AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: The New Performance King

Today we finally get to testify you how the Ryzen 9 3950X performs. Earlier this year at Computex we weren't sure if we'd meet a 16-core AM4 CPU happen, but AMD put that ane to balance when it appear the 3950X later at E3. Originally due to hit shelves in September, AMD pushed the release a couple of months and is now slated to become on sale Nov 25. That means you get to see all the operation figures and data well alee of launch.

That'south good news considering the 3950X is not inexpensive. At $750 it still does well relative to the Intel contest though. The viii-core 9900K, for example, currently retails for $500, and then paying 50% more than for 100% more cores, that might cease up being a rather expert bargain.

The Ryzen 9 3950X does wait to span the gap between mainstream and high-end desktop platforms, at to the lowest degree existing high-end desktop platforms. Third-gen Threadripper will modify that later this calendar month. But the signal is that never earlier have we had such an farthermost CPU on a mainstream platform, and this is certainly the most expensive mainstream platform CPU nosotros've seen in a long time.

The Core i7-2600K came in at $320, the 4790K retailed for $340, the 8700K pushed up to $360 and at present we accept the Core i9-9900K at around $500. The Ryzen nine 3900X was a big deal for AMD, matching Intel at the $500 price point, and legitimately as well, not like what they did with the 1800X.

... the 3950X puts AMD in the position to command a toll premium for desktop calculating. Simply is their new 16-core/32-thread monster worth the asking price?

Just the 3950X goes beyond that and that puts AMD in the position to command a price premium for desktop computing. Merely is their new 16-cadre/32-thread monster worth the asking price? Given what we've seen from the 3900X, yous'd think it would exist if you lot tin put all those cores to work, merely of course we'll run a few tests and go to the lesser of it.

In terms of specifications, the 3950X is similar to the 3900X: you get 16 cores opposed to 12, and the boost clock speed has been raised past 100 MHz, presumably due to the 3950X getting better silicon. But in order to go along within the 105w TDP, the base clock has been dropped from iii.8 GHz down to iii.5 GHz, though nosotros're expecting the all-core clock frequency to exist like.

Another divergence between these two CPUs is packaging: the 3900X comes arranged with the Wraith Prism RGB cooler, while the 3950X doesn't come with a cooler at all, so you volition demand to factor in the added cost of a quality libation.

For testing we're using the new Corsair HydroX cooling gear on the Gigabyte X570 Aorus Xtreme. For the block nosotros've used the XC7, the XR5 360mm radiator and the XD5 pump/reservoir philharmonic, all on the Praxis WetBench. Somewhen we'll upgrade all this into a proper examination example but due to limited time this is what we have for at present. We've also used this setup to re-examination the 3900X, 3800X and 3700X, updating the results where necessary. We're also using DDR4-3200 CL14 retentiveness for all current AMD and Intel processors.

The eighth and 9th-gen Intel Core processors were benchmaked on the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Ultra, cooled using the Corsair Hydro H115i RGB Platinum 280mm all-in-ane liquid cooler. Note the Intel CPUs are not TDP restricted, so we are showing the best instance scenario for out of the box operation. Finally, the graphics bill of fare of choice was the MSI Trio GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Permit's now become into the benchmark results...

Benchmarks

You lot can meet why Intel has been trying to downplay Cinebench'south relevance for CPU operation, the 3950X is a whopping 89% faster than the 9900K, so for those of you who utilise Maxon's Movie theatre 4D, the 3950X is well and truly worth the premium over the 9900K. That's quite the Cinebench R20 score.

The 3950X was too 27% faster than the 3900X and while that does make it worse value, if time is money and so the premium will be hands justified. While I suspect 2950X owners volition be holding out for 3rd-gen Threadripper, those thinking of snapping up the 2nd-gen 16-core processor will want to get it for $500 or less given the 3950X is near 30% faster. Of course the 2950X offers more than PCI Limited lanes, but if you can brand do with an X570 board, then the 3950X will be the better option.

