AMD Ryzen 5 9500F: What Real Users Say About the Budget Zen 5

It's really not that confusing: 7xxx = zen4, 9xxx = zen5, F = no integrated graphics, no letter = eco version of the CPU, X = full power version of the CPU. Also helps that bigger number = better processor. I find AMD's naming way better than whatever the fuck intel is doing.

So now we will have: 7400F, 7500F, 7600, 7600X, 9500F, 9600, 9600X — all 6-cores/12 threads and around 5GHz. Why so many? Someone needs to benchmark all of them, that would be a funny video.

Certified Aliexpress classic.

So 9600x with no iGPU.

Suffering from chiplet success — they have enough IO dies with defective graphics units to offer this SKU. It really helps to maximize chips as node shrinks get harder with higher defects per mm².

8400F is based on a mobile die (Phoenix) and has half the L3 cache (16MB vs 32MB).

For the most part, yes. 6 cores are enough for today's games.

TLDW: 12 game average at 1080P medium: 9500F was 5% slower than 9600X. 12 game average at 1080P ultra: 9500F was 3% slower than 9600X. 9500F is on average 5% faster than the 7500F. At current AliExpress pricing, 9500F is only 45 AU$ cheaper than 9600X, which is not worth it.

The 7500F beating the 9500F in CyberPunk is strange to me. Also the 8400F is such a poor performer — based off the numbering you wouldn't expect it to perform worse than all the 7000 series.

The 7500F has remained an absolutely awesome buy for me with a 1440p system but it all comes down to pricing. In the summer of 2024 I paid just above 100€ for it here in my local market. With a CPU as cheap as this, my PC remains almost exclusively GPU limited at 1440p alongside a RTX 5070.

Zen 5 architecture except for the 3D Cache version overall is just very underwhelming performance jump over the Zen 4, I hope that isn't the case with Zen 6 in the future at the least.

8400F is garbage tier CPU. Worse than a 5600X from 5 years ago.

I mean the 600x could definitely move up to 8 cores, but a cheap 500f being 6 cores is fine with me as long as they stay cheap.

So AMD 6 core era is now the new Intel 4 core era. They're gonna milk consumers with this bullshit for years to come until Intel steps up with competition.

Ryzen 5 9500F is available from Proshop for 250€. Meanwhile Ryzen 5 7500F from the same store is a mere 140€. Both without cooler. What really kills the 9500F is the price of the Ryzen 5 9600X, which is currently hovering around 219€. So yeah, even when available from local stores, not worth it at current prices.

The big problem with the 8400F is it lacks PCIe lanes — it only has 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes for the GPU, which will basically bottleneck any modern GPU. Then it only has half the cache which is not ideal for gaming performance. Really not worth buying the 8400F for gaming at any price.

AliExpress is gonna have a field day with this one.

6 cores are enough for today's games. 8 is optimal, any more is a special case scenario.

There will never be a chip like the newly launched 7500F at 115 pounds at AliExpress ever again this platform. It was to buy into the AM5 family and make the transition less painful for low budget builds. Now the deal market has matured. You can find Ryzen 7700S cheaper than this new 9500F.

They will have to make enough 9600X's that don't quite meet the specs first before they can start binning and relabeling them as 9600 or 9500F.

The yields are so good on 8-core chiplets that the entire product stack is built on that — 6 cores is about all you will get and they aren't going to waste silicon on making a dedicated 4-core part.

8400F is the Celeron of the AM5 series.

The Zen 5 core architecture itself doesn't seem to measure up well with AMD's previous improvements.

I wouldn't say that's a 'real' price it will be — it hasn't really launched yet in most regions. It's one retailer listing with no images, very basic description and not in stock. I'd guess in a few months if it has actual availability, it'll be the correct price of slightly cheaper than the 9600X.

9800X3D really proves that wrong. It seems to demonstrate that the new super wide Zen 5 cores really need to be fed better or else most of their advantage will go to waste. A huge L3 cache seems to be a good answer for this.

Why is the 9500F 7–24% faster than the 7500F, while the 9600X is only 1–5% faster than the 7600X? Is the RDNA3 iGPU really that power-hungry?

What I don't understand is why are they not making smaller CPUs anymore — for HTPC and such. Having a 12-thread 65W chip as the smallest option is ridiculous.

The 7500F was and is a pretty damn good CPU for the price. Can be overclocked to perform as well as a 7600X. If it's the same situation with this one, it'll be a good CPU for anyone on a budget to get.

Psst, cores don't matter, these 8 cores still beat most 12+ core Intel CPUs.

It'll be extremely similar to 9600 performance but the key difference is that it won't have integrated graphics, which doesn't matter for the majority of people. You can probably find comparison benchmarks of the 7500F next to the 7600 to see what we'll be getting here with the 9500F.

Ryzen 9500F would be a Zen 5 chip derived from already released desktop Zen 5 chips with iGPU fused off and worse stock clocks, and could be significantly faster than the 7500F.

I build PCs for friends and family. The 7500F is fantastic. Buy on AliExpress. If you wait for their sales you get 7600 performance for £95. That is fantastic value. I must have built 5 PCs with it over the last 12 months.

Short answer: Not worth it.

Granted Zen 4 to Zen 5 was pretty underwhelming, but Intel didn't just stall in core count but also in core performance. If we continue to get 6 cores but with significant IPC increases, that is progress. Rumor has it we will be getting core count increases with Zen 6.

Or you could get a 7500F/9500F now, and upgrade to Zen 6 X3D down the road.

Zen 6 is getting a die shrink going from N5 family to N2. Zen 6 is also increasing core count by 50%. No matter what, Zen 6 will be a bigger deal than even Zen 4 let alone 5, just due to core count increase alone.

You can see the performance numbers on Hardware Unboxed for the 9500F but TLDR definitely not worth the 50% price increase premium. If you're that concerned about temps, I would just be creative and put a temperature or power limit on that 7500F and call it a day.

Not worth it.

Yeah, 50% price premium is too much. If it were like 20%, it would have been kinda worth it but nah — will try the temp limit approach on the 7500F instead.

~5% faster than 7600, basically a very small improvement.

Zen 5 continues to be garbage.