AMD has just launched six new Ryzen PRO series CPUs as part of its Ryzen 9000 family, bringing 3D V-Cache for the first time to this lineup, along with unlocking higher TDPs. The Ryzen PRO series is intended for workstation users who prioritize security and stability, even though they otherwise use identical silicon to mainstream desktop parts. The new CPUs range from 6 cores all the way up to 16 cores, so let's break them all down.

At the very top, we have the flagship Ryzen 9 PRO 9965X3D rocking 16x Zen 5 cores that can boost up to 5.5 GHz. It features 128MB of total L3 cache — either 8-core CCD already has the standard 32MB of L3 cache, but one of the clusters gets another 64MB of X3D stacked underneath. The CPU has a 170W TDP, which is the same as the 9950X3D it's based on, marking the first time a Ryzen PRO CPU has broken the 65W power limit.

Then there's the Ryzen 9 PRO 9965; basically the same CPU but just without the extra cache. It also features 16x Zen 5 cores with a 5.4 GHz boost clock and a 170W TDP. The L3 cache is limited to 64MB since it has no 3D V-Cache. Moreover, the Ryzen 7 PRO 9955 brings 12x Zen 5 cores with maximum speeds of 5.4 GHz and a 120W TDP, once again rocking just 64MB of L3 cache.

The Ryzen 7 PRO 99755X3D is the other X3D-branded chip in this lineup, housing 8x Zen 5 cores that can clock up to 5.2 GHz on a TDP of 120W. This chip has a 92MB L3 cache pool since there's only one 8-core CCD to stack the 64MB of 3D V-Cache under. You can also get the same CPU with just 32MB of L3 in the form of the Ryzen 7 PRO 9755, featuring otherwise identical specs to its X3D counterpart.

Lastly, the Ryzen 5 PRO 9655 enters the battle as a true midrange offering, sporting 6x Zen 5 cores with a 5.4 GHz boost clock but still a 120W TDP. That makes it quite unique from the other 6-core offering, the Ryzen 5 PRO 96455, which is limited to just 65W. For a while, all Ryzen PRO SKUs were restricted to that number to maximize efficiency, but it looks like AMD is changing gears to allow even relatively budget parts to consume more power. The Ryzen 5 Pro 9655 has 32MB of L3 cache as well.

That wraps up all the new SKUs, expanding the Ryzen 9000 PRO family to accommodate every tier of managed or workstation computing. Now, keep in mind that these CPUs aren't available for sale via regular retail channels. Instead, you'll find these at OEMs, such as Lenovo, which is already working to launch its ThinkStation P4 in Q3 2026. That's about all the details we have on availability, while pricing is never disclosed formally for PRO series SKUs anyway.

A new AMD Ryzen "PRO" series processor has just shown up on PassMark, but this time it's an X3D part, which we've never seen for this lineup before. Recognized as the "Ryzen 9 PRO 9965X3D," this chip also exceeds the established core count limit for a Ryzen PRO CPU. We only have three samples recorded in the Passmark database, and this benchmark is notoriously not the best for being representative of real-world performance, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

The 9965X3D scored 65,111 points in the CPU Mark test, which is about 7% lower than the 70,201 points the 9950X3D achieved. In single-threaded performance, the 9965X3D trails the 9950X3D by just 2.7%, scoring 4,614 points compared to 4,743 points, respectively. Again, these benchmarks aren't too indicative of real-world performance. More importantly, the listing highlights the specs for the chip as featuring 16 cores and 32 threads with an L3 cache pool of just 32 MB.

That's likely being read incorrectly as the chip should have 128MB of L3, since that's what the 9950X3D also has. Moreover, PRO series chips usually have a 65W TDP — even on Ryzen 9 SKUs — while their mainstream counterparts have much more lenient power budgets. Assuming this is just a tuned 9950X3D, we should expect a 170W TDP, but if we follow existing trends, the 9965X3D likely has a cut-down TDP, which would also explain the lower numbers in PassMark.

