AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor with 3D V-Cache technology, 16 cores/32 skewed threads, Zen 4 architecture, 144MB cache, 120W TDP, up to 5.7GHz boost frequency, Socket AMD 5, DDR5 & PCIe 5.0

Product Information

The Ryzen 9 7950X3D pretty much matches the 7950X in Blender and Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere tests, though it lags a bit in VRay 5 (though not by that much). Where it really shines though is with HandBrake 1.6. This is one of the creative tests we use where we get to measure it's true real-world performance on a creative workload, especially one that is highly CPU dependent.

If we're talking about this being AMD's take on the perfect gaming processor, we need to step outside of the 1080p gaming environment. We traditionally test at this lower resolution for our CPU game benchmarking so we are able to highlight the difference in performance down to the actual processors. As you go higher in the resolution scale you end up relying ever more on the power of the graphics card, to the point where you cease being able to discern meaningful performance deltas between chip architectures.

Recently Viewed

There are some tradeoffs to attaining the leading gaming performance, though — some games don’t benefit from the 3D V-Cache, and the chip isn’t as fast in productivity apps as competing Intel chips. The 7950X3D also suffers from many of the pain points we’ve already seen with the fledgling AM5 platform — the motherboard ecosystem is more expensive than Intel’s offerings, and the strict requirement for DDR5 significantly increases costs compared to Intel’s DDR4-friendly platform. Jan 5th 2023 AMD Ryzen 7000X3D Announced, Claims Total Dominance over Intel "Raptor Lake," Upcoming i9-13900KS Deterred (177) When trying to come to an overall assessment of these chips' relative performance, it's better to look at the measurable performance gains between chips across different tests. This makes for a much more sensible average when all is said and done than averaging absolute scores where one CPU test with one very large result can badly skew a final average. Testing a processor is arguably one of the most involved processes of any component I review because there are so many things to measure and quantify.

Cache has been an essential and highly influential part of computers for decades now, and its importance is unquestionable. What is questionable, however, and what has been questioned since the beginning, is how much cache is enough. Some argue that you can never have enough, but this is illogical. More cache means a larger, or in this case, an extra, chip—and that leads to higher costs. Past a certain point, it becomes questionable if the CPU will even be able to use or take advantage of all the cache you have. AMD's X670E, X670, B650E and B650 motherboards all support Ryzen 7000 out of the box. X670E offers PCIe 5.0 throughout, X670 offers PCIe 5.0 for storage and graphics, and B650 offers PCIe 5.0 for storage only. In general, as you progress from X670E to B650, expect fewer features, fewer PCIe lanes and lower prices - although no doubt we'll see cheaper X670E and premium B650 boards that will blur the lines between the four different chipsets. X670 and X670E debut in September, while B650 and B650E arrive in October. Anandtech has a great article that goes more into depth on the differences between the various chipsets. What memory is best for Ryzen 7000? You also really can't discount the performance-per-watt that you're getting with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which is at least twice what you'd get with the Intel Core i9-13900K and about 55% better than the 7950X. Quite simply, AMD does so much more with far less power than either of the competing flagship processors, and you don't have to accept lower performance as a tradeoff. Much more often than not, you're getting a substantially faster processor in practice — especially for gaming — making it very hard to deny the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D its due.Many will draw parallels between AMD’s approach and Intel’s Thread Director, the latter of which steers threads to either high-performance or efficiency cores in the company’s x86 hybrid CPUs. The two mechanisms have plenty of similarities, but as you would expect, each company has a unique implementation with different goals. Synthetic single and multi-core benchmarks test the performance of specific instruction sets and processor operations like floating-point calculations using benchmark tools like GeekBench, Cinebench, and PassMark. Creative performance is a measure of how well the processor performs in several popular creative workloads like Handbrake, Blender, and Adobe Photoshop. Where possible, I explicitly disable GPU accelerated operations or test rendering using the CPU by itself. By this measure, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D outperforms the 7950X by about 10% and the 13900K by about 6% when I average out all of the degrees of difference between the three chips, across every test. But even then, the demonstrably better performance of the 7950X3D can be somewhat obscured, since Intel especially benefits from much higher synthetic benchmark scores that don't really translate cleanly into actual real-world performance where the 7950X3D is simply the better processor overall. If the software detects a certain high level of thread utilisation, however, it will spin up that dormant chiplet and bring it online if its extra core count is needed.

Curious as to what games are struggling to run on PC and also what PCs are struggling to run games? Also, are those affected games also having issues on consoles? This difference is even more telling when it comes to gaming performance. Compared to the 7950X, the 7950X3D performs like it is fully one to two generations ahead of its non-3D V-Cache counterpart with roughly 20% to 25% better gaming performance at 1080p. Likewise, when it comes to the Intel Core i9-13900K, the 7950X3D lands about 16% to 19% faster on average, but some games will perform substantially better, and the 7950X3D is never that far behind the 13900K when it does occasionally lose out. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is going to be the most powerful Zen 4 CPU available, and is slated to go head-to-head with the Intel 13th Gen flagships. Its performance speaks for itself, however the only issue you might face is the price. The score in 3DMark obtained by the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is slightly lower than the one obtained by the Ryzen 9 7950X, but by so slim of a margin that it's essentially a tie. These two chips tie in other tests as well but, in F1 22, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D holds a decisive advantage over its similarly named counterpart while also narrowly passing the Intel competition.You'll also benefit from the advantages of AMD's next-generation 3D V-Cache technology, ensuring minimal latency and further elevating your gaming experience. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X also offers you great performance at a more affordable rate. Acquire the most cutting-edge AMD hardware with this system, featuring a swift AMD R9 processor paired with a premium X670 motherboard. The remaining components are also of top-notch quality and perfectly matched. With 32GB of DDR5-5600 RAM, there's ample capacity for handling even the most demanding multitasking scenarios. AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D: Best CPUs UK The chipset drivers also install the AMD PPM Provisioning File Driver, which improves performance by parking the slowest cores when Game Mode or Mixed Reality Mode is active. In effect, this shuts down the ‘standard’ CCD when Game Mode or Mixed Reality Mode is active, thus constraining latency-sensitive workloads (like games) to the 3D V-Cache chiplet. This improves the cache hit rate and reduces high-latency communication between the two CCDs, resulting in faster performance for workloads that don’t need access to (or benefit from) all the cores. When you factor in the cost of upgrading to the new AM5 platform, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D only makes sense if you are upgrading from an AMD Zen 3 or 11th-gen Intel processor or earlier, since you'll need to buy a whole new setup to get a newer processor from either brand. If you've got a 12th-gen Intel chip, though, making the jump to the AM5 platform for this processor alone is going to be a pricey upgrade. What's also so notable about the 7950X3D is that while Intel's latest processors have been outstanding, that performance is far more a function of just throwing power at the problem, literally, than it is some kind of technological magic behind the scenes.

AMD’s Collaborative Processor Performance Control (CPPC2) interface already ranks the fastest cores as the highest priority, enabling the OS to schedule threads into these ‘preferred’ cores first. Not all Ryzen cores can reach the rated peak frequency, so this tech is critical to ensure strong performance in lightly threaded apps, like gaming.

Frequently asked questions

Starting with the Ryzen 7000 series, AMD began adding low-power IGPs to all of its Ryzen desktop processors. (Before, it was limited to the subset known as the G-series.) But this has been a bittersweet change since its introduction.