AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D review

Nine months ago, in July 2024, AMD launched its Zen 5 CPU architecture and the Ryzen 9000-series of processors. Compared to the previous generation, there wasn't a significant difference in performance, although subsequent Windows updates and motherboard BIOS revisions did improve matters a touch. For PC gamers, though, the real interest was elsewhere and we had to wait until November to get our hands on the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

AMD already held the gaming CPU crown with its Ryzen 7 7800X3D but the new chip easily grabbed the gaming tiara and firmly jammed it onto its head. But now there's a new Ryzen chip, one that's even faster than the 9800X3D in games and offers far superior performance in productivity and content creation tasks.

It is, of course, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and having spent a whole week pushing it through every possible benchmark I could think of, I can tell you now, it is the new champion of CPUs, gaming or otherwise.

Well, almost.

Let me start by explaining what the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is all about. Essentially, it's nothing more than a Ryzen 9 9950X—same cores, same clocks, same power—with one of the CCDs (Core Complex Dies) being home to a slice of 2nd generation 3D V-Cache. Or you can think of it being a Ryzen 9 9800X3D, but with an extra eight cores, 16 threads, a higher boost clock, and more power.

Perhaps a better way of looking at it is that the 9950X3D is a 7950X3D, but with all its foibles fixed. Although they both have the same boost clock of 5.7 GHz, the new chip can sustain a higher clock speed for much longer due to having a much higher power limit. That's come about due to how AMD now bonds the 3D V-Cache slice to its CCDs.

Previously, the extra L3 cache was bonded to the top of the chiplet and while that was relatively easy to implement, the sliver of silicon acted as a thermal barrier so AMD had to reduce either the clock speeds or the power level to prevent the chip from overheating.

In the case of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the cache is underneath the CCD, so the core's heat now has a direct path to the heatspreader and cooling solution.

Another issue that plagued the 7950X3D was the fact that games could only take advantage of the 3D V-Cache if their threads were processed by the correct CCD (i.e. the one with the extra cache). That requires the use of Windows Game Bar, along with special drivers to give the operating system's thread management system a helping hand.

However, it didn't always work, but AMD reckons it has the problem licked with an updated Provising Packages Service (PPS) and 3D V-Cache Performance Optimizer.

These two pieces of software now correctly recognise what processor is installed (so no more reinstalling Windows, just because you've stuck an X3D dual-CCD CPU in your gaming PC) and correctly identify when a game is running and shoves all its threads onto the 3D V-Cache core chiplet (specifically, CCD0).

And in cases where that's still an issue, AMD now also has an Application Compatibility Database, which lists games that aren't picked up properly by the PPS, and the thread management system then just limits how many threads can be generated in the first place. The end result being that, no matter what, they'll end up being run on CCD0.

However, one thing that hasn't changed is that CCD0, the chiplet with the 3D V-Cache, still doesn't boost as high as CCD2 in certain loads. I ran a cycle of single thread tests across each core individually, and all those in CCD0 peaked at 5.5 GHz, whereas those in CCD1 would consistently hit the 5.7 GHz maximum.

That means games are never going to enjoy AMD's declared boost speed for the processor, so while the Ryzen 9 9950X3D seems much faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D on paper, in reality, it's only 0.3 GHz or 6% quicker. At least it won't matter for any all-core workout, such as offline rendering or video encoding, as all the cores will be running around 5.0 to 5.2 GHz.

Gaming

PC Gamer test rig
Motherboard: Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master (N10 BIOS) | Cooler: MSI MAG LiquidCore I360 | RAM: 32 GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6000 CAS28 | GPU: GeForce RTX 4070 | Storage: 1 TB Samsung 990 Pro | PSU: Corsair RM850x Shift 850 W | OS: Windows 11 Pro 24H2 | Chassis: Open platform | Monitor: Acer XB280HK

For testing the performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X in our CPU benchmark suite, AMD not only sent in a processor sample but also a motherboard, RAM kit, and an SSD pre-loaded with Windows and AMD drivers. For the original Zen 5 launch, there were various problems with system configurations used by reviewers and those used by AMD's engineers, so getting a full, ready-to-use package helped get around this problem.

I used a different SSD and installed my own copy of Windows, just to see if there was any noticeable difference, but I got the same results in every test that you'll see below. That said, my second installation tried to install newer drivers than those provided by AMD and they resulted in some games not running correctly, so it's clear that AMD hasn't rolled out the new PPS, optimizer, and database just yet.

To ensure a fair comparison, I retested the Ryzen 9 9950X in the same system, and used the AMD-supplied RAM kit in an Intel Z890 platform for testing a Core Ultra 9 285K. The 9800X3D results are from when we first reviewed the chip and it's possible that a more recent motherboard BIOS, fully up-to-date Windows installation, and the same RAM kit would give marginally better figures. But as you can see below, it doesn't really matter.