The Ryzen PRO series is aimed at, well, professionals like content creators who don't necessarily need the grunt of proper workstation parts (such as Threadripper). These CPUs use the same silicon as the mainstream desktop lineup but enhance it with software features that improve stability and security, which are critical to pros. You'll also find them in OEM systems from large SIs for both desktop and mobile.

So far, the Ryzen 9000 family has just seen three PRO chips, with the top-end Ryzen 9 PRO 9945 only featuring 12 cores and 64 MB of L3 cache. Therefore, the 9965X3D supposedly breaks the 12-core regimen of the PRO series, becoming the first 16-core SKU in the lineup. We don't know how high it clocks yet, but if this is an efficient chip at a relatively reasonable price, it could be a great option for power users who need that extra 3D V-Cache to balance work and play.

The new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is now available to buy. Listings for this brand new processor are up on Amazon, where the 9950X3D2 is $899, and also on Newegg, which has the 9950X3D2 listed for the same $899 price tag. Multiple retailers are stocking the new CPU, including the aforementioned Amazon and Newegg, but you can also pick up the 9950X3D2 from Best Buy, B&H Photo, and eventually AMD directly. We will update this article as more retailers start to stock AMD's latest flagship processor.

This upgraded 9950X3D is aimed at high-end builds used for multi-threaded tasks such as Blender, 3D rendering, content creation, and encoding. With gaming performance similar to the 9800X3D or its big brother, the 9850X3D, the price of the 9950X3D2 doesn't make it a good value proposition for a purely gaming PC build.

Featuring AMD's 3D V-cache technology, the 9950X3D2 has a slightly larger L3 cache of 192MB as well as dual CCDs with stacked V-cache compared to the 9950X3D. The 9950X3D2 keeps the same 16-core and 32-thread setup, and a slightly raised 200W TDP. The previous 16-core X3D chips only use the stacked cache on one of their two CCDs, effectively giving only eight of their cores instant access to the large pool of L3. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 changes things up by putting the SRAM chunk on both CCDs.

The MSRP for the latest 9950X3D2 processor is $899, a staggering $242 more expensive than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which is currently on sale at Amazon for $657. Although previous releases like the 9800X3D ran into stock issues and units jumping off the shelf in seconds, we don't anticipate the demand for this processor to be on the same level, so stock shouldn't be an issue. If, however, you are interested in buying one of these dual-stacked V-cache CCD beasts, then check out our table of retailers below for links to the 9950X3D2 in-store.

If you'd like an in-depth dive into the new AMD processor, make sure to check out our latest review of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, where we put the CPU through its paces against our benchmarking test suite and compare it against the competition from both Intel and AMD.

Where to buy AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 has a release MSRP of $899. Please check out our table below, which highlights where you can easily find the latest Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU at our favorite retailers.

Gaming Performance Benchmark Chart

You can see the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2's average performance over our 17-game test suite on high/ultra settings at 1080p in the benchmark chart below. The 9950X3D2 falls in line just behind the 9850X3D and 9800X3D in gaming.

Multi-Threaded Performance Benchmark Chart

For multi-threaded performance, it's a different story. Here, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 excels and tops the chart, beating out its sibling, the 9950X3D.

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AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D is now available to buy. Listings have appeared on Amazon for the $499 9850X3D with the option to add to cart. There are currently no other retailers offering the CPU, but I'm sure this will change throughout the day. We will keep this article updated as more retailers come online.

If you're looking to build a top-end gaming PC or upgrade from a previous AM5 CPU, then AMD's latest release of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the top choice. The previous Ryzen 7 9800X3D was the top CPU for gaming for over a year, and the 9850X3D takes that same CPU design and adds an extra 400MHz of boost power for a 3.3% uplift in gaming performance.