That iv.vii GHz max single core heave clock allowed the 3950X to score 529 pts out of the box, a 2% increase over the 3900X, which makes sense given it should exist clocking around two% higher in this test. Perhaps more than impressive is the fact that information technology actually edged out the 9900KS, making it the fastest desktop CPU in this unmarried core test.

Here's a quick wait at sustained retentiveness bandwidth operation and equally expected the 3950X is very like to all other tertiary-gen Ryzen CPUs that we've tested and so far.

WinRAR functioning is drastically improved with the tertiary-gen Ryzen but even then the 12 and 16-core models nevertheless trail Intel'south 8-core 9900K and are some way behind the 12-cadre 9920X.

The 3950X too didn't announced to amend upon the 3900X which is interesting, though we saw a similar thing with the Threadripper 2920X and 2950X, just to a slightly lesser degree.

The 3950X is just 2% faster than the 3900X in vii-Zip's compression test and that meant while it was 8% faster than the 2950X, information technology was still 5% slower than the Core i9-9920X.

It'due south decompression work where Ryzen has always excelled and hither the 3950X blows everything out of the water, beating the 9920X by an incredible 73% margin. It was besides 25% faster than the 2950X and a piddling over 30% faster than the 3900X, and then a great issue for the new AM4 16-core processor.

Unfortunately we see little to no performance proceeds over the 3900X when it comes to encoding performance in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2022 edition. When compared to the 3900X, the 3950X was just 3% faster which is surprising given they operated at similar clock speeds in this examination and CPU utilization was over ninety% with both parts.

That said if nosotros compare each processor next with the Windows Job managing director open, you can quite clearly run across 4 of the 3950X cores aren't being fully utilized and this is why the 3950X can't farther altitude itself from the 3900X.

The 3950X also performs well in the V-Ray benchmark, offer almost 30% more functioning than the Core i9-9920X and over fourscore% more than than the 9900K, and so another actually solid upshot for the red team.

Side by side up we have Corona where the 3950X was 25% faster than the 2950X which is a huge pace forrard. It was near xxx% faster than Intel's Cadre i9-9920X, as well as the 12-core 3900X. It too blew Intel'south mainstream 9900K out of the water as it was 71% faster.

The final application criterion we ran was Blender Open Data and here the 3950X offered a 29% comeback over the 3900X and 37% more than functioning than the 2950X. It as well decimated the 9920X by a 56% margin and the 9900K by an 87% margin.

It's also crazy to think that virtually 3 years agone, the Core i7-7700K was the flagship mainstream desktop part, the 3950X is roughly 300% faster, for 130% more money.

Ability Consumption

Something unusual almost the Ryzen 9 3950X and something that makes it special is merely how efficient it is. Despite offering 29% more than performance than the 3900X in the Blender benchmark, the 3950X actually consumed a few watts less, that'due south absolutely insane. This also means for an 87% operation heave over the 9900K, you lot're looking at identical power consumption.

Something unusual about the Ryzen 9 3950X and something that makes it special is simply how efficient it is.

We've triple checked these results merely to make sure, the 3950X and 3900X along with the other Ryzen processors were tested on the aforementioned board, with the same BIOS using the same settings and cooling. We also cross referenced the results with the folks over at Gamers Nexus and they found very like ability consumption figures, so we're confident in the accuracy of these numbers.

So why does the 3950X only push full system consumption to the same level equally the 3900X? In a give-and-take: binning. It's merely better silicon and therefore tin operate at much lower voltages. Whereas the 3900X typically ran at between i.275 and 1.3v, the 3950X ran at merely one.150v, meaning the 3900X required around thirteen% more voltage on average. Combine this with a 3% increase in clock speed and this is why the 3950X and 3900X consume like levels of power.

