AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D review: closing the Intel gap for gaming

AMD once again challenges Intel for the PC gaming throne. After losing out to the Core i9-13900K on the first Zen 4 chip, the new Ryzen 9 7950X3D closes the PC gaming performance gap. However, it doesn’t seem to replicate the big jump we’ve seen with the dominant Ryzen 7 5800X3D, as the results of the selection of games we tested were pretty mixed.

This new flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D chip is priced at $699 and features 16 cores with 32 threads and 144MB of cache. It goes head-to-head with Intel’s flagship Core i9-13900K. It retails for around $589 and features 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores for a total of 32 threads. Intel’s main Core i9 is cheaper, but AMD also has to compete with Intel’s new $699 Core i9-13900KS processor.

AMD promises to beat Intel’s gaming and productivity performance with its X3D chips while consuming less power. So we put his flagship 7950X3D against Intel’s Core i9-13900K and Core i9-13900KS chips to find out.

I’ve been testing MSI’s Meg X670E Ace motherboard, 32GB of G.Skill DDR5 6000 RAM, and AMD’s 7950X3D with Nvidia’s RTX 4090. This AM5 motherboard includes one PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot and three PCIe 4.0 M2. It’s a slot, so there’s plenty of room for modern storage.

The Barge Since we are not reviewing processors in the traditional sense, we do not own a dedicated hardware test rig or multiple CPUs and systems to provide all the benchmarks and comparisons commonly found in CPU reviews. yeah.we recommend euro gamers digital foundry, tom’s hardwareand PC world for them.

We tested both AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Intel’s Core i9-13900K and 13900KS with a variety of workloads, synthetic benchmarks, and games. All tests were run on the latest Windows 11 2022 Update with VBS security turned off, resizable BARs enabled, and 1080p resolution. The tests run at 1080p to avoid potential GPU bottlenecks and analyze raw CPU performance.

AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X3D rivals Intel’s Core i9-13900K for most games I tested.of Metro Exodus The frame rate of 7950X3D is practically the same as 13900K and 13900KS at 1080p, assassin’s creed valhalla and watch dogs legion, that too.

the big exception Shadow of the Tomb Raider and F1 22, The 7950X3D leaps ahead of Intel’s latest and greatest. Shadow of the Tomb Raider It ran at 354 fps on 7950X3D at 1080p, but reached 308 fps on 13900K and 313 fps on 13900KS. His 7950X3D from AMD also hit 423fps. F1 22the 13900KS is lagging at 389fps.

Intel’s main advantage in the games we tested is gear 5, the 13900KS can reach an average of 237 fps, compared to 213 fps for the 7950X3D. However, it’s clear from this small game selection that AMD has closed a gap here.

In terms of synthetic benchmarks and productivity, Intel still has a big lead. The 7950X3D lost the PugetBench’s Photoshop test, but managed to close the gap on the Premiere Pro side. The 7950X3D is also found to lag behind Intel’s latest Core i9 chips in both Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23. Oddly enough, even the 3DMark Time Spy CPU test lags quite a bit.

Intel might dominate in some productivity tests and pull in in gaming tests, but it’s doing so with a much bigger power budget. We bumped up the TDP, but lowered the TDP of this Ryzen 9 7950X3D to 120 Watts. Intel, on the other hand, with the Core i9-13900K he has a base power of 125 watts, and has bumped this up to 150 watts with the 13900KS. At max turbo power, both of Intel’s latest chips are just over 250 watts, and can well exceed this if the motherboard is set to unlimited power. The difference between the 7950X3D and the 13900KS can be over 200 watts under the same multithreaded load. digital foundry We also found that the 7950X3D draws significantly less power than Intel’s Core i9-13900K.

Both AMD and Intel are also maxing out their thermal headroom these days. In previous reviews, the 7950X ran at around 95C under heavy mutilthread loads and the Core i9-13900K hit 100C with similar workloads. The 13900KS scored 101C in a multithreaded load, while the 7950X3D managed 86C in the same test. Both CPUs use the same Corsair H150 Elite LCD cooler.

If you like the performance results, here are some considerations. AMD’s latest 3D Zen 4 processors use AMD’s excellent 3D V-Cache technology. AMD’s first desktop chip to use this technology was the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which outdid his own Ryzen 5900X and Intel’s 12th Gen Core i9-12900K in PC gaming last year. Even against the 13900K, it’s still unique.

We now have a better idea of ​​how it works at the flagship level of productivity and rendering apps alongside PC games. However, if you’re interested in the 7950X3D, you’ll need a new AM5 motherboard, just like the regular 7950.

Motherboards using AM5 support DDR5 memory and up to 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes. We’re still waiting for the first PCIe 5.0 consumer SSDs to come out, so for now it’s going to be a mix of AM5 motherboards and PCIe 4.0 SSDs. Nvidia’s latest RTX 40 series doesn’t support this latest standard and has yet to hit the limits of his PCIe 4.0 for GPUs, making PCIe 5.0 support future proof on the GPU side. It’s not too much.

The existing AM4 cooler should work just fine, and just like the 7950, I was able to use Corsair’s H150 Elite LCD without any modifications. You should check with your cooler manufacturer to ensure that your existing AM4 models can easily be used with these new AM5 motherboards.

During my review of the Ryzen 9 7900X, I noticed an early issue with the DDR5 memory training process. Boot time will be longer by about 30 seconds. A new BIOS update certainly addressed this, but I’m still noticing slower boot times compared to the Intel system I tested.

I’m happy to report that the sleep mode issue I also experienced while reviewing the Ryzen 9 7900X has been fixed. The latest he BIOS update for the MSI Meg X670E Ace now allows it to wake from sleep.

AMD’s 7950X3D truly bridges the gap with Intel’s latest and greatest processors for PC gaming, but doesn’t go far beyond it in our few gaming selections. With the promise of support for the new AM5 socket, the 7950X3D feels like a great option for users who need performance for both gaming and productivity tasks.

For pure gaming, AMD may still offer more affordable options for PC gamers that offer performance and power consumption benefits. The 7950X3D comes with his $599 7900X3D. Both chips he ships on February 28th and the new Ryzen 7 7800X3D he sells for $449 on April 6th. AMD only offered his 7950X3D for testing, but the 7800X3D could be the true successor to the 5800X3D that has become a popular option for PC gamers.

We haven’t been able to test the 7800X3D yet, so the 7950X3D offers great PC gaming performance on a processor that doesn’t hit power consumption like Intel’s flagship CPU. At a time when chipmakers don’t always focus on efficiency, AMD’s 7950X3D shines as an exception.