Review AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Review: Zen 5 at Full Power

[Admin]

We tested AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X in a battery of gaming and productivity benchmarks to compare it to competing Intel processors.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Review: Zen 5 at Full Power : Read more

 

[codex5600x]

Disappointed 🤮🤮🤮

 

[Amdlova]

Disappointed 🤮🤮🤮

What you expect from AMD next gen will be better

 

[HideOut]

Your story mentioned the USB 4.0 60GB/s with 3rd party chips, is that a new feature? its 40GB/s and then the newest standard of Thunderbolt is 80/80 (or 120 if you change one of the channels to make it asymetrical). There is no such thing as 60

And pretty much like every other enthusiest on here, I think th is is the most disapointing AMD launch...ever

 

[PaulAlcorn]

Your story mentioned the USB 4.0 60GB/s with 3rd party chips, is that a new feature? its 40GB/s and then the newest standard of Thunderbolt is 80/80 (or 120 if you change one of the channels to make it asymetrical). There is no such thing as 60

And pretty much like every other enthusiest on here, I think th is is the most disapointing AMD launch...ever

Good eye. Typo, fixed!

 

[btmedic04]

While this isn't like 6 generations of skylake, it sure feels a bit like it. This is why we need a competitive product from both companies in both performance and power

 

[Gururu]

It gets so confusing when the performance of new products falls between products from the past generation. Just make one chip with a true generational difference and charge $600.

 

[NinoPino]

Very disappointing the single thread and gaming results. Anyway I find suspicious results on some benchmarks.

There are regressions respect 7950X in games like "Far Cry 6" and "Hitman 3".

Regression also in Outlook score vs 7950X.

I found abnormal also the NAMD score that for the 9950X is 0.6328 days/ns while Phoronix achieved a 3.14 ns/day that is about twice the performance, for comparision the 14900k is in line with Phoronix.

I suspect there is something to analyse and refine on these benchmarks.

Agree that the driver problem with core parking feature is something unacceptable. But the need to reinstall the OS seems to me something exaggerated, must exist a better solution.

Also is historical the surpass in Adobe benchmarks.

Thanks for the review.

 

[redgarl]

There is obviously something fishy with Windows when you look at the results on Linux.

"The Ryzen 9 9950X was 33% faster than the Intel Core i9 14900K performance overall and even the Ryzen 9 9900X was 18% faster than the Core i9 14900K. For those still on AM4, the Ryzen 9 9950X was delivering 1.87x the performance of the Ryzen 9 5950X processor. These are some great gains found with the Ryzen 9 9900 series."

-Phoronix

 

[jeremyj_83]

Anyone know if Zen 5 will allow for a mclk/uclk 1:1 with DDR5-6400 RAM or will that max out at 6000 again?

 

[Blastomonas]

Whilst it maybe disappointing for some, it simply appears that AMD are continuing to separate out their gaming CPU range from their productivity range.

This appears to be a very powerful and efficient chip for multi core workloads that will likely get better when some of the usual teething problems are ironed out.

Nothing groundbreaking, just a bit better.

 

[jeremyj_83]

There is obviously something fishy with Windows when you look at the results on Linux.

"The Ryzen 9 9950X was 33% faster than the Intel Core i9 14900K performance overall and even the Ryzen 9 9900X was 18% faster than the Core i9 14900K. For those still on AM4, the Ryzen 9 9950X was delivering 1.87x the performance of the Ryzen 9 5950X processor. These are some great gains found with the Ryzen 9 9900 series."

-Phoronix

The differences in performance between Windows 11 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is quite striking. Does make you wonder what is Ubuntu doing differently that Windows and can Windows 11 get parity with Ubuntu on this front with just an update or will we have to wait for Win 12.

 

[Giroro]

The core parking issue reminds me of a problem I had back when I first got a Ryzen 7 3700X.
I installed the AMD Ryzen Master utility to mess around with the OC profiles, and then uninstalled it. From that point forward, the CPU was stuck in some kind of "Eco" mode and would not go over it's base clock. It would override my BIOS settings. The only way to get the CPU to perform normally was to reinstall the AMD master Utility and run it at all times with the standard profile. It had to be reset every time I booted the PC, and any time the Master utility was not running, the CPU would revert back to this eco mode. No amount of installs/uninstalls of the drivers/utility could get the CPU to go back to normal. If this was caused by some kind of change in the registry, I couldn't find it nor could I find any way to revert it.
I still have no idea what the utility did to the OS to break it in this way.
The only 2 solutions that could fix it was to create a new Windows profile, or to reinstall windows.
Since then, I refuse to install AMD Ryzen Master on any of my PCs.

So if the problem is related, maybe making and deleting a bunch of new Windows profiles will be faster for testing CPUs than reinstalling the OS over and over.

 

[m3city]

Disappointment? AMD spoiled you. Excuse me for simplification of numbers, but based on info here, a direct comparison to older sibling gives 10% more perf in gaming/apps with 10% lower power draw. Similar price. Same platform. And when drivers, firmware mature, then you may get even more. Now if I was about to update CPU from sth AM5 then I would have to be plainly dumb to choose 7950 over 9950.

 

[hannibal]

There is obviously something fishy with Windows when you look at the results on Linux.

"The Ryzen 9 9950X was 33% faster than the Intel Core i9 14900K performance overall and even the Ryzen 9 9900X was 18% faster than the Core i9 14900K. For those still on AM4, the Ryzen 9 9950X was delivering 1.87x the performance of the Ryzen 9 5950X processor. These are some great gains found with the Ryzen 9 9900 series."

