AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
AMD has released the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but gamers who are excited about models with 3D-Vcache shouldn’t pay attention to it. Tests have shown the new chip’s advantage only in professional tasks.
Processor Ryzen 9 9950X3D on Zen 5 architecture has 16 cores, supports 32 threads, and operates at a base frequency of 4.3 GHz (up to 5.7 GHz). It is equipped with a total of 144 MB of L2 + L3 cache (16 + 128) and operates at a TDP of 170 watts. For comparison, the popular Ryzen 7 9800X3D has 8 cores and 16 threads, 104 MB of cache, and a 4.7/5.2 GHz frequency ratio with a recommended price of $479. As we’ll see below, its older, much more expensive «brother» is completely redundant for gaming and ordinary tasks — it will only help enthusiasts and professionals
Website TechPowerUp tested the processor on a system with an ASUS X870E Crosshair Hero motherboard, 2x 16 GB DDR5-6000 28-36-36-76 Infinity Fabric 2000 MHz and a PNY GeForce RTX 5090 ARGB OC graphics card. The performance of Intel’s comparative chips in the test was measured on the ASUS Z890 Maximus Hero and ASUS Z790 Maximus Dark Hero with the same memory
During testing, a miracle happened in games, but not the one that gamers would like to see. The fact is that Ryzen 9 9950X3D in many games.. inferior to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with half the number of cores, smaller cache, and — frequencies is sometimes noticeable. In general, the picture remained the same in different games with different screen resolutions. Somewhere the Ryzen 9 was minimally ahead (as in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2), and somewhere it even lost to the 7800X3D.
In artificial intelligence tasks, it is also sometimes inferior to its competitors, but in the vast majority of tests it leads. In particular, it outperforms the Core i9-14900 in photo enhancement by almost four times. The 9950X3D is also a leader in rendering, but sometimes inferior to the new Core Ultra 9 285KThe situation is similar in other game development and compiling tasks. In multimedia encoding and video and photo editing, the AMD processor is the undisputed leader. In office tasks, its performance is on par with other leaders. In scientific computing, too, but here sometimes 285K comes out ahead, and the same can be said for server processes.
In general, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D chip can be called successful, but for a gamer, home user, or ordinary office worker, it will not give anything that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D does not give. In these cases, the characteristics of the top AMD chip will be residual, and the money for it will be wasted. In addition, the 9950X3D consumes 50 watts more than the 9800X3D. This is a «processor for those who know exactly why they need it».