Using AMD's 3D V-cache technology, the 9850X3D has the same large L3 cache as the 9800X3D and also keeps the eight-core and 16-threads setup, and also the 120W TDP. Because of the change in design from the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, where AMD moved the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate thermal insulation, and has the compute die closer to the IHS for more efficient cooling, it means that the 9800X3D, and now 9850X3D, have greater thermal headroom for higher clocks; hence the 400MHz uplift.

The MSRP for the latest 9850X3D processor is $499, a mere $20 more expensive than the original MSRP launch price of the previous 9800X3D. We're not sure what stock levels of the 9850X3D are going to be like, or if demand will be as great. But, if you're interested in buying one, then check out our table of retailers below for links to the 9850X3D in-store.

If you'd like a more in-depth dive into the new AMD processor, then please check out our latest review of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, where we put the CPU through its paces against our 16-game benchmarking test suite and compare it against the competition from both Intel and AMD.

Where to buy AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D has a release MSRP of $499. This is a small 6% bump in price compared to the previous Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor. With the official launch of AMD's latest gaming champ, there may be delays with some listings of the 9850X3D on a few websites. We will update the prices and website links regularly so that you can easily find the latest Ryzen CPU at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and AMD directly.

Gaming Performance Benchmark Chart

From our review of the new AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D gaming benchmark chart, you can see the Ryzen 7 9850X3D's average performance over our 16-game test suite on high/ultra settings at 1080p. The 9850X3D tops the chart, echoing the success of the previous gaming champion, the 9800X3D, and adding a small 3.3% uplift in performance.

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Choosing the right CPU is critical when you’re building a new PC. If you’re wondering which CPU to buy, our CPU benchmark hierarchy goes in-depth on our latest benchmark results, and our roundup of the best CPUs for gaming offers our current recommendations, taking into account pricing, performance, and efficiency. Even with those resources, choosing the right CPU is a complex topic with a lot of moving parts.

AMD and Intel both make excellent processors, and there are reasons to pick up something as weak as the Core i3-14100F all the way up to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, depending on your purpose. Here, we’ll walk you through how to make that decision, as well as give you some broad pointers on how to parse CPU naming conventions and specs.

AMD and Intel are currently winding down their respective generations. AMD has built out a broad lineup of Ryzen 9000 CPUs based on the Zen 5 architecture, and Intel has confirmed that it will reuse its current-gen Arrow Lake architecture with a refresh of CPUs dubbed Core Ultra 300-S. Intel has also confirmed it will move beyond Arrow Lake to the new Nova Lake architecture in late 2026, and AMD is working on its next-gen Zen 6 architecture, but without a firm timeline.

How to choose a CPU – the TL;DR

When you’re shopping or choosing between different CPUs, there are some broad ideas to keep in mind.

• Budget for your build and purpose – A CPU does nothing on its own, so define your budget in the context of a full system and what you intend to use that system for. That might mean settling on a slightly less powerful (but cheaper) CPU for a gaming system and reallocating that money toward a more powerful GPU, for example. If you’re on a tight budget, our ranking of the best budget CPUs can help.
• Performance only tells part of the story – Performance benchmarks are critical, but they need context. Efficiency, temperatures, overclocking headroom, and architectural features play a role in the CPU you should buy, which we dig into in our individual CPU reviews. Further, certain benchmarks aren’t relevant to every buyer. The Core i9-14900K may blow away the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in video transcoding, for example, but if you’re not transcoding any videos, that performance vector hardly matters.
• AMD and Intel are both good – Some enthusiasts prefer one brand over the other, but there are plenty of reasons to buy an Intel CPU over an AMD one or vice versa. Our Intel vs AMD faceoff will get you up to speed on where the brands currently stand, but there’s no reason to play favorites for the sake of doing so.
• Trust data, not lineups – AMD and Intel segment their CPU lineups so it’s easy to spot a more powerful CPU over a weaker one. These gaps aren’t made equally, however. For instance, the Core Ultra 7 265K offers 98% of the gaming performance of the Core Ultra 9 285K (functionally identical), despite the Core Ultra 9 costing around $200 more. Performance doesn’t scale linearly across a lineup.
• Architecture informs specs, not the other way around – Specs are important, but they start to fall apart when comparing CPUs from distant generations. The Ryzen 9 3950X and Ryzen 9 9950X both have 16 cores and 32 threads, and the Ryzen 9 9950X has a 21% faster clock speed. The Ryzen 9 9950X isn’t just 21% faster, though; it’s often twice as fast or even faster in productivity applications.

