AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D overview and benchmarks

It’s no secret that AMD has been dominating in PC gaming CPU efficiency, however you all the time needed to make a troublesome selection between Intel and AMD in case you used your gaming PC for skilled workloads as effectively. With AMD’s $699 Ryzen 9 9950X3D, you don’t want to decide on: AMD now has one of the best CPU for each gaming and creator duties.

With double the cores of the $479 Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the brand new 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D boosts efficiency in creator workloads like Photoshop and Premiere Pro, to the purpose the place it comfortably beats its closest opponents within the type of Intel’s Core i9-14900K and even the most recent Core Ultra 9 285K processor.

While AMD’s first Zen 5 CPUs upset everybody in gaming, the most recent X3D variations have greater than made up for that. The 9800X3D turned one of the best gaming CPU final 12 months, and now the 9950X3D enormously improves creator workloads whereas largely sustaining that stellar gaming efficiency.

AMD promised it could be “the world’s greatest processor for avid gamers and creators,” and the 9950X3D is actually that. It’s the last word blow to Intel’s flagship CPU lineup.

AMD’s newest productiveness enhancements with the 9950X3D required a redesign of its newest X3D chips. AMD’s second technology of its 3D V-Cache expertise sits under the processor cores, giving these processor cores higher entry to cooling. That lets AMD enhance the bottom clock velocity of the 9950X3D by 100Hz (in comparison with 2023’s 7950X3D) to squeeze out extra efficiency, as a result of the 3D V-Cache is much less delicate to excessive temperatures.

I’ve been testing AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D with Gigabyte’s X870E Aorus motherboard, 32GB of G.Skill DDR5-6000 reminiscence, and Nvidia’s RTX 4090. (I’ve held off switching our CPU testing to the RTX 5090 on account of some early Nvidia driver points.) To really see the place it suits, I’ve run a wide range of workloads, artificial benchmarks, and video games throughout the entire high gaming CPUs: AMD’s new Ryzen 9 9950X3D, its current $479 9800X3D and $449 7800X3D chips, and Intel’s $589 Core i9-14900K and Core Ultra 9 285K.

All my assessments have been run on Windows 11 (model 24H2) with virtualization-based safety (VBS) and resizable BAR enabled, and carried out at 1080p decision to investigate uncooked CPU efficiency. We don’t check at 1440p or 4K in video games to make sure we’re demonstrating the variations between CPUs reasonably than GPUs, as most video games rely extra on the GPU at larger resolutions. Still, a greater CPU can nonetheless assist out at 4K, particularly with upscaling applied sciences like DLSS or in CPU-heavy titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

In a mean of 9 productivity-focused assessments that I ran, AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D beats the 9800X3D by practically 24 p.c. It additionally beats Intel in my single-threaded Geekbench 6 assessments, and solely falls barely behind on the muti-threaded rating. Geekbench measures how effectively a CPU can take care of fast bursts of efficiency in duties like launching apps, video encoding, or unzipping information. It’s an excellent benchmark for measuring day-to-day duties.

For heavier and sustained workloads, Cinebench is a greater check for CPU efficiency. The Ryzen 9 9950XD matches Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K in single-thread efficiency in Cinebench 2024, but in addition manages to beat it in relation to multi-thread efficiency. The 9950X3D is 80 p.c sooner on this multi-thread Cinebench check in comparison with the 9800X3D. That’s an enormous win for AMD, as a result of with the 9800X3D it didn’t have sufficient cores to compete totally with Intel’s sustained efficiency; you needed to sacrifice it for a chip that was higher at gaming. The 9950X3D can now ship spectacular creator and gaming efficiency seemingly with none compromises.

Intel’s chips did higher exhibiting me fancy graphics in a 3DMark benchmark, however we additionally use our CPUs for rendering movies or engaged on massive Photoshop information, and AMD is profitable there. Both the Premiere Pro and Photoshop PugetBench assessments present that AMD is now comfortably forward of Intel’s 285K and 14900K for these key creator workloads. The 9800X3D was nonetheless behind Intel’s newest Core Ultra 9 285K, however the 9950X3D pushes it forward within the assessments that matter to creators. The 9950X3D can be an enormous leap in productiveness efficiency over the 7800X3D, round 46 p.c sooner in a mean of 9 assessments.

