU frequency on the Ryzen 9 7900 to gain extra performance to potentially match even the Ryzen 9 7900X, a better cooling solution is required but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything with the Wraith Prism. Despite being a box cooler, the Wraith Prism can actually handle any CPU under 105W without breaking a sweat.

As the rated TDP of the Ryzen 9 7900 is only 65W, you can actually increase the performance a bit more with some adjustments in the BIOS settings.

Although the rated TDP is at 65W according to AMD, the Ryzen 9 7900 can actually draw up to 90W on load when dealing with tasks like rendering work that utilizes more CPU resources as compared to gaming. Though I still find this okay because it only gets up to 80°C most of the time, especially the fact that we’re using a Wraith Prism here.

Power draw and load temperature have increased since we enabled the performance preset but it’s still under 90°C and switching to better cooling solutions like a custom water-cooling setup or a better performing AIO liquid cooler is recommended if you’re looking to squeeze even more performance out of the Ryzen 9 7900.

As for memory overclocking, DDR5-6000 CL30 is the sweet spot as recommended by AMD and we’re able to achieve it with all the memory kits we’ve used in this test. It doesn’t take too much effort to achieve and we believe it can be done on most of the AMD EXPO certified DDR5 memory kits with CL40, using roughly 1.4V on the DRAM VDD and VDDQ voltage, and 1.25 to 1.3V on the VDD_SOC voltage.

DDR5-6000 CL28 is achievable with some adjustments on the timings and relevant voltages, but it’s not really recommended as we’re only able to achieve it using the G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo.

As long as you’re able to achieve DDR5-6000 CL30 and able to get past memory stability stress tests like TM5 on anta777 absolut cfg or Karhu RAM test at 10000% or more, you’re good to go with your current settings. Tightening the timings allows you to lower the memory latency a bit more and depending on the timings you have but you should be able to lower the memory latency to 65 ns range with this.

Starting off with games benchmark, we’re actually impressed by just how well the Ryzen 9 7900 can actually perform, given that we’re running it on a Wraith Prism. Even without PBO enabled, it can perform just as well as the Ryzen 9 7900X across all resolutions on certain titles on stock settings, and enabling PBO will give you a bit more boost on the frames depending on the titles.  The best thing about this is that this behavior can be seen not only on 1080p resolution but on both 1440P and 4K resolution as well.

Looking at the power efficiency it has displayed during the test, the Ryzen 9 7900 is easily a highly considerable choice for a small form factor gaming PC build that has limited space for cooling solutions.

Test System