WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.720 Everyone, including us, has recommended the AMD Ryzen 5700X3D 00:00:05.720 --> 00:00:08.920 for gaming on a budget at some point or another. 00:00:08.920 --> 00:00:13.040 But like, who wants to pay for a gaming PC that is out of date 00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:19.600 before you even click add to cart? Not you, but fortunately, there's a secret gaming CPU, 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:23.560 one that goes blow for blow with the 5700X3D 00:00:23.560 --> 00:00:30.080 and sits on a future-ready platform and, most importantly, is cheaper. 00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:33.880 Meet the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F. 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:38.400 We ran it through the lab's gauntlet to find out if this, off-menu CPU, 00:00:38.400 --> 00:00:42.920 is the one budget-minded gamers should be targeting. Just like we're targeting you, 00:00:42.920 --> 00:00:46.520 it's you, Howard, with this segue, to our sponsor. 00:00:46.520 --> 00:00:58.160 The 7500F isn't exactly new, 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:03.560 so why are we covering it now? Well, the main reason is that unlike CPUs 00:01:03.560 --> 00:01:09.200 that come in retail boxes, this one is targeted at system builders and bulk buyers, 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:12.880 and therefore has mostly flown under our radar. 00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:16.840 Now, you can find them on sites like New Egg, but at the time of writing, 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:19.840 the most reliable place to get one for a good price 00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:24.600 seems to be Aliexpress, not exactly a mainstream US retailer. 00:01:24.600 --> 00:01:28.400 But what is it? Well, on paper, it is strikingly similar 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:31.800 to a Ryzen 5 7600 non-X, 00:01:31.800 --> 00:01:38.720 except that it lacks onboard graphics, hence the Dash F suffix, and hence the lower price. 00:01:38.720 --> 00:01:42.960 There are some compromises here. Compared to the 5700X3D, 00:01:42.960 --> 00:01:46.160 it's got only about one third of the cash, 00:01:46.160 --> 00:01:50.840 none of AMD's amazing 3DV cash here, and being an OEM chip, 00:01:50.840 --> 00:01:55.120 it comes with no AMD direct warranty or box cooler. 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:59.880 But if you're willing to live on the edge, it boosts nearly one gigahertz higher, 00:01:59.880 --> 00:02:04.040 uses newer Zen 4 cores, supports faster DDR5 memory, 00:02:04.040 --> 00:02:07.080 and sits in a more modern AM5 socket, 00:02:07.080 --> 00:02:12.280 giving us room to upgrade it in the future. Let's see how these differences manifest in gaming. 00:02:12.320 --> 00:02:15.920 Starting with our test that best isolate CPU performance, 00:02:15.920 --> 00:02:22.600 the 7500F does pretty darn well. It trails the 7600X and 5700X3D in games like 00:02:22.600 --> 00:02:28.040 Saber Punk and Shadow the Tomb Raider, but on average, it remains within striking distance, 00:02:28.040 --> 00:02:32.120 falling short by a smaller gap than the price difference between those chips. 00:02:32.120 --> 00:02:36.680 And that's kind of the worst case scenario. In games where clock speed is king, like Rocket League, 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:40.560 these 7500F sees a big lead of over 24% 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:43.920 over its primary competitor. And I say primary competitor, 00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:48.960 because Intel still exists for now, but it's hard to call them competition. 00:02:48.960 --> 00:02:52.880 When we throw in some similarly priced chips from Team Blue on the chart, 00:02:52.880 --> 00:03:00.400 they do not put up a fight. Not a single one beats our 7500F even once. 00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:05.080 Even worse, our other secret value gaming monster, 00:03:05.080 --> 00:03:08.480 the Ryzen 8400F, gets in on the beatdown too. 00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:12.160 Often available for just over $90. 00:03:12.160 --> 00:03:17.360 Sometimes cheaper. This almost an 8600G, but without the iGPU, 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:22.360 beats the more expensive 1300F in all but one of our tests. 00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:27.800 Even then, it was a draw for 1% lows, which I still consider to be a win. 00:03:27.800 --> 00:03:31.280 Even considering that the 8400F is on average 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:34.920 about 20% slower than the 7500F, 00:03:34.920 --> 00:03:39.160 and even occasionally falls behind the older 5600X in games like F1, 00:03:39.160 --> 00:03:42.880 the price to performance of this little fella 00:03:42.880 --> 00:03:46.720 is kind of outstanding. And that positive look continues 00:03:46.720 --> 00:03:51.800 when we match our CPUs with GPUs that might be a little more price appropriate. 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:56.400 Price appropriate. Like this quality stretchy wicking button-up sports shirt 00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:02.960 from LTTstore.com. Breach! As soon as we switch to a more reasonable 4060-class GPU, 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:07.880 both the 8400F and 7500F make us question why gamers are even bothering 00:04:07.880 --> 00:04:12.800 with gaming CPUs at all. The 8400 does show its limitations more often, 00:04:12.800 --> 00:04:16.120 but the 7500F stays remarkably close 00:04:16.120 --> 00:04:21.560 to the old budget gaming king, even pulling slightly ahead overall at 1440P, 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:25.160 and matching the gold standard for PC gaming, 00:04:25.160 --> 00:04:28.960 the 9800X3D in Cyberpunk and F124. 