We’ll walk you through how to understand CPU names, specs, and prices, as well as how to put them all together to choose a CPU for your specific purpose. We’ll also take a look at the motherboard chipsets available this generation, as well as overclocking and how it plays into a buying decision.

How much you should spend on a CPU

Ignoring the secondhand market, you can spend anywhere from $50 to over $700 on a consumer CPU. You can spend even more with something like AMD’s Threadripper range, with a chip like the Threadripper 9980X selling for $5,000. It’s important to define the purpose of your CPU so you know how much you should spend.

There are exceptions to any rule, but CPU prices break down into a few broad categories.

• Basic use ($50 to $100) – For basic PC use, including browsing the internet and running lightweight office applications. CPUs in this bracket include the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and Intel Core i3-14100F.
• Budget ($100 to $200) – More performance to power light gaming and slightly more intensive productivity apps. CPUs in this bracket include the Core i5-12400F and Ryzen 5 7600.
• Midrange ($200 to $350) – The sweet spot for gaming PCs, with enough power to run content creation apps. CPUs in this bracket include the Core Ultra 7 265K and Ryzen 7 9700X.
• High-end ($350 to $500) – Plenty of power for gaming, but a stronger emphasis on accelerating productivity and content creation apps with high core counts. You’ll find specialty chips like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in this bracket, as well as previous-gen flagships like the Core i9-14900K.
• Flagship ($500+) – The fastest processors in a given generation. You won’t see much of a boost in gaming performance, with flagships focusing almost solely on accelerating productivity applications with the highest core counts, clock speeds, and power consumption. CPUs in this bracket include the Core Ultra 9 285K and Ryzen 9 9950X.

That should give you an idea of how much you should spend on a CPU. If you want to build a gaming PC, you’re probably focused in the midrange or high-end brackets. If you will regularly edit and transcode videos, however, you’re probably focused on the high-end to flagship range.

Understanding CPU names

AMD and Intel use slightly different naming conventions, but they follow the same template. Here’s how that broadly breaks down for desktop CPUs:

• Segment – Ryzen 5, Core Ultra 5
• Series – First number in model name, i.e. Core Ultra 5 245K, Ryzen 5 9600X
• Model – Numbers following the series number, i.e. Core Ultra 7 265K, Ryzen 7 9700X
• Modifier (Suffix) – Letter following model number, i.e. Core Ultra 5 245KF, Ryzen 7 9800X3D

that The segment and model numbers speak for themselves; a higher number is better. A Ryzen 9 sits above a Ryzen 5, and the Core Ultra 5 245K sits above the Core Ultra 5 225. The two tricky parts are the series and modifier, which is where a slight misunderstanding could lead to a vastly different CPU.

First, series: You may read that the first number in the model string refers to the architecture, but that isn’t the case. It’s just a series or generation. AMD and Intel reuse architectures. For instance, Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ and Ryzen 8000 ‘Phoenix’ chips both use the Zen 4 architecture. Similarly, the Core i5-13400F has two versions, one that uses 12th-gen Alder Lake and another that uses 13th-gen Raptor Lake, though thankfully without any notable performance differences.

On desktop, Intel and AMD mostly keep the lines straight. Ryzen 8000 wasn’t a proper generation, for instance; it’s a lineup of APUs that don’t mingle with the main Ryzen 7000 lineup. However, we’ve seen willingness, especially from AMD, to blur the lines between generation and architecture significantly on mobile. It’s good to get the naming convention straight in the event the same happens on desktop.