Gaming Benchmarks

Time for some games. Beginning up is Battleground V using the DX12 API. Previously we had tested using DX11, so these are all updated results for this review. Every bit y'all can meet beneath, the 3950X is a whisker faster than the 3900X and that fabricated it merely a fraction slower than the 8700K and 9700K while information technology was 12% slower than the 9900K when comparison ane% low performance.

It was almost thirty% faster than the 9920X when comparison 1% lows, for some reason Intel'due south current high-end desktop CPUs often meet performance problems when gaming.

Bumping the resolution upward to a more realistic scenario at 1440p with the RTX 2080 Ti, the 3950X is now only 7% slower than the 9900K when comparing 1% low information and again it basically matched the 9700K and 8700K. Again performance was likewise much more consequent when compared to the Cadre i9-9920X.

Functioning with Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a little lackluster, here the 9900K was 16% faster for the average frame rate while the 9920X was 11% faster, the 3950X was as well only a single frame faster than the 3900X.

Jumping up to 1440p nosotros find the limits of the RTX 2080 Ti when using the highest quality preset. This was achieved by non merely the 3950X, but also the 3900X and 3800X, every bit well as Intel Core i7-9700K and 9900KS. Oddly despite being much faster at 1080p the 9900K, 8700K and 9920X fall slightly behind at 1440p and nosotros have seen this kind of affair earlier.

The Ryzen 9 3950X performs very well in The Division 2 at 1080p, basically matching the boilerplate frame rate of Intel's best, while offering a slightly higher 1% depression outcome, though this is very much in line with what the 3900X delivered.

Bizarrely though, increasing the resolution messes everything up for Ryzen, as well as Intel's Core i9-9920X. The 3950X is now upwardly to 10% slower than the 9700K, 9900K and 8700K, this is a very unexpected result given what was seen at 1080p.

The 3950X was competitive in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, pushing the 2080 Ti within a few frames of what it achieved with the 9900KS while maintaining the same 1% low result.

Boilerplate frame rate performance did drop abroad a lilliputian for the Ryzen processors at 1440p, though they managed slightly stronger 1% depression results. In fact, in our criterion pass the 3950X, besides as the other Ryzen CPUs test, all provided very tight margins between the 1% low and average frame rates. This resulted in polish performance, though the higher-terminate Intel processors were also very smooth.

The F1 2022 results take likewise been updated with the DX12 API and here we encounter some positive results for the 3950X as it edged out both the Core i7-9700K and Cadre i9-9900K, losing out only to the 9900KS past a small margin.

Oddly though increasing the resolution sees the Ryzen processors drop off, as well every bit the Core i9-9920X and this is very much like what we saw when testing The Division two. It's not a massive drop off, but given the 1080p results you lot would expect the 3950X to exist trailing almost all Intel CPUs by a v% margin at 1440p.

The final game we're going to expect at is Borderlands three and again the 3950X tin can exist seen performing well at 1080p. Here it matches the 9900KS, though it was no faster than the 3900X.

Fifty-fifty at 1440p it only matched the 3900X and despite being 2-3 fps down on the Intel CPUs, it was 1-2 fps faster for the 1% low upshot. So while this might not be the most CPU demanding game out there, the 3950X does well.

Overclocking

Here's a quick look at overclocking performance, using 1.325v the 3950X ran 100% stable at an all-cadre of 4.3 GHz. It's possible we could have pushed it to 4.4 GHz, simply with limited fourth dimension to validate the overclock we stopped at iv.3 GHz. Nosotros nevertheless broke the 10K bulwark with a Cinebench score of 10046 pts, and then that's a 9% operation crash-land. We likewise found that only enabling PBO additional performance by 5%.

The gains in Blender were milder, here PBO boosted performance past 3%, while the manual overclock improved things by a 7% margin.

If yous're afterwards maximum functioning at the cost of everything else, then overclocking the 3950X makes sense, simply if you care at all virtually efficiency, and so information technology actually doesn't.

