With the release of Intel’s somewhat underwhelming 14th-gen processors today, I feel a lot of people are going to be looking once more at AMD Ryzen 7000 systems. These CPUs offer the same access to DDR5 RAM and PCIe 5.0 components as Intel’s latest offerings, yet typically consume less power while delivering better gaming performance at the high end. That makes it easier to build a balanced system, especially with deals on Ryzen 7000 CPUs and motherboards starting to become more commonplace.
Case in point is this AWD-IT bundle deal on a Ryzen 5 7600X and an MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk WiFi motherboard for £400, versus £445 for the two items separately. That’s a pretty fair deal!
So why is the 7600X worth considering? In short, this is the second or third cheapest Zen 4 CPU, depending on whether you count the OEM-only 7500F, and it has all of the best features of the wider Ryzen 7000 family – incredible single-core speeds, extremely efficient operation with minimal heat generation, access to all of the new technologies for future usage and options for significantly better gaming and/or content creation performance while remaining with the same motherboard and RAM.
Six cores is sufficient to ensure solid performance for modern games, especially at higher resolutions, and gives you enough grunt for the odd content creation task as well, while minimising your up-front costs so you have more money to put towards a higher-tier GPU.
It’s worth briefly mentioning the motherboard too. The MSI MAG Tomahawk is a perennially strong option, appearing in this incarnation with 2.5-gig networking, a huge amount of USB ports, Wi-Fi 6E and of course the obligatory six-channel sound, HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 in case you want to use the integrated graphics.
The one big omission from the specification is PCIe 5.0 support, which isn’t available on either the x16 graphics card slot or via M.2 – which seems like a missed opportunity given that B650 does support the standard. However, you do at least get a healthy three NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots, so you do have options for a good amount of high-speed storage.
Still, this is a pretty cracking combo for the money. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below and stay safe out there!
Will Judd
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