Suffixes give you a lot of information, but they vary between Intel and AMD. For AMD, here are suffixes you should know:

• X or XT – X-series processors are the main lineup of chips within a particular generation from AMD. The XT designation is used for rereleases of X-series chips with higher clock speeds. On the other end, chips without the X suffix are rereleases with lower power consumption and clock speeds.
• G – CPUs with a G suffix note integrated graphics, particularly for a lightweight gaming APU like the Ryzen 7 8700G. From Ryzen 7000 onward, AMD has included integrated graphics in its main lineup, though they’re significantly weaker than the iGPUs featured in G-series chips.
• F – AMD seldom uses the F suffix, but it notes processors that lack integrated graphics that they’d otherwise have. The Ryzen 5 8400F lacks the integrated graphics that are otherwise available this generation. The Ryzen 7 5800X, however, doesn’t have the F suffix but still lacks integrated graphics.
• X3D – X3D is used to note CPUs with AMD’s gaming-focused 3D V-Cache. Notably, it doesn’t say what generation of 3D V-Cache a chip uses. Ryzen 7000X3D and Ryzen 9000X3D chips, for example, use a different 3D V-Cache design.

Intel has a longer, more rigid lineup of suffixes that it has maintained for decades, making models much easier to parse compared to AMD:

• K – Unlocked for overclocking.
• F – Lacks integrated graphics.
• S – Special edition release.
• T – Low-power design, meant for compact systems.

Thankfully, Intel’s suffixes don’t require much explanation because of how rigid they are. If a processor lacks the K suffix, you can’t overclock it, pure and simple. Intel will combine suffixes when necessary, however. The Core Ultra 5 245KF is unlocked for overclocking but lacks integrated graphics, for example, while the Core i9-14900KS is a special edition of the unlocked Core i9-14900K.

Critical CPU specs to know, and what they mean

CPU specs are only useful if you understand what they mean – and, more importantly, what they don’t. Unlike generations past, where big clock speed boosts and core count jumps were common, AMD and Intel have much more conservative spec bumps each generation, if there's a spec bump at all.

Specs are still important for neighboring comparisons, but it's important to understand what they mean in the broader context of a CPU's architecture.

Cores/Threads

A CPU with more cores can execute more instructions in parallel, but how that manifests in real applications varies widely. Rendering applications like Blender and transcoding applications like Handbrake scale well with high core counts, for example. Games, on the other hand, don’t see large performance jumps past eight cores, and many games don’t even see a marked improvement beyond six cores.

AMD’s modern CPU cores are designed with simultaneous multi-threading, or SMT. This doubles the number of logical processes running on a physical CPU core. So, the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X has 32 threads. Intel originally introduced SMT – Intel calls it Hyper-Threading – but its current-gen Arrow Lake CPUs don’t use Hyper-Threading. Each physical CPU core only has a single thread.

Traditionally, CPUs use a homogeneous architecture; each core has the same design. Intel has pushed toward heterogeneous architectures in the past several generations, however, mixing together high-performance P-cores with high-efficiency E-cores within a single CPU. These designs can boost overall core count by leveraging weaker cores instead of high-performance cores across the entire die.

From a shopping perspective, it’s important to keep the heterogeneous architecture in mind for Intel chips. The Core i9-14900K has 24 cores compared to the Ryzen 9 9950X’s 16. However, both chips have 32 threads – the E-cores on the Core i9-14900K lack Hyper-Threading.

Clock Speed (Base/Boost)

Synchronizing the disparate components of a CPU architecture is a clock. Clock speed is a frequency – how many cycles are completed each second – and there are two numbers for a CPU. There’s a base and boost clock speed. In modern CPUs, the boost clock speed generally refers to the maximum clock speed on one or two cores, not the maximum clock speed for all cores operating at the same time. Often, one or two preferred cores will boost to higher speeds and handle heavy-duty calculations while the other cores operate at a lower frequency with less intensive work.

