AMD is making a big deal about how its high-end Ryzen 7000 chips are more efficient than Intel’s, for the same power or greater. And you know what that means: PCWorld has to test these claims. In our latest YouTube video, Gordon assembled nearly identical high-powered desktop PCs to test AMD and Intel’s top-of-the-line Ryzen 9 7950X and Core i9 12900K to see which would suck the most electricity.
The results are a little surprising. According to our tests, which actually measure total system power consumption (this is the number your electric company will charge you, not just single-component TDW), AMD and Intel are roughly equal in power modes. total energy. Ryzen 9 wins by a considerable margin in multi-threaded benchmarks like Cinebench R23, where it managed to outperform Intel by around 30% in performance while consuming 10% less power. Ditto in a Blender test, with approximately the same results.
But in single-threaded benchmarks, which are more likely to reflect everyday computing, things are much smoother. In fact, in the Cinebench, PugetBench Premiere Pro and Lightroom and WebExpert 4 single-thread tests, the Core i9 managed to slightly outperform the Ryzen 9 in terms of power consumption. This makes sense, because it’s consuming less power as a single component. In gaming scenarios, the Ryzen 9 was consuming about 10% more power… but that doesn’t really matter, as your graphics card will be a much bigger factor in the total system power consumption for any 3D game.
But AMD has an ace up its sleeve, and it’s called Eco Mode. With a TDP of 170 watts, AMD designed the Ryzen 7950X to run in two stages of more efficient speeds, at 105 watts and 65 watts. For comparison, the Core i9 12900K runs at 125 watts.
What happens when you activate Eco Mode? A dramatic drop in power consumption, without a huge loss in real number-crunching power. Dropping the Ryzen 9 to 105 watts and then 65 watts resulted in approximately a 30% to 50% drop in power consumption, while single-threaded performance in Cinebench remained the same. This is a predictable result, considering the nature of the test. But what about multi-threaded mode? Surprisingly, the Ryzen 9 7950X outperformed the Core i9-12900K for multi-threaded performance even at its lowest setting of 65 watts. It’s such a remarkable result that Gordon had to take a second look.
Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld
Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld
For a more in-depth look at the monster performance of the Ryzen 9 7950X, be sure to check out our full review. And for a more geeky look at all the latest PC tech, subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube.
