Overall and Final Verdict
It’s interesting just how things have changed. Years ago CPU performance was cut and dry architecture, manufacturing processes, and clock speeds were the only things you had to focus on. While those all still are very important, because of changes in CPU design from both AMD and Intel the software side of things plays a much bigger role now than it did in the past. Intel has its efficiency and performance cores and AMD with their dual CCX 3D V-Cache CPUs have to rely on the software side to properly assign the correct cores to the correct workloads. We have seen big swings in performance from both sides because of this and things have been improving but this is the first time that I haven’t noticed it much. Crossmark and 3DMark were the only times I saw numbers that made me wonder if it was related to that. That consistency, even without considering the overall performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D itself, has me seriously considering going with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D or a similar CPU for my own PC.
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D in all of our tests put down a dominant performance when it came to gaming. It was only really competing with AMDs own 9800X3D with the 285K coming in third in most of our tests. All of our real-world tests like PCMark 10, PugetBench with Davinci Resolve and Photoshop, and the Jetstream browser benchmarks all had the Ryzen 9 9950X3D at or near the top. The 285K did still edge out in the PCMark 10 Applications test with Microsoft Office. The main downside for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is its power demands which given its performance aren’t all that surprising. Intel still outperformed it in our AI tests. The new Intel Core Ultra CPUs outperformed in all of our onboard video tests as well, but I would put that down at the bottom of the list of concerns. This just isn’t the type of CPU you would be using onboard video with in most situations.
For pricing, the MSRP of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is $699. That puts it a little over $100 more than Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K and with just a few exceptions I do think you are getting your moneys worth in performance with the extra money there. Of course, if gaming is your main focus, AMD’s 9800X3D which is $479 is still a much better value. The original Ryzen 9 9950X has an MSRP of $599, meaning the 3D V-Cache is costing you an extra $100. At $699, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is still well beyond the price range I would be looking at on my personal budget. But if you need the best possible CPU performance and also plan on gaming you aren’t going to find anything better. It wasn’t that long ago that a $699 CPU would seem crazy, but comparatively video card prices almost make this feel like a value in comparison. For example in 2018 the Intel 9900K was $580 and a RTX 2080 Ti would run you $999. Compare that with the 9950X3D and an RTX 5090.
Live Pricing: HERE
