Oof, the trials and tribulations the CPU market is facing right now... Between Intel CPU stability issues and mass AMD CPU underwhelm, there might seem to be frighteningly little room for optimism. But the rumour mill keeps on churning, as always, and is now spitting out word of even more potential changes for AMD's mid-range 9000-series chips.
According to tech leaker chi11eddog, the newly released AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X will have their TDPs boosted to 105 W. This change is rumoured to be pushed in an AGESA 1.2.0.1a Patch A BIOS update.
Both these Zen 5 CPUs launched with a low 65 W TDP and plenty of reviews noted how power-efficient and thermally light they are. Unfortunately, performance increases over equivalent previous-gen Ryzen CPUs were slight and talk of "Zen 5%" abounded. Given their launch prices being far more expensive than the current pricing of the Ryzen 7000-series chips they're replacing, it's unsurprising they don't seem to be flying off the shelves.
The 9600X and 9700X, as they stand, don't seem like chips offering high-performance improvements. They seem like chips offering efficiency improvements and we in the PC Gamer hardware den aren't the only ones to feel like they've been shipped in eco mode by default, when they could have instead been set to guzzle more power and churn out more frames.
It would make sense, then, if AMD has decided to up their TDPs. For one, we already heard rumour of a TDP increase for the 9700X back in June. And yes, a change now would mean AMD's probably rushed the chip launches before getting everything figured out. But we already kinda knew that, didn't we?
AMD will increase Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X TDP from 65W to 105W, with AGESA 1.2.0.1a Patch A. 🧐🧐🧐August 14, 2024
I mean, the launch was delayed after chip recalls, and Nick's experience testing these chips for us was somewhat marred by last-minute AMD-requested BIOS swaps. It hasn't been a completely smooth road to launch, to say the least.
If the rumour's true and the TDPs for both chips are getting bumped to 105 W, this might mitigate some of the performance underwhelm. It would mean better performance at stock, and presumably an optional 65 W eco mode for those who want the efficiency that reviews have already alluded to. That, or the 105 W mode could be pushed as an optional vendor "boost" option.
Though Intel is a good example of what might happen when you start relying on bumping up the power flooding into your chips in the name of advancing CPU performance to keep the masses happy. I mean, things aren't looking too pretty for Intel right now.
If we were being unwaveringly cynical, we might say this late patch would give AMD the best of both worlds: some initial "great efficiency" reviews followed by some post-BIOS update "decent performance improvement" acknowledgement. But to think this intentional would be going too far, I think. Especially given the evidence would point more towards a launch happening while the best default settings for these chips were still being figured out.
Or, of course, the rumour could just be false. If there were ever a time to lean into some hopeful but misplaced optimism, it would be now. I'm not entirely sure how a post-launch TDP change would play out and whether AMD would go for it. We'll just have to wait and see.