Clock speed is important, but it says less about how powerful a CPU is than it previously did. Critically, clock speed doesn’t say anything about how many instructions are executed per cycle. You can think about clock speed like the speed of a conveyor belt. You can increase the speed of the belt, but it might get too hot and break. Alternatively, you can keep the speed the same and widen the belt, or stack things on top of each other, to move more stuff at the same speed.

Rather than the belt speed, a better number to use would be how many items you're able to move. For CPUs, that number is instructions per clock, or IPC; you’ll also see it referred to as instructions per cycle. There are physical limitations of how high the clock speed can go, but if you're able to get more done with each clock cycle, the CPU runs faster.

IPC is a good indicator of architectural improvements from one generation to another, but you won’t find it listed on a spec sheet.

Cache and cache levels

CPUs execute a lot of instructions very quickly, so it’s important that the data needed for those instructions are close to the cores executing them. That’s your CPU’s cache. It’s a small amount of SRAM located on the package of the CPU. Without cache, your CPU would need to use your system’s DRAM for everything, which is considerably slower and would cause a significant bottleneck in your system. Decades ago, CPUs didn't need cache because the system memory could keep up with the pace of instruction execution. With a modern CPU, constantly going out to system memory would make your PC feel unusable.

Cache is organized into levels, with the lowest-number level being the fastest and smallest. L1 is the smallest and fastest, L2 cache is slightly larger, and L3 cache is larger still. CPU cores generally have dedicated L1 and L2 cache, while the L3 cache is much larger and shared across the cores. More cache is generally better, but there are limitations to how much cache can go on-package. Not only is SRAM expensive, it also takes up precious die space and contributes to heat. That’s why packaging technology like AMD’s 3D V-Cache have been such a breakthrough.

Although cache is important, more cache doesn’t lead to universally higher performance. It contributes to higher performance in applications where new data is flowing through memory frequently, such as in games.

Power and Operating Temperature

Power is a messy topic rife with misunderstandings in the world of CPUs. Generally, you’ll see power consumption shared as the Thermal Design Power, or TDP, of a CPU. However, TDP isn’t a power limit, and it doesn’t refer to power consumption. Rather, TDP refers to how much heat the CPU cooler needs to dissipate under maximum load. More power leads to more heat, so TDP is measured in power instead of temperature.

In use, your CPU will often consume less power than the TDP, and it can consume more power for brief periods of time as long as it stays within its thermal limit. To measure peak power consumption, AMD uses PPT, or Package Power Tracking, to note how much power the CPU socket can draw. Intel uses power levels, noted like PL1 and PL2. PL1 is synonymous with TDP, while higher level power limits show maximum power for transient spikes. For high-end, unlocked SKUs, Intel applies a power profile where PL1 = PL2. That means the CPU can sustain higher power consumption for longer than the specified window, assuming it has adequate access to cooling.

Finally, there’s a maximum safe operating temperature, often referred to as TJMax. Once your CPU hits its maximum operating temperature, it will reduce speeds in order to bring the temperature down. In the event the temperatures can’t drop, built-in safety mechanisms will shut down the PC.

Power is a complex topic, and specs don’t share the full picture of power consumption and operating temperatures. Here at Tom’s Hardware, we run a full suite of power and thermal tests for our CPU reviews, which provide a more accurate insight into what you can expect out of a chip. You should use power and temperature specifications to inform your cooler, case, and fan choices, not as hard and fast rules about power consumption.

Chipsets and sockets

Desktop CPUs are socketed, not soldered, so you’ll need to pick up a motherboard with the socket that matches your CPU. AMD is currently on Socket AM5 while Intel is on LGA 1851. Both are Land Grid Array (LGA) sockets, where the CPU features contact pads that press into spring-loaded pins in the motherboard socket. AMD previously used a PGA, or Pin Grid Array, socket where the pins were on the CPU itself. AMD abandoned this design with the release of Ryzen 7000 CPUs and sunsetting of Socket AM4.

