AMD Ryzen 9 9900X

[W1zzard]

The Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12-core/24-thread design, is designed for those looking to go beyond eight cores. It delivers solid gaming performance and benefits from a 120W TDP. Despite its performance, the $500 cost is high, especially when considering similar products in its category.

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[W1zzard]

Video summary of the review:

 

[Chaitanya]

• Requires Xbox Game Bar for optimum performance

I thought it was only requirement for Assymetric X3D chips and not for all multi CCD chips.

 

[borny21]

great

 

[W1zzard]

I thought it was only requirement for Assymetric X3D chips and not for all multi CCD chips.

that's what I thought too. Looks like AMD is using it here to push threads onto higher frequency cores in games, not 100% sure what exactly they are doing

 

[Darkholm]

Zen 4.1

 

[Wirko]

that's what I thought too. Looks like AMD is using it here to push threads onto higher frequency cores in games, not 100% sure what exactly they are doing

Or also trying to keep all game threads on the same CCD?

 

[W1zzard]

Or also trying to keep all game threads on the same CCD?

That, too, probably. But for certain games, or at some thread count this strategy will stop working

 

[shk021051]

weak

 

[Sarajiel]

Or also trying to keep all game threads on the same CCD?

That seems be kinda surprising, since both my R9 7950Xs (one runs Win10 Pro and the other Win11 Pro) usually already stick to the first CCD when playing games.

I guess it could be a measure to fix people's performance, if they migrate their Windows installs to a new system, and don't bother to re-install their OS.

 

[Rus4kova]

weak

I'm sorry. Get well soon.

 

[SalemTheKit]

"Considering that the 7900X suffered the same fate, and AMD made it sellable with heavy discounts, this is probably the future of the 9900X, too, so don't give up all hope."

Man, like, there HAS to be a reason AMD keeps doing this. Are initial sales that good on new AMD parts? Do they need to keep their average MSRP prices up for some shareholder-related reason? Maybe I'm just ignorant of how business works but I feel like there could've been easy wins here.

 

[W1zzard]

Are initial sales that good on new AMD parts?

Mindfactory Only Sold a Few Dozen AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X

German PC components online retailer Mindfactory is no Amazon, but is meticulously transparent with its sales data to the public, which allows us to gauge consumer interest in products, at least in the European context. AMD last week launched its Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X Socket AM5...

www.techpowerup.com

Do they need to keep their average MSRP prices up for some shareholder-related reason?

That is the usual explanation, but it makes little sense, because at some point you want to push more volume?

 

[Sarajiel]

Man, like, there HAS to be a reason AMD keeps doing this. Are initial sales that good on new AMD parts? Do they need to keep their average MSRP prices up for some shareholder-related reason? Maybe I'm just ignorant of how business works but I feel like there could've been easy wins here.

I'd say the correct answer is: paper launch.
Looking at the prices where I live, I can easily buy the next tier of the older CPUs for less. For example, the 7950X is about 12% cheaper than the 9900X, which also is about the same price as the 7950X3D. That screams to me that they don't have enough stock to sell right now.

It's even worse for the R5 & R7 CPUs over here in the Eurozone. Somehow it seems that AMD completely botched the ramp up of the manufacturing for some reason. Maybe it's yields, maybe someone forgot how to laser-engrave CPUs, maybe something completely different went wrong. Your guess is probably as good as anyone else's.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Aside from a few MT things I use my 5900x for, the 9900x isn't that impressive when those two are compared.

On average about 8% uplift in gaming performance at 1440p and around 15-20% gains in some MT performance that would be beneficial to me. Then efficiency between them is kind of minuscule....

Not terribly impressive for the two generational jump. I don't really see any reason to move from AM4 anytime soon.

 

[Sunlight91]

I wait on some Linux Gaming benchmarks. If the 9900X is doing mildly better there and the price crashes to 7900X levels then I upgrade from my 5900X.

