AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Review: Meet the New Best Desktop Processor

Since introduce its Ryzen serial of desktop CPU into the PC market , AMD has consistently increased heart count and core clock , shrunk its transistor size to 7 nm , and modified its computer architecture to be more effective all on the same motherboard socket . The scaling AMD achieve between its Zen and Zen 2 architecture genesis was impressive enough , and AMD has done it again with itsnew Zen 3 computer architecture and latest series of Ryzen processors . It ’s done it again so hard it ’s surpassed Intel in single sum functioning .

Yes , that ’s right . AMD ’s Ryzen 9 5950X , it ’s current top - of - the - line mainframe of the serial , beats Intel in single core performance . It ’s so honest , I ca n’t even … The clock f number , the gambling skeletal frame rates , the thermal , the power consumption are all big . The only thing that will turn back some citizenry from grease one’s palms this CPU is the price or if they literally build a new personal computer yesterday . If you are part of the latter , oof , why ? Did n’t you have intercourse these CPUs were come ? ! This is the good Ryzen processor AMD has made to - engagement , and this generation of Ryzen processors should be everyone ’s first clean the next clip they build a microcomputer or buy a pre - built desktop . Other than the price , I can not find anything worth complain about .

At $ 800 , the Ryzen 9 5950X is a comely ball of modification more thanIntel ’s Core i9 - 10900 K , which was supposed to be around $ 488 at launching . But spherical supplying chain break due to the covid-19 pandemic caused all sorts of yield delays across many industries , and unfortunately that meant Intel was releasing its 10th - generation of background processors in the middle of all it . The i9 - 10900 K became strong to come up not too long after it hit the shelf . I think back going into Micro Center and seeing a healthy provision of 10th - gen Core i5s and some i7s , but the i9s were missing .

Photo: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X

What is it ?

AMD ’s top - of - the - line screen background central processing unit of its new Ryzen 5000 series .

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

Price

$ 800 MSRP

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

almost everything . Seriously .

No Like

All that is to say the Core i9 - 10900 K go for an average of $ 580-$700 these days , sometimes higher . So when you look at what you gain with the Ryzen 9 5950X in comparing , expend $ 100-$220 might be worth it if you have the money to burn and you ’re upgrading from a Ryzen 2000 - series or Intel 7th or eighth - gen yet . Oh hell , even if you have a Ryzen 3000 - serial or Intel 9th - gen , I ’d consider it .

At $ 550 , the Ryzen 9 5900X ( 12 - cores/24 - duds , 3.7 GHz base clock/4.8 gigacycle per second cost increase ) might even be the best alternative for most people working within a more small budget . We have n’t had the chance to tick off that one out , but given all the benchmark results for the Ryzen 9 5950X below , there ’s enough of a performance gap between it and the Core i9 - 10900 K to say that the Ryzen 9 5900X could be on equivalence , perchance slightly better than Intel in terms of undivided core functioning and gaming performance . Just every flake of operation , really .

AMD ’s Ryzen 9 5950X is a 16 - core/32 - yarn ogre with a boost clock up to 4.9 GHz , although I systematically see a few center strike up to 5.0 gigahertz . Intel ’s i9 - 10900 K 10 - core/20 - train of thought mainframe in comparison can get up to 5.3 Gc , but in experience I ’ve only seen the processor reach out 5.1 gigacycle . So depending on whatever core or cores need a little frequency hike in the middle of whatever your doing both the Ryzen 5950X and Core i9 - 10900 K have the same efficient encouragement clock speed — and yet AMD still outperforms Intel by a great deal thanks to the architectural changes Zen 3 has ushered in .

One of those braggart change was how the core accessed the cache on the chip . With Zen 2 , Ryzen chip had two separate 16 MB 4 - core cache complexes ( aka the part of the mainframe that avail reduce the meter it takes to access data on the SSD . The cores depute to their various caches could only communicate within that complex . Zen 3 has a undivided 32 MB 8 - core memory cache coordination compound now , so all the cores can sing flat with the cache . AMD mentioned during its stream that this architectural change reduces response time and boosts litigate speed .

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

So all thosebenchmark numbers AMD threw around last month ? AMD was not overdraw . For comparison , I retested the Intel Core i9 - 10900 K andAMD ’s Ryzen 9 3900XT , which has 12 - cores/24 - threads , a 3.8 GHz base/4.7 GHz boost clock , and built on Zen 2 . My test system of rules included an : RTX 3080 GPU , G.Skill Trident Z Royal 16 GB ( 2 x 8 GB ) DDR4 - 3600 DRAM , Samsung 970 Evo NVMe M.2 500 GB SSD , Seasonic Focus GX-1000 PSU , and a Corsair H150i Pro RGB 360 mm AIO for cooling .

