Hands On with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X "Zen 5" Desktop Processor

[btarunr]

At its Computex 2024 booth, AMD showed us their latest flagship desktop processor, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X. This 16-core/32-thread beast is powered by the latest "Zen 5" microarchitecture, which promises a 16% IPC uplift over "Zen 4." AMD is also building the CCD (CPU complex dies) on the slightly upgraded 4 nm foundry node. The 9950X boosts up to 5.70 GHz, and AMD claims that it beats the Intel Core i9-14900K by near double-digit percentages in gaming, and significantly in multithreaded productivity. The chip is drop-in compatible with any AMD 600-series chipset motherboard with the latest BIOS. AMD plans to launch this processor in July. Given that Intel today announced that "Arrow Lake" will come out in Q4, the Ryzen 9000 series could enjoy free rein in the market for at 4 months.



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[robert3892]

I bet AMD will introduce its gaming CPUs when Intel launches its chips in Q4.

 

[natr0n]

They always hold back to see what next guy does.

 

[docnorth]

I bet AMD will introduce its gaming CPUs when Intel launches its chips in Q4.

If you mean the X3D versions, AMD maybe will have the luxury to postpone them. OTOH Intel might surprise us and launch really competitive desktop CPUs, at least for performance/power ratio.

 

[Daven]

RPL has 10% higher IPC and 5% higher turbo clock than Zen 4. So the 16% IPC increase of Zen 5 at the same Zen 4 clocks should about tie the 14900K and the 9950X in single threaded scenarios.

“…significantly in multithreaded productivity.”

This must mean all core clocks on Zen 5 can go really high.

 

[ARF]

How to understand the Avatar benchmark result?

Ryzen 9 7950X 3D + Radeon RX 7900 XTX don't get more than 125 FPS at 1080p:

 

[Daven]

How to understand the Avatar benchmark result?

Ryzen 9 7950X 3D + Radeon RX 7900 XTX don't get more than 125 FPS at 1080p:

View attachment 350036

AMD has used the 4090 in the past to show CPU gaming improvements. Maybe that explains the high scores? Are there test setup notes?

 

[Denver]

RPL has 10% higher IPC and 5% higher turbo clock than Zen 4. So the 16% IPC increase of Zen 5 at the same Zen 4 clocks should about tie the 14900K and the 9950X in single threaded scenarios.

“…significantly in multithreaded productivity.”

This must mean all core clocks on Zen 5 can go really high.

IPC is not a fixed number that will apply to everything, it will vary greatly according to the nature of the workload.

From the looks of it, Zen5 beats the i9 14900k in every way.

 

[ARF]

AMD has used the 4090 in the past to show CPU gaming improvements. Maybe that explains the high scores? Are there test setup notes?

Nope, because the benchmark is done with Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
The difference is Ultra vs. High settings, but AVG 229 FPS vs. AVG 120 FPS

 

[Daven]

IPC is not a fixed number that will apply to everything, it will vary greatly according to the nature of the workload.

From the looks of it, Zen5 beats the i9 14900k in every way.

I was estimating performance around the geometric mean but yes I agree, Zen 5 > 14900k in every way.

And with barely a mention of Arrow Lake so far at Computex, I’m guessing Arrow Lake will not improve the situation much and possibly make matters worse.

 

[ARF]

I was estimating performance around the geometric mean but yes I agree, Zen 5 > 14900k in every way.

This "geomean" is so wrong, because it is limited to a handful of apps, when the apps in reality are thousands and thousands.

And with barely a mention of Arrow Lake so far at Computex, I’m guessing Arrow Lake will not improve the situation much and possibly make matters worse.

Yup, with hyper-threading not active, they will have a hard time to even reach the performance of former CPU with HT active.

 

[freeagent]

Well.. maybe I will get into Zen 5. I was going to wait for Zen 6..