-Phoronix

Also

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8W2JB4nJzY

 

[-Fran-]

For proper productivity apps, these two are really good. For the apps which can and do take advantage of the differences, it is absolutely noticeable. Check across multiple reviews and you'll see the trend. Probably still not an absolute best value for it, but if you need all the oomph you can get out of what is in the market, the 9950X is the CPU to get. Period.

Gaming being poopy, well, it sucks but it's less of an issue with these dual CCD SKUs than it is for the single CCD ones, since you want the cores for something other than gaming, right? Otherwise just wait for the VCache'd sibling(s) or get the 7800X3D since it's cheap and still will be plenty great when the Zen5 incarnation shows up. Too bad Zen5 doesn't have any "value darling", but be patient and they'll arrive. Otherwise, the 7600 (non-X) should be one of the best CPUs for that, alongside the 14500.

Great data as always Paul, so thanks a lot for the review!

Regards.

 

[WINTERLORD]

What does it mean in page 4 under testing an setup that amd has problems with its chipset drivers theyv known about for 18months

Does this mean the 7000 series an 9000 series will be faster when they fix there chipset drivers (I'm guessing if has taken them this long theyl just wait till the new boards)

 

[Amdlova]

asmedia chipset? what can go wrong?

 

[Makaveli]

"First, though, AMD needs to fix its drivers. The situation with the chipset drivers making irreversible changes to the operating system is nonsensical and problematic for end users and reviewers alike. AMD has known about this issue for 16 months, and despite endless public complaints from end users and the press, it hasn't been addressed. We've been told multiple times that Microsoft is responsible for delivering a fix (which obviously hasn't happened), but that explanation doesn't hold water: This is AMD's product, and therefore, it is AMD's responsibility to ensure that a fix is implemented."

can you explain this what issue is this?

 

[stuff and nonesense]

can you explain this what issue is this?

The x3d chips, 7950 and 7900 only have the on die cache on one ccd. It’s preferable to play games on that ccd.
In order to ensure that happens AMD have a convoluted way of implementing it, making it so that games work on the x3d ccd. Game bar, power profiles and drivers are involved.
Once set it’s reported to be impossible to reverse without a reinstall of windows. Therein lies the problem for people upgrading, reviewing etc. etc.
AMD have implemented this method with the 9950/9900 chips.
For the average user I’d guess that a reinstall every few years isn’t too taxing and with a cpu as potent as the 99xx an upgrade will be a few years down the road depending on how they age.

 

[NinoPino]

Whilst it maybe disappointing for some, it simply appears that AMD are continuing to separate out their gaming CPU range from their productivity range.

This appears to be a very powerful and efficient chip for multi core workloads that will likely get better when some of the usual teething problems are ironed out.

Nothing groundbreaking, just a bit better.

The problem is that for some cases is worst than 7950X, this is unacceptable.

 

[NinoPino]

The x3d chips, 7950 and 7900 only have the on die cache on one ccd. It’s preferable to play games on that ccd.
In order to ensure that happens AMD have a convoluted way of implementing it, making it so that games work on the x3d ccd. Game bar, power profiles and drivers are involved.
Once set it’s reported to be impossible to reverse without a reinstall of windows. Therein lies the problem for people upgrading, reviewing etc. etc.
AMD have implemented this method with the 9950/9900 chips.
For the average user I’d guess that a reinstall every few years isn’t too taxing and with a cpu as potent as the 99xx an upgrade will be a few years down the road depending on how they age.

Ok, but why the change is irreversible ? Never hear of something like this before with any peripheral. Usually there is some dll to replace or some registry setting to change and so on, but a reinstall of the OS is absurd. Think of a professionist that work with the PC and have plenty of softwares and peripherals to reinstall and reconfigure.

 

[thestryker]

There is obviously something fishy with Windows when you look at the results on Linux.

"The Ryzen 9 9950X was 33% faster than the Intel Core i9 14900K performance overall and even the Ryzen 9 9900X was 18% faster than the Core i9 14900K. For those still on AM4, the Ryzen 9 9950X was delivering 1.87x the performance of the Ryzen 9 5950X processor. These are some great gains found with the Ryzen 9 9900 series."

-Phoronix

There's a lot of AVX512 in their benchmarks, enough so that this was at the end of their review:

stay tuned for more Ryzen 9000 series benchmarks in an AVX-512 on/off comparison

 

[thestryker]

Anyone know if Zen 5 will allow for a mclk/uclk 1:1 with DDR5-6400 RAM or will that max out at 6000 again?

It'll be the same 6400 as Zen 4 (they changed this with the AGESA that introduced higher speed memory support), but it'll be silicon lottery. Quite frankly I'm a bit concerned about the memory support because GN had a 9600X that couldn't run EXPO and TPU had a 9900X that wasn't stable with higher speed DRAM without a SoC voltage increase. If that crops up with reviewers it makes me a bit leery about how the overall CPUs are.

 

[thestryker]

Disappointment? AMD spoiled you. Excuse me for simplification of numbers, but based on info here, a direct comparison to older sibling gives 10% more perf in gaming/apps with 10% lower power draw. Similar price. Same platform. And when drivers, firmware mature, then you may get even more. Now if I was about to update CPU from sth AM5 then I would have to be plainly dumb to choose 7950 over 9950.

Zen 5 isn't actually 10% faster in gaming even when you compare Zen 4 using lower speed memory. I'm also not sure why anyone would buy something at a premium price today in hopes the performance would be better tomorrow. These CPUs simply don't deliver the amount of performance and efficiency required to justify their price premium unless you're running AVX512 workloads.

The Zen 5 parts are good and in time will likely supplant Zen 4, but right now they're just not very impressive. This is very much like the sort of uplifts we saw gen on gen while Intel was controlling the market. In this case paying 25% more over the prior generation to get this little just doesn't seem very logical.