Bigger scores are higher, other than in relation to CPU energy draw and warmth.

Over on the gaming facet, AMD is thus far forward of Intel that it’s not even shut. In the 5 video games I examined throughout Intel’s high gaming chips, neither of them managed to beat AMD’s 9950X3D. That’s not all that shocking given how effectively the 9800X3D carried out in opposition to Intel’s newest final 12 months, but it surely means you’re not shedding out on gaming efficiency in case you want the additional cores and efficiency for creator workloads.

The solely recreation the place I discovered the 9950X3D carried out worse than the 9800X3D was Metro Exodus, the place the 9800X3D was round 2 p.c sooner. The 9950X3D was an identical or inside margin of error with the 9800X3D for the remainder of the video games.

I additionally took the chance to re-test Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K after its spherical of microcode updates designed to enhance gaming efficiency. In my earlier assessments the 285K was simply forward in Metro Exodus in opposition to the 14900K, and behind within the different 4 video games. This time round Intel has managed to enhance its Cyberpunk 2077 efficiency in order that the 285K is now forward, however in Forza Motorsport and Shadow of the Tomb Raider the 285K continues to be behind the earlier 14900K flagship.

To add insult to Intel’s harm, AMD’s 9950X3D will also be overclocked to squeeze out much more gaming efficiency and compete with Intel’s overclocking capabilities even additional, which hasn’t been potential with earlier generations of X3D chips. Some AM5 motherboards even have an X3D turbo mode that reinforces single-thread efficiency by enabling some bandwidth tuning, unifying CPU core distribution, and balancing among the {hardware} energy. The result’s higher gaming efficiency, whereas sacrificing some creator app efficiency. The X3D turbo mode makes much more sense on the 9800X3D in case you’re primarily shopping for that CPU for gaming, however on the 9950X3D you’re most likely shopping for this CPU for the combination of creator and gaming duties.

The most spectacular a part of AMD’s CPU efficiency dominance is that it manages to realize this utilizing much less energy and whereas operating cooler than Intel’s high chips. During the Cinebench 2024 multi-thread check I discovered that the 9950X3D maxed out at 200 watts of energy, in comparison with 239 watts on Intel’s 285K and a large 272 watts on the 14900K. The 9950X3D additionally hit a most of 81 levels Celsius throughout that very same check (cooler than even the 9800X3D), in comparison with 87C on the 285K and 94C on the 14900K.

AMD has raised the facility necessities of the 9950X3D to a 170-watt TDP in comparison with the 120-watt 7950X3D, however that matches the 170-watt TDP of the 9950X and 7950X, which equally supply 16-cores for creators however don’t moreover beat Intel in gaming.

Why would anybody purchase a flagship Intel CPU proper now? That’s what I stored pondering all through my assessments. There could possibly be some sure workloads that I haven’t examined the place Intel nonetheless pulls forward, or future app optimizations for Intel CPUs that might have an effect on efficiency, however for the overwhelming majority of creator and gaming duties AMD is forward the place it counts.

The solely downside for AMD is pricing. At $699, the 9950X3D is an costly processor, identical to the 7950X3D was when it debuted on the identical worth in 2023. You can choose up Intel’s 14900K at $499 on Best Buy, and even the most recent 285K for $619. There, AMD additionally has a $599 12-core 9900X3D that must also enhance creator efficiency over its historically gaming-focused X3D chips. But in case you’re prepared to spend additional on a desktop CPU, the 9950X3D is one of the best in the marketplace, seemingly with none of the efficiency sacrifices we’ve seen up to now.

AMD used to make you select between X-series chips for skilled workloads, or the X3D variations that dominated in gaming. The 9950X3D removes that awkward selection, with a chip that’s nice at gaming in addition to creator duties. AMD has effectively and really closed the hole on the productiveness facet to the purpose it’s simple to advocate the 9950XD as one of the best CPU, interval. If you simply desire a gaming PC, go for the 9800X3D, however both manner AMD is the plain selection if you need essentially the most highly effective CPU on your subsequent PC construct.

Photography by Tom Warren / The Verge