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Zen 5 at Full Power
The $650 Ryzen 9 9950X delivers generational increases in gaming and productivity workloads, but competitive price pressure from both Intel and AMD’s own processor lineups could make it a tough sell outside of very specific use cases.First, though, AMD needs to fix its drivers. The situation with the chipset drivers making irreversible changes to the operating system is nonsensical and problematic for end users and reviewers alike. AMD has known about this issue for16 months, and despite endless public complaints from end users and the press, it hasn’t been addressed. We’ve been told multiple times that Microsoft is responsible for delivering a fix (which obviously hasn’t happened), but that explanation doesn’t hold water: This is AMD’s product, and therefore, it is AMD’s responsibility to ensure that a fix is implemented.Below, we have the geometric mean of our gaming test suite at 1080p and 1440p and a cumulative measure of performance in single- and multi-threaded applications. We conducted our gaming tests with anNvidia RTX 4090, so performance deltas will shrink with lesser cards and higher resolution and fidelity settings.
In our cumulative measure of 1080p gaming performance, the Ryzen 9 9950X was roughly 8% faster than the prior-gen Ryzen 9 7950X, but it couldn’t unseat the competing Intel Core processors that retail for far less. At stock settings, the $550 Core i9-14900K is 10% faster in 1080p than the Ryzen 9 9950X, while the $400 Core i7-14700K is 5% faster. For those seeking leading-edge performance in gaming and willing to accept tradeoffs in productivity work, AMD’s own Ryzen 7000X3D processors remain the go-to chips, while those on a more restrictive budget can find great performance in the company’s Zen 3-based 5000X3D processors.The Ryzen 9 9950X also delivers generational gains in productivity applications and takes the overall lead in multi-threaded workloads. But those gains can be slim over the company’s prior-genRyzen 9 7950X, which currently retails for $125 less. The Ryzen 9 9950X was 12% faster than the 7950X in our overall measure of multi-threaded performance and 9% faster in single-threaded work. However, the generational uplift varies by workload, with some heavily-threaded applications showing less of an improvement over the 7950X. In the end, we’re looking at a 23% premium for the 9950X over the 7950X for low double-digit gains in performance, and we expect that pricing for the 7950X will decrease further in the future.The Ryzen 9 9950X is more impressive against the Core i9-14900K in our multi-threaded benchmarks, delivering a 23% gain in our overall measure. However, that shrinks to 13% if we remove the heavy AVX-512 y-cruncher benchmark. The Core i9-14900K retains a 6% lead in single-threaded performance and enjoys a significant lead in gaming performance, leaving it room to slot in as a more balanced and affordable alternative, albeit one that potentially draws more power.The Ryzen 9 9950X is the lone Zen 5 chip for desktop PCs with the same TDP rating as its prior-gen counterpart. The 9950X consumed between 7–15 percent less power than the 7950X in a range of workloads, but that isn’t a huge generational improvement. The Ryzen 9 9950X is much more power efficient than the competing Core i9-14900K, but both chips require high-end motherboards and coolers to extract the utmost performance.We’ll post a separate review of the Ryzen 9 9900X in the coming days, but our general impression is that this chip is a disappointment in gaming and doesn’t deliver enough performance in productivity applications to justify the price tag.The Ryzen 9 9950X does take the overall lead in heavily threaded performance on a mainstream PC platform, but be aware that Intel also has its Arrow Lake processors coming in the near future, so it might be best to wait and see what that series has to offer.For now, if you want more threaded performance than the 9950X, you’ll have to step up to workstation-class platforms, like AMD’s Threadripper Pro and Intel’s Xeon W, but those carry eye-watering premiums. That could make the Ryzen 9 9950X worth the premium for those solely interested in performance in heavy productivity workloads.
However, most users focused on productivity work would be better served by a reduced-cost Ryzen 9 7950X — this chip will surely see further price reductions in the near future — or an Intel alternative, if the price is right. The Ryzen 9 9950X also doesn’t make a compelling choice for gaming — AMD’s own X3D processors remain the chips to beat.
Current page:Zen 5 at Full Power
Paul Alcorn is the Editor-in-Chief for Tom’s Hardware US. He also writes news and reviews on CPUs, storage, and enterprise hardware.