For the small iii-five% performance increase that PBO offers, you're looking at over a 25% increase in full system consumption then an nigh 40% increment for the four.3 GHz manual overclock.

Due to limited time, nosotros don't have a whole heap of thermal data for the 3950X, at to the lowest degree non with a range of different cooling solutions. For now we just have the data with the custom Corsair HydroX loop and for comparison we accept thermal data with the 3900X.

Stock the 3950X peaked at just 64 C after an hour long Blender stress test in a 21c room. The CPU ran at 1.150v and maintained a clock speed of 4025 MHz past the stop of the stress test.

For comparing, the 3900X peaked at 68 C under the same conditions, meaning the 3950X actually ran a tad cooler. The 3900X did maintain a clock speed of 4100 MHz, though as we saw when measuring power consumption, the voltage was a bit college which resulted in the added heat.

In other words, any cooler capable of tackling the 3900X, will have no consequence with the 3950X.

The New Operation King, Just Who Is It For?

Going into this review, nosotros were excited to finally examination the Ryzen ix 3950X, however we weren't expecting any large surprises. It'southward basically a 3900X with four extra cores. All things beingness equal, information technology'll be upward to 33% faster and we certainly saw that in applications such every bit vii-zip and Blender.

But when we measured power consumption, that'south when we discovered just how impressive the 3950X is. Nosotros're still blown abroad by the fact that information technology offers almost xxx% more than operation, yet consumes a few watts less than the 3900X. The 3950X really showcases what'due south possible with TSMC'due south 7nm process.

This comeback in silicon quality does make the 12% price premium you lot pay per core for the 3950X over the 3900X worth information technology. Every bit a side note though, if you match the 3900X and 3950X'south clock speeds and voltage, the 16-cadre model does consume around 30-40% more power every bit yous'd expect as it packs 33% more than cores.

Over the past calendar month or so, we've been asked a lot whether you should wait for the 3950X or just snap up a discounted Threadripper 2950X. Our advice has been to wait for 3950X reviews and nosotros're happy that's what we suggested given how adept the 3950X is. Correct now the TR 2950X retails for $680 but it's effectually xxx% slower and pushes total system consumption 30% higher. So in terms of performance and efficiency, the 2950X is the junior option except for those actress PCIe lanes.

The Ryzen nine 3950X also has the advantage of more affordable motherboards. You tin can throw this matter on a decent B450 lath for a little over $100 and we'll be doing simply that in a new review soon. Meanwhile a decent X399 lath costs around $300. Ultimately nosotros feel for most people the 3950X and 3900X have put downwardly the 1st and second-gen Threadripper series.

Equally for Intel, the R9 3950X is clearly a much amend CPU than the $1,050 Core i9-9920X. However, that part will be refreshed very soon as the Core i9-10920X for simply $700. While the 12-cadre Intel CPU consumes a like level of power, it's often heavily outgunned in terms of raw performance. There are instances where the 10920X will win, but only by a slim margin, while there are enough more instances where the 3950X completely buries it. For a similar level of workstation performance you lot'll need to spend $800 on the 10940X, or $i,000 on the 10980XE to beat AMD's finest AM4 CPU.

AMD has delivered a "mainstream" AM4 part that can rival and outcompete the all-time loftier-end desktop CPUs Intel has to offer. This explains why 3rd-gen Threadripper is and so damn expensive equally AMD looks to divide their mainstream and high-finish desktop platforms. Just with the $1,400 24-cadre 3960X offering more PCIe lanes than near of you lot'll know what to practise with, and twice the L3 cache of the 3950X, third-gen Threadripper is going to exist truly high-end desktop stuff.

Nosotros'll go the chance to evaluate third-gen Threadripper after this month, along with Intel's Pour Lake-X series. Merely for now we're seriously impressed with what the 3950X offers at $750. It's an exceptionally adept choice for anyone subsequently a powerful 16-cadre processor.