Both AMD organisation used an Asus ROG Crosshair VIII Hero ( wifi ) X570 , and the Intel system used an Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme Z490 . For all undertaking , I enable XMP / DOCP on all three systems , which overclocked the DRAM to 3600 MHz rather of the pedestal 2133 MHz it normally sits at .

I should also observe that I ran these tests on a fresh Windows 10 install with no programs running in the background — idealistic shape — which is not the case if you ’re gaming and require to use a program to take screenshots , capture TV , or teem live . That will always deplete up some performance . I imagine most mass , myself include , usually do not bet on under ideal conditions . I have Google ’s Back Up and Sync , Adobe ’s originative Cloud Desktop , Slack , and one or two other programme that are usually open whenever I employ my PC .

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

Anyway , here ’s some numbers !

We do n’t usually apply Cinebench R20 in our testing , but since AMD take a 87 point hint over the i9 - 10900 K in its consequence , I needed to see it take place on a screen in front of me . The Ryzen 9 5950X does indeed carry off Intel ’s Core i9 - 10900 cat valium in undivided core performance , 636 to 546 , which is a full 90 points high . The interruption is much swelled in multi - core / multi - threaded performance , too , although that ’s not surprising considering how many cores the Ryzen 9 5950X has in comparison . I ’m just include those scores so you’re able to see how tight the performance is . And some masses like numbers .

The Ryzen 9 5950X fair extremely well in our usual Geekbench 4 test , too . With the DRAM overclocked , it was 649 level higher than the i9 - 10900K — a larger gap than between the i9 - 10900 K and the Ryzen 9 3900XT . Even with the DRAM at a normal speed the Ryzen 5 5950X has a 601 head lead over Intel . Rendering a 3D image in Blender and transcoding a 4 thousand video to 1080p at 30 Federal Protective Service in Handbrake is super fast , too .

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

This is what makes me believe the Ryzen 9 5900X might have the same or upright single core functioning than the i9 - 10900 K , even with a hike clock of 4.8 gigahertz . It ’s all in the computer architecture .

AMD ’s hope of increased frame rates from its previous generation also holds straight . For the gambling benchmarks , I left the DRAM overclock enabled , and that ’s represented in the bench mark dozens below . On average , the Ryzen 9 5950X gains up to 30 fps to 40 fps over the Ryzen 9 3900XT at 1080p . At 1440p , those gains are around 10 Federal Protective Service to 25 fps . Metro Exodus is the outlier , with a smaller fps increase between mainframe generations . 4 kB operation across the circuit card is even .

Also , you ’ll see in some games the Ryzen 9 5950X either gets near the same frame pace as the i9 - 10900 K , or it ’s a decent amount forward . quicker stark naked exclusive core performance and level with Intel in gambling ? I ’d say that ’s pretty good . Pretty damn good .

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

The 5950X does suffer from some of the same bottlenecking as the i9 - 109ooK when couple with theRTX 3080 , though . When compare frame rates with the drachma overclocked and not overclocked , I got between a 3 Federal Protective Service to 10 Federal Protective Service encouragement at 1080p , so the Ryzen 9 5950X is not quite herculean to domesticate the RTX 3080 , but it ’s really the most pocket-size of ailment .

It ’s exciting to see AMD make all these generation - on - multiplication betterment , and it ’s really stepped up its game to contend with Intel on all tier as far as gambling desktop processors are concerned . It will by all odds be interesting to see how Intel ’s next generation ofRocket Lake ( 11th ) desktop processorscompare to AMD ’s Ryzen 5000 - serial , especially with all the advancements its made with its11th - gen Tiger Lake mobile processorsand it ( finally ) moving from 14 nm to 10 nm . We wo n’t see those hit shelves until sometime in the first quartern of 2021 , though

Intel could pull in advance again in exclusive core speed with Rocket Lake , and we could have a biz of atomic number 14 tug - atomic number 8 - war with every C.P.U. genesis that gets released after that . Intel has had issues moving off its 14 nm node though , and there ’s a mountain of questions about how good its 10 nm node will be , or if Rocket Lake will even be on the 10 nm node at all . Recent rumors item to Rocket Lake having encourage clocks of up to 5.6 gigacycle per second on a unmarried core , which I ’m highly - highly disbelieving about .

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo

Graphic: Joanna Nelius/Gizmodo (In-House Art)

In a few short old age AMD has gone from trail behind Intel and relying on budget processors to increase adoption , to surpassing Intel on nearly every front ( and prevent its central processing unit competitively price ) . If you ’ve never present AMD any thought in your life , now is the sentence to pay attention .