 

[neatfeatguy]

@btarunr

Nitpicking a bit. The last sentence looks like you're missing a word. Most likely the word "least" and it should go here:

Given that Intel today announced that "Arrow Lake" will come out in Q4, the Ryzen 9000 series could enjoy free rein in the market for at least 4 months.

Otherwise, nice to see AMD coming out swinging.

 

[thegnome]

interesting, the zen 5 ccd's are much more square than zen 4. looks like the traces are closer to the iod as well (still should be up against the iod for latency imo). perhaps this is another reason why these chips may support higher memory speeds.

 

[W1zzard]

How to understand the Avatar benchmark result?

No idea.. I saw it running on a machine and took the screenshot, hoping the community might be able to do something with it

 

[SL2]

I was estimating performance around the geometric mean but yes I agree, Zen 5 > 14900k in every way.

Where did you do that, do you have a source?

 

[Wirko]

And with barely a mention of Arrow Lake so far at Computex, I’m guessing Arrow Lake will not improve the situation much and possibly make matters worse.

Here's my guess against your guess: it will be great but it will be late. Both P and E core designs seem to be excellent from what Intel has revealed; but now they need to integrate everything into a desktop chip with very different requirements than this mobile chip, and yes, they are willing to tell surprisingly little at the moment.

 

[Steevo]

Here's my guess against your guess: it will be great but it will be late. Both P and E core designs seem to be excellent from what Intel has revealed; but now they need to integrate everything into a desktop chip with very different requirements than this mobile chip, and yes, they are willing to tell surprisingly little at the moment.

I think the IPC gain is from removing the HT hardware and increasing cache. Since the security risk of a competitive thread being able to read/leak/bleed contents of cache is no longer an issue and the need to store competitive data in local cache is removed the chances of an cache hit increase just due to mathematical certainty. HT performance increase was a small ST performance decrease.

 

[Chrispy_]

Any gamer not waiting for the X3D variant at this point needs to have their head checked.

Both the 5000-series and 7000-series X3D models have been so dramatically superior for gaming that you'd be stupid to buy a model without 3D vCache at this point.

 

[Minus Infinity]

I was estimating performance around the geometric mean but yes I agree, Zen 5 > 14900k in every way.

And with barely a mention of Arrow Lake so far at Computex, I’m guessing Arrow Lake will not improve the situation much and possibly make matters worse.

Hmm, Intel would be insane to deliver Arrow Lake with basically identical performance to Raptor R especially after the debacle of Mediocre Lake's -/+1% IPC down/up-lift. Arrow Lake will at best be a late Q4 launch with paper launch in late Q3 and no real supply until Q1 2025. I'm guessing they were wanting to see AMD's Zen 5 slides which BTW have delivered the long rumored 15-20% IPC uplift, so Intel would have long had a fair idea of where Zen 5 was heading performance wise.

 

[ET3D]

Yup, with hyper-threading not active, they will have a hard time to even reach the performance of former CPU with HT active.

Intel mentioned that there is a version of Lion Cove with hyperthreading. I assume it's going to be used in Arrow Lake.

Also, Skymont cores sound pretty impressive, and could help multithreaded performance significantly if they're not hampered by the lack of cache, as in Lunar Lake.

So it would depend on how Intel plays it, but if Arrow Lake uses Lion Cove with hyperthreading and give the Skymont cores L3 access, then there's a chance that at least for multithreading it will beat Zen 5, perhaps even by a significant margin.

 

[Kyan]

Any gamer not waiting for the X3D variant at this point needs to have their head checked.

Both the 5000-series and 7000-series X3D models have been so dramatically superior for gaming that you'd be stupid to buy a model without 3D vCache at this point.

a Ryzen 7 9800X3D will definitely take the place of my Ryzen 5 3600

 

[Chrispy_]

a Ryzen 7 9800X3D will definitely take the place of my Ryzen 5 3600

3600 is also a GOAT, but definitely starting to show its age.