 

[darkangel0504]

Aside from a few MT things I use my 5900x for, the 9900x isn't that impressive when those two are compared.

On average about 8% uplift in gaming performance at 1440p and around 15-20% gains in some MT performance that would be beneficial to me. Then efficiency between them is kind of minuscule....

Not terribly impressive for the two generational jump. I don't really see any reason to move from AM4 anytime soon.

It's nearly double 5900X in MT perf.

 

[Dyatlov A]

AM5 will not really be better, too thick IHS.

 

[Vayra86]

That, too, probably. But for certain games, or at some thread count this strategy will stop working

It already has if you think of it, Intel CPUs can get more FPS today through E cores as well, but the vast majority doesn't give a rat's ass because frankly, you don't need those FPS at all.

We've also seen that thread count is NOT and almost never the limiting factor. As long as the singular core can push threads forward without slowing down (the GPU/desired FPS), all is well. The X3D shows this very well, as does the ancient 'quad core got overrun' statement just past the Intel quadcore era; we have quads now that nuke the same content the old ones choked on.

Given the snail's pace at which game CPU requirements rise, (I don't think there's any measurable requirement increase in the near future at all, tbh, its really much more game specific than anything else) if AMD can get 12 cores on a CCD by 2026-7, all is well and X3D 'strategy' will work out fantastically. Even with the current 8 they're ahead of the curve of necessity. The single thread-heavy games are the biggest FPS killers anyway.

 

[mb194dc]

Not sure the lack of NPU is really much of a negative. Not much performance improvement from 2 gens ago.

No wonder the manufacturers are trying to ram "AI" down peoples throats, technological stagnation is the name of the game.

 

[veleciraptor]

The performance is not so much improved compared to 7x series. But the temps are very good. With some discounts, 9x series will be the best buy for professional uses.

 

[Vincero]

My biggest take away from the 9900X/9950X reviews is that unless you have something that is heavily threaded and those threads don't run in to a bottleneck somewhere (e.g. 7-zip / encryption / some server workloads), there appears to be very little reason to get any of the Ryzen CPUs that have more than 1 CCD on.

There is literally hardly any games where that 2nd CCD die is making more than a token percentage or two difference (and is slower in some cases) compared to the 9700X parts. Even the normal productivity / office apps and Adobe media applications, the benefits are minor for the cost.

For sure if you need as much CPU power as you can get then on AM5 the 9950X will be the choice but, in real world application usage for the average user, it seems having that 2nd CCD is a waste of silicon - at this point the 'platform' (be it IO die / infinity fabric / IMC, etc.) can't exploit it. Maybe it's an MS Windows OS limitation... but something is not delivering.

@W1zzard I know it's likely outside of the scope of TPUs normal thing, but it would be interesting to see how well the EPYC products scale performance vs core count - if there is a much better / linear scale then it would suggest that the extra headroom could be exploited if whatever is holding back the desktop can be overcome - in which case a Zen1 Threadripper style product/platform may salvage this for HEDT / bleeding edge enthusiast crowd.

 

[NoneRain]

I don't think the lack of NPU is really a downside, but maybe it was considered taking the price tag.

 

[Creatorbros3]

Question for CPU/GPU reviews in general, would it be possible to add PugetBench Davinci Resolve to the test suite? I would love to see the performance metrics for that and how it improves vs older generations. Trying to decide if I wait around another generation or just need to jump.

I currently have a Ryzen 7 2700 and know it would show some improvement bumping up to a 9900X (or 7900X or 5800X3D), but I am not sure about how much improvement to expect and to then decide if it is worth the relatively huge cost one of these newer models would present (especially AM5 models as a new board and RAM would also be required). I have a Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU and it was a big jump up from my old GTX 1070, but now I am looking to improve the CPU bottleneck I have created. I game and edit video about the same amount - video editing is the priority for me though. I am an admitted AMD fan, so not really considering Intel. Lol

 

[W1zzard]

Davinci Resolve

I always develop my own tests, but yeah I'll look into it for next rebench