AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Review

KitGuru has worked through the stack of AMD Zen 5 CPUs, from 6-core Ryzen 5 to 8-core Ryzen 7 and onward to 12-core Ryzen 9. Today we are reviewing the big boy 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X, and if this CPU delivers on expectations you can be sure that I will lay down my cash with indecent haste…

Timestamps:

00:00 Start
00:43 Pricing and details
02:06 Quick test run / Curve Optimiser
03:32 Cinebench 2024 Multi Core
03:56 Geekbench 6 Multi Core
04:15 Cinebench R23 Multi core
04:30 Power Consumption
04:56 Cinebench R23 Multi Core Per Watt
05:40 CPU Temperature under full load
06:11 Cinebench R23 Single Core
06:38 Blender 4.2 Classroom test
06:58 7-Zip V24 Benchmark
07:12 AIDA 64 Memory Bandwidth
07:33 3DMark Time Spy
07:51 Gaming
11:25 Latencies and concerns
12:12 Closing Thoughts

Pricing

• 9950X Official MSRP is $649 = £610 inc VAT
• 9900X Official MSRP is $499 = £460 inc VAT
• 9700X Official MSRP is $359 = £340 inc VAT
• 9600X Official MSRP is $279 = £270 inc VAT

Test systems

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 900 and Ryzen 7000
• Motherboard: MSI MEG X670E Ace
• RAM: 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6000 C30

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5000, 3000 and 2000
• Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming X570-Plus
• RAM: 32GB Corsair LPX DDR4-3600 C16 (DDR4-3200 for Ryzen 3000 and 2000)

• CPU: Intel Core i7-14700K and i5-14600K
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master X
• RAM: 32GB G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6000 C30

Shared parts for all test systems:

• Graphics: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 Gaming OC 16GB
• CPU cooler: Phanteks Glacier One 360D30
• SSD: 1TB Crucial T700
• Power Supply: Seasonic Prime GX-1600 ATX 3.0

You can argue that AMD ‘ruined' Ryzen 9 when they updated Threadripper as we can buy up to 64 cores for a scary £5,000. This means that we can buy effectively unlimited processing power, provided we are prepared to suffer the power draw and heat and also to pay the necessary price. In this context a 16-core Ryzen 9 may well deliver high performance but it always looks like the budget option when compared to 24-cores of entry-level Threadripper that costs £1,500.

And so we turn to the Ryzen 9 9950X which follows our recent review of the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X. The performance steps up some eight percent from Zen 4 while the power draw dips 10 percent and that helps efficiency, but we are left with the feeling that Zen 5 is a tweaker version of Zen 4 rather than a brave new world that is based on a new architecture.

You can buy the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X for £610.

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Pros:

• Zen 5 Ryzen 9 saves power and boost performance, which is a win-win.
• Ryzen 9 9950X is considerably cheaper than an entry-level Threadripper.
• The new Ryzen 9s are good for serious work and also decent for gaming.

Cons:

• We need to see X870E motherboards to figure out which DDR5 memory is best for Ryzen 9.
• AMD surely has plans for Ryzen 9 with 3D cache and that confuses the current picture.
• Software can potentially get confused by the dual chiplet design of Ryzen 9.

KitGuru says: AMD’s last minute price hike of Ryzen 9 9900X makes the 9950X slightly more appealing.

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