Ignoring Total War: Warhammer 3 for the moment, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is either on par or slightly faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Exactly as you'd expect it to be, given all that I've mentioned so far in this review. In the cases where the 9950X3D takes the lead, it's almost certainly down to a combination of the 9950X3D's higher clock speeds and slightly snappier RAM.

As to what is going on with Warhammer 3, though, it's obviously a game that doesn't benefit from the presence of 3D V-Cache, but you'd think it would show some gains from running a processor with higher clock speeds. I tried all kinds of things, such as different power profiles, fullscreen vs windowed, and thread limiting, to see if it would make any difference but to no avail.

This isn't the first time that Warhammer 3 has thrown up some odd behaviour and it's a notable entry on AMD's Application Compatibility Database, so it's almost certainly not something we're doing wrong.

In terms of capability and price tag, the nearest competitor to the 9950X3D, outside of AMD's portfolio, is the Core Ultra 9 285K—and it's a considerably weaker gaming CPU. The difference between AMD's X3D processors and Intel's best Arrow Lake chip in Baldur's Gate 3 and Factorio is quite shocking to see.

One feature offered by the Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master motherboard is an X3D Turbo Mode. Activating this in the BIOS disables CCD1 and simultaneous multithreading, turning the 16-core, 32-thread processor into an eight-core, eight-thread oddity. Running through the gaming benchmark suite produced some interesting results.

Just flick back and forth between the two charts above and you'll see exactly what I mean. Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3 enjoy very minor improvements, whereas Warhammer 3 takes a bit of a beating in its 1% low frame rates. Homeworld 3, on the other hand, sees a 24% gain to its average fps and an astonishing 28% increase in the low frame rate.

Not that I'd recommend using the setting just for one game. After all, what's the point in spending all that money on a monstrously capable CPU, only to remove most of its functionality for a single game.

Productivity and content creation

There's only one reason why anyone would really consider the Ryzen 9 9950X3D for their desktop PC and it's all about versatility. If that rig is used for more than just gaming, such as editing videos and photos, doing offline rendering or 3D animation, then having a processor with lots of cores is a must.

This is something that the Ryzen 9 9950X already excels at, apart from Cinebench, which the Core Ultra 9 285K was marginally better at—was being the operative word here, as the Ryzen 9 9950X and 9950X3D now hold that crown together. They also take it in turns at being the best in the other benchmarks.

Both chips are notably superior to the 285K in rendering, file compression and decompression, video encoding, and photo editing. They're better than the 9800X3D for an obvious reason—they have twice the cores to throw at such tasks.

What's important to note here is that the 9950X3D isn't compromised to any noticeable degree by having one CCD with lower peak clocks, compared to the 9950X which can ramp up both chiplets to the same 5.7 GHz maximum.

Conclusion

So far, we've seen that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has 9800X3D-like gaming performance, for the most part, and 9950X-like productivity speed. It really does seem to be the ideal jack-of-all-trades chip, though there are some caveats.

The first being that AMD's most expensive desktop CPU is nowhere near as power-efficient as the 9800X3D and Intel's 285K in gaming. That should come as no surprise, of course, because even though the non-3D V-Cache chiplet isn't really doing anything in games, it will still consume power while chipping away on background tasks.

That also means it runs hotter than the eight-core X3D and Arrow Lake chips—not massively so but enough to make you think twice about what cooler would be best to pair with the 9950X3D. I used a 360 mm AIO liquid cooler and that coped well enough, though I wouldn't want to try my luck with an air cooler in heavy processing workloads. An average power consumption of just under 200 W in Cinebench is a fair amount of heat to shift for any cooling system.

Another thing that has to be discussed is the fact that the 9950X3D's dual CCD nature still causes issues in some games, despite AMD's work on improving its drivers and thread management system. It may be the case that this is something that can never be fully overcome but at least it seems to be less of a problem than it was with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. For the 9800X3D, though, it's not a problem at all.

Lastly, there's the matter of the price tag. At $699, it's $50 more than the Ryzen 9 9950X (though this chip is available for a lot less now) and it's $100 more expensive than the Core Ultra 9 285K. While it's nothing like the $1,300 days of the Athlon 1000 (pretty much 24 years ago to the day), it's still a huge chunk of money to hand over for a desktop CPU. It's a product for a niche market and it's priced accordingly.

The 9950X3D is, though, a far superior processor to the 285K and for the right person, that extra $100 will be a small price to pay for the better gaming performance and market-leading content creation chops. For common-or-garden PC gamers, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is still the one to pick.