However, there are some sites where the interpretation of similar results is ridiculous, for instance TechSpot.
On that site, the author complains that e.g. 9700X is faster than 7700X in the multi-threaded benchmarks by only a few percent. Nevertheless, the author fails to mention that 7700X is configured for an 105 W TDP, while 9700X is configured for a 65 W TDP.
For most of the new series, AMD has chosen a default configuration that favors energy efficiency over speed. Therefore, in the default configuration most of the improvements result in a much higher energy efficiency and an only slightly higher speed in multi-threaded benchmarks. The results measured by the reviewer were exactly as expected and the complaints make absolutely no sense.
After that, the reviewer notices that the new series show a lower power consumption by a few tens of watts, but then the reviewer complains that when compared to the entire computer system power consumption that means only around 10%, so it is not impressive.
However, the reviewer fails to point that this computer system includes an RTX 4090, which alone has a power consumption comparable with a couple of normal desktops. The reviewed computer has a power consumption around 500 W, many times greater than a normal desktop computer. Therefore a power saving that would be huge for a normal desktop appears modest for such a behemoth. Again, the complaints are ridiculous.
Moreover, the reviewer fails to notice that in single-threaded benchmarks the new Zen 5 CPUs match or even exceed the fastest Raptor Lake CPUs, despite the latter having much higher clock frequencies. That means that when the faster Zen 5 models will be launched next week, they will beat easily any Intel CPU in single-threaded benchmarks.
These results are excellent, and not a failure, like the weird reviewer concludes.
Moreover, that bad review has not tested the domains where Zen 5 has up to double performance when compared to any previous desktop CPU, like floating-point computations, cryptography or ML/AI. These use cases alone are a good enough reason for upgrades for many of those who use such CPUs for professional purposes and not for games.