CPU Performance
To start off our testing I went with the rendering-focused Blender benchmark, specifically the latest version, Blender Benchmark 4.2. To get a good look at the overall performance I have all three of the results stacked together and in this test, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is of course at the top of the chart jumping past the 285K and 14900K and a significant performance jump over its brother the 9800X3D.
Continuing with the video encoding theme I also have Handbrake which is an open-source transcoder. For this test I am taking a 4k video down to 1080p 30 FPS, the results are the average FPS of that task. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D improved on the performance we saw with the 9800X3D by over 30 FPS and that put it ahead of the 14900K and 13900K but Intel is still ahead here by 40 FPS with the Core Ultra 9 285K.
For the always popular Cinebench, I am testing with the older Cinebench R23 as well as the newer 2024 edition as well. I always like Cinebench because we have multi-core and single-core performance which gives us a good look at the performance of the whole CPU and IPC performance. In R32 the Ryzen 9 9950X3D topped the chart and is out in front of the 285K by 7.2% and improved on the 9800X3D by a significant margin with an improvement of 83.7% there. For single-core, however, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is still behind the 285K. In Cinebench 2024 we see more of the same. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is at the top and ahead of the 285K but by 3.9% here and 78% improvement from the performance we saw from the 9800X3D. Single core performance in Cinebench 2024 the Ryzen 9 9950X3D comes in second with the Core Ultra 9 285K still in front with its 145 to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D’s 140.
Next up we have ray tracing-focused rendering benchmarks. Here I tested the CPUs in POV-Ray and V-Ray Benchmark 5. POV-Ray was also tested with a single core and across all of the cores. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D improved on what I saw with the 9800X3D significantly with a 72% improvement there but did still come in second on the chart with the 285K ahead here and 8% over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Single core performance in POV-Ray the Ryzen 9 9950X3D comes in behind the 285K as well as the 13900K and 14900K. In V-Ray Benchmark 5 however, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is up at the top of the chart by a big margin. It is 17% over the 285K and 84% over the 9800X3D.
I also tested using the CPUz’s built-in benchmark which does run on a single thread and with all threads. In the multi-thread test, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D wasn’t able to pass the 285K in either the single-thread or multi-thread tests. It did pass the 14900K in the multi-thread test but is still behind it in the single-thread test in addition to the 285K.
Next, we have wPrime which is a classic overclocking benchmark that calculates pi out to 1024 million digits and is timed. This is a multi-thread heavy test which has the older high-core count CPUs still all over the top of the charts and you can see that with the top CPUs sitting at 8 or more cores. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D with its 16 cores topped the chart taking the throne from the 7950X. We didn’t get our hands on the original 9950X which would have also been here as well. But we are getting to the point where the score can barely fit on the chart as these finish the test so quickly. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is 38.9% faster than the 285K, most of its competition is from AMDs top end 7000 Series CPUs.
7 Zip is another open-source program, this time for compressing and decompressing all of your files. Here I have run the benchmark and we have three results. The combined MIPS is a combination of compressing and decompressing performance. Then I have it broken down between the two. The combined results have the Ryzen 9 9950X3D way out ahead of anything else tested here. It is in front of the 285K by 35% and ahead of the 7950X3D by 55%. With the split results, we can see that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D outperformed with both sets of results but it’s the decompressing performance that sets it apart by the most.
Jetstream 2.1 is a compilation benchmark that takes a long list of HTML5 and Java in-browser tests and runs them all three times and puts together an overall score. I love this benchmark because let's be honest, most people are using their browser more than any other game or program. Jetstream gives some interesting results sometimes though but it tends to prefer high IPC or single-core performance and there are some situations where it prefers lower core-count CPUs. In this case, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D used its max clock speed of 5.7 GHz to top the chart here and is 6% out in front of the Core Ultra 285K as well. I also included our first tests with the newer Jetstream 2.2 test as well, those results were similar but the gap between it and the 285K was a little smaller a 3.7%.
