Review AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Review: Stunning gaming performance meets top-tier productivity

[Admin]

We put AMD's flagship $699 Ryzen 9 9950X3D through our full gamut of benchmarks, finding that it is among the fastest CPUs for gaming and productivity on the market.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Review: Stunning gaming performance meets top-tier productivity : Read more

 

[oofdragon]

RIP Intel 10th consecutive year

 

[salgado18]

Cons: pricing

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D scores another walk-in touchdown for AMD, easily earning its $699 price tag.

Come on, give it a 5 already! There are no cons, it's not a $1000 CPU, it has the perfect price for the performance and features. There won't be another 5 star-worthy processor for a long time.

(not being a fanboy, I'm just challenging the 5-stars-but-not-quite rating system)

 

[Gururu]

I hate to ask the question, but will these wins be evident on 5070 ti cards and below? I just don't see the majority of people who go for this chip also forking for a 5090.

 

[Crazyy8]

I don't think I'll have to upgrade from my 7800X3D for a while, and I believe others with similar chips will concur. The 9950X3D is compelling, but not enough. I got my chip for $266(from a bundle), 80% of the performance of a 9950X3D for ~30% of the price was a damn good deal. If I ever do upgrade, it'll be far in the future when I can also afford faster RAM and a new Mobo, perhaps even a new GPU, but that's just me dreaming

 

[TerryLaze]

RIP Intel 10th consecutive year

intel made 96.8bil in the last 10 years....
that's net income after all expenses including dividends and after all the losses they had.
intel is RIP-ing all the way to bank, laughing.

During the same last ten years amd made 8.5 bil.

10 years ago AMD was still on faildozer................................................................................................................................................

 

[Crazyy8]

intel made 96.8bil in the last 10 years....
that's net income after all expenses including dividends and after all the losses they had.
intel is RIP-ing all the way to bank, laughing.

During the same last ten years amd made 8.5 bil.

10 years ago AMD was still on faildozer................................................................................................................................................

It's going to affect them long term. They are losing space in the gaming market as they haven't released anything competitive as of recent, and they are losing space in the server market as AMD's Threadripper and Epyc lines exist. Intel is subsiding on locked-in server owners who are already on intel's platform, along with the sale of older(relative)CPUs in the gaming market. At least, that's what I think is happening. For all we know, Intel could just be cooking up the hardest comeback ever with all that money! I don't care who has the best, competition lowers prices and that's what we all need.

 

[Gururu]

The one review that includes Wukong actually shows it losing to 285K, 7800X3D and 9950X. Very strange, how come noone is running Wukong benchmark?

 

[salgado18]

It's going to affect them long term. They are losing space in the gaming market as they haven't released anything competitive as of recent, and they are losing space in the server market as AMD's Threadripper and Epyc lines exist. Intel is subsiding on locked-in server owners who are already on intel's platform, along with the sale of older(relative)CPUs in the gaming market. At least, that's what I think is happening. For all we know, Intel could just be cooking up the hardest comeback ever with all that money! I don't care who has the best, competition lowers prices and that's what we all need.

I honestly belive that, if Intel were cooking a comeback, they would be doing it since first-gen Zen. All they managed to do was to join two bad cores together, and disable hyperthreading. I'm not holding my breath for them, although the future might indeed bring surprises.

 

[TerryLaze]

I honestly belive that, if Intel were cooking a comeback, they would be doing it since first-gen Zen. All they managed to do was to join two bad cores together, and disable hyperthreading. I'm not holding my breath for them, although the future might indeed bring surprises.

You don't need to make a comeback if you are never gone in the first place...
Amd is still barely making any money,

and things are only going to get worse, they will have to pay for more advanced nodes and they will have to add more cores and maybe add x3d to more CPUs all of that is going to eat into amds earnings.

 

[jeremyj_83]

I hate to ask the question, but will these wins be evident on 5070 ti cards and below? I just don't see the majority of people who go for this chip also forking for a 5090.

In August I upgraded my old desktop from an i7-4770k to an R7 9700X. I kept the GPU during the upgrade, RX6700XT, and I have noticed higher FPS and consistently better lower FPS. Depending on what your current CPU is with something like the 5070Ti will matter quite a bit as to if you see huge gains or not.

 

[jeremyj_83]

You don't need to make a comeback if you are never gone in the first place...
Amd is still barely making any money,

and things are only going to get worse, they will have to pay for more advanced nodes and they will have to add more cores and maybe add x3d to more CPUs all of that is going to eat into amds earnings.

If you took a second to look at the financial reports you would see that your statement is completely bogus.
AMD Financial Report
Intel Financial Report
Note that Intel is the one LOSING money and AMD is MAKING money.

 

[Neilbob]

You don't need to make a comeback if you are never gone in the first place...
Amd is still barely making any money,

and things are only going to get worse, they will have to pay for more advanced nodes and they will have to add more cores and maybe add x3d to more CPUs all of that is going to eat into amds earnings.

I'm really tired of this bizarre obsession you have going on here. Before the current CPU generation, you'd harp on about how the performance between Intel and AMD was competitive, but with a hyper-focus on the efficiency of Intel (for which it was often necessary to spend an inordinate amount of time jiggering about). Lets not even get in to the other... issues... Intel had previously.

Now that the performance lead is no longer in doubt, you switch angles to 'Intel haz made all da monez so Intel is da BEST'. As if that is of any use to people seeking a mixture of performance, efficiency and cost. The only people really interested in that are parasitic stockholders and blind fanboys (delete as appropriate).

The only thing I agree on is that hyperbolic claims of Intel's imminent death are completely unfounded.

