AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Review

Just a fewer months aft the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D graced america with its presence, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D brings its 3D V-Cache exertion to a 16-core, 32-thread gaming processor that’s perfectly overkill for astir people, but volition person nary occupation keeping up with almighty graphics cards similar the Nvidia RTX 5090 oregon immoderate comes next.

However, each of those cores travel with a precocious $699 asking terms and a 170W powerfulness budget, making this processor hard to urge to anyone who isn’t already gathering an incredibly almighty (and expensive) gaming PC. For anyone else, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D conscionable makes much sense.

Specs and Features

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D fundamentally takes the aforesaid Zen 5 cores down the regular 9950X and pairs them with the caller 2nd-generation 3D V-Cache recovered successful the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. That means you inactive get fantabulous multi-core performance, but paired with amended gaming show acknowledgment to a much capacious cache.

Unlike the Ryzen 9 7950X3D that preceded it, though, the 3D V-Cache is present physically located beneath the existent CPU cores, alternatively than supra them. This seems similar a insignificant change, to beryllium sure, but it ends up making a large quality successful thermal performance. Because the CCD, oregon Core Complex Die, is what produces astir of the CPU’s heat, having it person to the Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS), means it’s capable to dissipate vigor much easily. And with AMD’s show algorithm taking thermal headroom into account, those little temperatures mean the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is capable to tally faster, longer.

The carnal determination of the cache is astir much than conscionable temperatures, though. Because it’s straight nether the CPU cores, determination is little region for the information to travel, which cuts down connected latency. Plus, due to the fact that the cache gets much space, AMD was capable to shove successful a ton of it, with the 9950X3D having 144MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. That’s the aforesaid magnitude arsenic successful the last-generation Ryzen 9 7950X3D, but it’s inactive overmuch much than you’re going to find successful immoderate non-X3D processor.

Both the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and 9950X3D person the aforesaid 170W TDP, though the archetypal 9950X has a higher imaginable PPT. Though, successful my testing, I recovered that some processors ended up peaking astatine 200W. Though, the 9950X3D did person a little highest temperature, lone reaching 79°C during the trial suite – though it was tested connected a antithetic cooler than the archetypal 9950X.

Luckily, due to the fact that the 9950X3D isn’t utilizing a caller chipset, it's compatible with immoderate AM5 AMD motherboard. AMD has travel retired and said it would enactment this socket until astatine slightest 2027, truthful you won’t person to interest astir getting locked into a dormant platform.

Performance

Before I dive into show results, I person to enactment that each CPUs were tested connected the aforesaid hardware, with 1 exception: the Ryzen 9 9950X. That was tested connected an Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard with a Corsair H170i 360mm AIO cooler. This quality successful hardware volition person an interaction connected performance, but it’s not apt to beryllium a large difference, particularly since everything is tested astatine banal settings.

This happened mostly due to the fact that 1 of the mounting screws for the Asus ROG Ryujin III 360mm cooler I was utilizing snapped erstwhile swapping to the 9950X. I volition retest the processors successful the coming weeks, and if thing is importantly antithetic I’ll beryllium definite to update this section.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is simply a 16-core, 32-thread gaming processor with an perfectly ridiculous 144MB of cache, truthful it shouldn’t beryllium excessively astonishing that it’s incredibly powerful. Even successful originative benchmarks, wherever the 9800X3D fell behind, the 9950X3D has nary occupation keeping up with the astir almighty chips connected the market.

What’s astonishing is however good the 9950X3D holds up against 9800X3D successful single-core workloads. For example, successful Cinebench 1T, the 9950X3D gets 2,254 points, compared to 2,033 points, making for a 10% improvement. Then, successful the 3DMark CPU Profile test, the 9950X3D scores 1,280 points, which comes successful striking region to the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K’s 1,351 points.

Of course, successful multi-threaded workloads, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is truly capable to agelong its legs, scoring 40,747 points successful Cinebench’s multi-core test. Just similar the 9800X3D, the 9950X3D does suffer immoderate top-end show successful multi-threaded applications, falling abbreviated of the 41,123 points from the 9950X and 42,245 points from the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, but it's worthy it for the boost successful gaming performance.

In Total War: Warhammer 3 astatine 1080p with Ultra settings, the 9950X3D is capable to get 274 fps erstwhile paired with the RTX 4090. Compared to 254 fps from the 9800X3D and 255 from the Core Ultra 9 285K, the 9950X3D easy takes the crown here. However, successful Cyberpunk 2077 astatine 1080p with the Ultra preset and ray tracing disabled, the 9950X3D delivers 229 fps, down from 240 fps from the 9800X3D. That’s a disappointing result, but it’s inactive mode faster than the 165 fps from the competing Intel processor.

Overkill?

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D mightiness beryllium the astir almighty gaming processor connected the marketplace close now, but that doesn’t mean it has a de facto pb connected each different spot connected the market. Most radical volition person nary occupation getting by with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which conscionable truthful happens to beryllium overmuch much much affordable astatine $479.

Instead, the 9950X3D is geared towards gamers that some play games and usage originative apps similar Photoshop and Premiere, the second of which sees a 15% show betterment implicit the 9800X3D. For a axenic gaming PC build, though, you’re astir apt amended disconnected redeeming that other $220 for a amended graphics card.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor astatine IGN and the PC components queen. You tin travel her @Jackiecobra