As a new addition to our testing, I have added in a few AI-focused tests using Geekbench AI and Procyon’s Computer Vision Benchmark. The Geekbench AI test looks at single and half-precision performance with scores for each and a quantized score as well. They test using 10 different workloads to create their score. The Procyon AI Computer Vision Benchmark focuses on machine vision tests using neural network models like MobileNet V3, Inception V4, YOLO v3, DeepLab V3, Real-ESRGAN, and ResNet 50. I test those using the Windows ML setting and in cases that support it, I test built-in NPUs as well. I have also included Windows ML and TensorRT results using an RTX 4090 as well as a reference point where these CPUs compare to a high-end GPU. For Geekbench AI the Ryzen 9 9950X3D dwarfs the 285K with its quanitized score sitting 87% over it. The single and half-precision scores are a little closer but still way out in front by 51%. In the Procyon AI Computer Vision Benchmark, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D did well in the float16 test, improving on the 9800X3D which was already ahead of the 285K. Of course that doesn’t count the NPU tests where the 285K is WAY out in front.
As a new test, I have added PugetBench for Creators to test out the performance of DaVinci Resolve and Photoshop. I need to get more CPUs including the new Intel Core Ultra CPUs tested but with all of the GPU reviews, I wasn’t able to fit in that testing. But did want to at least include those results. What stood out to me with the limited results that we do have here was how the Ryzen 9 9950X3D stands out in Photoshop.
For Passmark Performance Test I used the latest version, Performance Test 11. I only look at the overall CPU score which takes a few different synthetic benchmarks and combines the results to put together an overall score. This is a test that does favor multi-threaded performance over IPC. In Performance Test 11 the Ryzen 9 9950X3D topped the chart with a score of 70421. It sits 4% over the 285K and improved on last generations 7950X3D by 10%.
Crossmark is from BAPCo which also makes SYSmark and this is a cross-platform test where you can compare performance between phones and both Windows and Mac computers. This is the start of our overall PC benchmarks and Crossmark uses a mix of real-world tests to output an overall score. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D didn’t do as well here sitting behind the 9800X3D putting it behind the 14900K.
PCMark 10 is a great test because it tests things like video calls, browser performance, Excel, and Word performance to give an idea of real-world performance. It tends to like higher clock speeds but does take raw core count into account as well which you can see. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is up near the top of the chart but interestingly the 9700X edged it out. I also ran the PCMark application test with Microsoft Office and the Ryzen 9 9950X3D scored a 18859 which is out in front of most of the CPUs tested except the 285K which is just in front of it with a 19171.
Moving the focus over towards gaming my next test is using Dolphin 5.0 Benchmark. Dolphin 5.0 is a Wii emulator and like most emulators, it doesn’t care about high core counts at all. In fact, it only runs two in total. Clock speeds are king here most of the time which is why all of the 5 GHz+ CPUs are at the top of the chart here. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D topped the chart with its 5.7 GHz clock speeds, outperforming the 9800X3D by 21 seconds.
Before diving into game testing I wanted to check out synthetic performance using 3DMark. I tested with the older DX11 Fire Strike test as well as the newer DX12 Time Spy. I also added the new 3DMark CPU Profile benchmark into the mix as well which does a good job of showing the full range of thread counts that you might see being used in games as well as a max threads option that does everything above 16 threads. In the Fire Strike test, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D improved on the performance I saw with the 9800X3D and it is up near the top of the chart sitting between the 14900K and 13900K but the 285K is still up at the top of the chart here. The Time Spy results show that performance improvement compared to the 9800X3D but the Intel CPUs are still dominating the top of that chart. Then with the last test, the CPU Profile has the Ryzen 9 9950X3D start a little under the Core Ultra 9 285K and it stays behind it until we hit 16 cores where it jumps out ahead.
I did of course test the two new CPUs in games as well. I will dive into testing the integrated GPU in the next section. Here though they are paired up with a powerful GPU (the RTX 4090) and I compare CPU to CPU performance. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D, like all of the other X3D CPUs, runs at the top or near the top on all of our tests. Four of the games have it sitting behind the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and in the Ghost Recon Wildlands Breakpoint test the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K does sneak up in between the two. Then in the other four games, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is at the top sitting ahead of the 9800X3D.
Last I did also run the AIDA64 benchmarks as well. These give us a great look at a few aspects including the full range of cache performance, memory performance, and more. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D doubles up the cache performance that we saw with the 9800X3D. The 285K outperformed the 9800X3D in most of those tests but the Ryzen 9 9950X3D’s big jump pushes it up well past that. For memory performance both of the Core Ultra CPUs are still faster but they also had a higher latency than both the 9800X3D and the 9950X3D. single-precision and double-precision FLOPS are impressive with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D sitting at 5437 for the single-precision FLOPS, 53% better than the 285K.