 

[Crazyy8]

You don't need to make a comeback if you are never gone in the first place...
Amd is still barely making any money,

and things are only going to get worse, they will have to pay for more advanced nodes and they will have to add more cores and maybe add x3d to more CPUs all of that is going to eat into amds earnings.

Just reread your first comment, which I misinterpreted. In 2016, Intel's revenue was 60 Billion and profit was 10 Billion. In 2016, AMD's revenue was 4 Billion and they lost 100 Million.

AMD's revenue was 25 Billion in 2024, Intel's was 50 Billion. AMD profited 2 Billion in 2024, Intel lost 17 Billion.

From how I see it, AMD is catching up(slowly)to intel's revenue and supersedes Intel in profit. As I said before, a large portion of Intel's revenue is people already on intels platform upgrading(the cost of switching to AMD not being worth wasting the investment in Intel).

Sources:
AMD 2016: https://ir.amd.com/news-events/pres...rth-quarter-and-annual-2016-financial-results
Intel 2016: https://www.intc.com/news-events/pr...orts-record-full-year-revenue-of-59-4-billion
AMD 2024: https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1236/amd-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2024-financial-results#:~:text=For the full year 2024,earnings per share of $1.00.
Intel 2024: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/INTC/intel/gross-profit#:~:text=Intel gross profit for the,a 19.19% decline from 2022.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Thanks for the through review, Paul. It sounds like the best choice would be the MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE, 9800X3D for gaming in 4K. It is currently available for $479 on Amazon and BB.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

I hate to ask the question, but will these wins be evident on 5070 ti cards and below? I just don't see the majority of people who go for this chip also forking for a 5090.

It will be much less of a delta, even at 1080p. At 1440p ultra, or maybe even 4K in some games, the gaps between the CPUs will also shrink a lot. My general advice is to try to correlate performance from our GPU benchmarks hierarchy (yes, it needs to be updated... the testing is in progress) with the CPU benchmarks hierarchy (which also needs updating). Easier said than done, naturally.

Come on, give it a 5 already! There are no cons, it's not a $1000 CPU, it has the perfect price for the performance and features. There won't be another 5 star-worthy processor for a long time.

It depends on what you're doing, and it depends on real-world pricing. For gaming, it's $250 extra for no real benefit overall. And there's every reason to expect the 9950X3D to cost more than MSRP for a bit. 9800X3D is relatively available at MSRP now, though, so there's hope that the 9950X3D won't be too badly understocked.

 

[wcbhkids]

I hate to ask the question, but will these wins be evident on 5070 ti cards and below? I just don't see the majority of people who go for this chip also forking for a 5090.

I upgraded my old i5 6600k to 9700x and kept the GPU for a while. While the average and peak FPS barely changed, minimum FPS almost doubled. That's an extreme example. As long as the CPU is capable it should have minimal impact on gaming.

 

[wcbhkids]

Looking at the chart, Intel is clearly the value gaming champ here.

 

[Crazyy8]

Looking at the chart, Intel is clearly the value gaming champ here.

Which CPU and what comparison did you use?

 

[Colif]

Pretty sure topic wasn't the old Intel vs AMD war. Can't we be more original for a change?

If you just game the 9800x3d looks good enough still. Other two might just make it easier to get.

 

[salgado18]

It depends on what you're doing, and it depends on real-world pricing. For gaming, it's $250 extra for no real benefit overall. And there's every reason to expect the 9950X3D to cost more than MSRP for a bit. 9800X3D is relatively available at MSRP now, though, so there's hope that the 9950X3D won't be too badly undunderstocked

So a perfect pick-up truck wouldn't be 5 stars, because if you only drive it to work there are better alternatives, and it may be more expensive at the store?

The Godfather is not a 5 star movie, because if you want more action there are shorter movies, and the theaters are sold out?

Shouldn't it (and all other products) be evaluated by their own merits for their target market at their proposed prices? Taking points off of a product because stores are selling for double MSRP is not fair to the product itself, as it is not its fault that prices are what they are. Also, it's a gaming + productivity cpu by design, of course the 9800X3D is cheaper but it's not the same target market.

Honest question: what would be a 5-star CPU? The 9950X3D at 9800X3D price?

 

[stuff and nonesense]

I think the takeaway from the reviews I’ve watched is the difference in the performance consistency against the 9950x in productivity.
The uptick in games was to be expected, the 7950x3d improved similarly where the cache was significant but lagged against the 7950x in productivity.

Is the cpu worth £700? Depends on your use case. For games alone it seems to be nip and tuck against the 9800x3d, there is no benefit. For programmes that leverage all 16 cores and where you might want some down time gaming it would be hard to look past this CPU.

For a nominal $80 over the competition which it matches in one or 2 reported benchmarks and crushes in others the 9950x3d makes a compelling case. Roughly 10% more expensive but better value in both gaming and multi threaded productivity.
Maybe not 5 stars, 4.99 perhaps?

 

[JamesJones44]

It's a bummer there are no 1440 numbers in the tests. I know things start to get GPU bound there, but I'm curious if there is any bump from these once someone moves up to the next tier of gaming resolutions.

 

[A Stoner]

Wow, getting tempting to do the upgrade. 20% more performance for $699 on a $10,000 total computer system.... Looks like I could sell my 7950X3D for about $450 on ebay and hand over $60 of that to ebay... total cost, time to swap and sell and $$360... Oh and pay for the shipping to the buyer. So, $380...

Tempting. Very very tempting.

 

[jeremyj_83]

It's a bummer there are no 1440 numbers in the tests. I know things start to get GPU bound there, but I'm curious if there is any bump from these once someone moves up to the next tier of gaming resolutions.

TPU has 1440 numbers.