00:04:28.960 --> 00:04:32.440 Of course, a lot of this changes once we swap out our GPU, 00:04:32.440 --> 00:04:37.360 which we know from a lot of audience surveys, is the most likely upgrade to an existing system. 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:43.160 Paired with a 4070 Super, the 8400 starts to fall behind, especially at 1080P, 00:04:43.160 --> 00:04:48.160 where on average, the 9800X3D beats its 1% lows by 41%, 00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:52.960 which is a lot, even considering that it costs five times as much. 00:04:52.960 --> 00:04:57.400 And remember, it's more fair to compare the total system price 00:04:57.400 --> 00:05:02.400 versus the price of individual components when evaluating bang for the buck of a new PC purchase. 00:05:02.400 --> 00:05:08.200 Focusing back in on our head-to-head showdown between the 7500F and the 5700X3D, 00:05:08.200 --> 00:05:13.680 they trade blows with each other, performing about 15% better than the 8400F, 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:16.720 with the 7500F taking F1 in Rocket League 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:20.040 and the 5700X3D holding strong in Cyberpunk 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:25.120 and Shadow the Tomb Raider. As we jump to 1440P, the results are same-same, 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:28.600 but with smaller gaps. And by the time we make it all the way to 4K, 00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:32.280 we're so GPU bound that even the 8400F 00:05:32.280 --> 00:05:35.320 is back within a margin of error of the gold standard. 00:05:35.320 --> 00:05:39.640 Now, this is where we had planned to end our testing, but then we thought, okay, 00:05:39.640 --> 00:05:42.640 but what if we switch over to an RTX 4090 00:05:42.640 --> 00:05:47.820 for some legitimate 4K gaming? That would obviously be a pretty imbalanced choice, 00:05:47.820 --> 00:05:54.000 given that the MSRP of that GPU is more than 10 times the cost of our 7500F, 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:57.400 but wouldn't you know it, the little F gin that could 00:05:59.240 --> 00:06:02.400 is breathing down the neck of the 9800X3D 00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:06.960 in most games with the 1% lows of City Skylines 2 00:06:06.960 --> 00:06:10.040 being the only really meaningful performance difference 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:14.640 across our UHD gaming testing. But what does all of that mean? 00:06:14.640 --> 00:06:21.200 Well, first of all, while this isn't really news, it means, hot damn Intel, y'all need to get it together. 00:06:21.200 --> 00:06:24.680 While AMD has dominated the CPU gaming performance charts 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:31.040 at both the mid-end and high-end for a while, their budget lineup has withered to almost nothing, 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:35.760 leaving an opportunity for Intel. An opportunity they should have taken while they had it, 00:06:35.760 --> 00:06:39.640 because now, with these two stealthy budget risings, 00:06:39.640 --> 00:06:42.640 it's hard to see a single bright spot for Team Blue. 00:06:42.640 --> 00:06:46.920 I mean, we didn't even include the latest generation of Core Ultra chips in our testing, 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:50.440 because there aren't any Core Ultra CPUs 00:06:50.440 --> 00:06:54.360 and compatible motherboards that are in a comparable price bracket. 00:06:54.360 --> 00:07:00.640 That means that any Intel budget purchase is gonna be on a dead platform, yonkers. 00:07:01.640 --> 00:07:07.760 But what about compared to AMD's own products? Should you be considering these effing cool chips? 00:07:07.760 --> 00:07:11.640 Well, yeah, both offer strong real-world performance, 00:07:11.640 --> 00:07:18.080 as long as you can find one for the right price. And while I lean more towards recommending the 7500F 00:07:18.080 --> 00:07:24.880 as a long-term proposition for gamers, the 8400F is one of very few quality 00:07:24.880 --> 00:07:29.840 sub-$100 processors these days, and could be a great way to game today 00:07:29.840 --> 00:07:35.600 if you're on a strict budget. Just be aware that someday, and that day may never come. 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:39.280 Being limited to eight PCIe Gen4 lanes for your GPU 00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:44.880 may make you feel the pinch, making this one the less future-proof of our options. 00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:48.400 Though, of course, that won't matter if the only future-proofing you care about 00:07:48.440 --> 00:07:53.440 is putting something new in your AM5 socket, sometime between now and 2027, 00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:56.920 when AMD says that this platform will be abandoned. 00:07:56.920 --> 00:08:02.680 Oh, and there is one more thing. While AliExpress is pretty reliable these days, 00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:06.600 we actually ordered a second chip off of Newegg just to make sure, 00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:12.960 and we found that both were equally genuine, import tariffs could impact the viability of these CPUs 00:08:12.960 --> 00:08:17.240 for our American neighbors. Wait, sorry, did I say one more thing? 00:08:17.240 --> 00:08:21.560 I meant two more things, and the second is this segue to our sponsor. 00:08:22.440 --> 00:08:28.100 If you're looking for a GPU to pair with your new CPU, we've reviewed a ton of GPUs recently 00:08:28.100 --> 00:08:31.520 with the AMD RX9070 and 9070XT 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:34.920 looking like a pretty solid match for the 7500F, 00:08:34.920 --> 00:08:39.720 as long as you can get it at a fair price. Or actually, maybe the Intel B580. 00:08:39.720 --> 00:08:42.840 Wow, what a hellfroze over system that would be. 00:08:42.840 --> 00:08:44.760 AMD CPU Intel GPU.