The socket only defines physical compatibility between a CPU and motherboard; the chipset defines full compatibility. Here are the chipsets from AMD and Intel with the latest socket, and the CPUs they support:

AMD, especially, supports its sockets for several generations even with evolving chipsets. Pairing a newer CPU with an older chipset will generally require a BIOS update. Intel moves from socket to socket faster, but the same rule applies when the same socket is carried across multiple generations of chipsets.

There are a ton of differences between chipsets, but generally, you need a B-series chipset for AMD and a Z-series chipset for Intel. Those are the ranges that offer both memory and CPU overclocking – short of B840, which AMD oddly removed CPU overclocking capabilities from. A/H-series chipsets are for budget builds with limited capabilities, while higher-end chipsets pack features like additional PCIe lanes, and better USB and Wi-Fi capabilities.

The best course of action is to look at the individual motherboard you’re interested in once you’ve settled on a CPU. Chipset specifications aren’t rigid across the board, so you can only know the full capabilities of your motherboard once you have one in mind.

Overclocking and undervolting

Enthusiasts looking to squeeze the most performance out of their CPU need to keep overclocking (and undervolting) in mind. If you want to overclock your CPU, you’ll need to buy a specific type of CPU and motherboard.

AMD is more friendly to overclocking in that it’s available on nearly all desktop CPUs. There are rare exceptions like the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, but the vast majority of AMD CPUs have direct multiplier-based overclocking. In addition, AMD supports CPU and memory overclocking on both B- and X-series chipsets, short of the B840 chipset.

Intel charges a premium for overclocking capabilities. You need a K-series processor and a Z-series chipset for CPU overclocking.

Regardless of the brand, you can overclock the traditional way through your BIOS, or you can use one-click overclocking features. AMD offers Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO), which you can configure through the Ryzen Master software. Intel has its Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) that offers easy-to-use dials and a one-click overclocking feature.

Should you overclock your CPU?

When core counts were low and applications were designed for only a handful of threads, there were direct, immediate performance benefits from even a minor overclock. Today, things are different. You can still see a performance boost, but it depends on the application you're using and the CPU you’re overclocking.

A stable, day-to-day overclock is best to bridge small gaps in performance. For example, the Core i7-14700K and Core i9-14900K both come with eight P-cores, but the Core i9 has a higher boost clock speed and four additional E-cores. In applications that care mostly about those eight P-cores, you can get close to the stock performance of the Core i9-14900K with a moderate overclock on the Core i7-14700K on a couple of preferred P-cores.

The benefits of overclocking are dynamic, changing from generation to generation and across different applications, so there are no hard and fast rules on if you should overclock or not. Even if you plan to overclock, you shouldn’t expect lineup-breaking performance differences with modern CPU architectures.

Putting it all together

A CPU is one of the most important components of your PC, but it’s only one component. Once you’ve settled on a processor, make sure to check out our guides on the best SSDs, best RAM, best graphics cards, and best power supplies to pick your other components. Our roundup of the best PC cases can help, too, with modern designs that look as good as they feel to build in.

• MORE: CPU reviews, analysis, and buying guides
• MORE: How to check CPU temperatures
• MORE: How to choose a motherboard
• MORE: CPU price index
• MORE: AMD vs Intel

AMD released a bunch of new Zen 3, Zen 4, and Zen 5 processors yesterday, refreshing both existing and older families of CPUs. During this time, the company also silently launched its new enterprise lineup: Ryzen PRO 9000. These include three new SKUs built on the same Zen 5 "Granite Ridge" architecture as the mainline Ryzen 9000 series, but they feature cut-down silicon in favor of enterprise management and security features not present on standard CPUs.

First up, we have the Ryzen 5 Pro 9645. It comes with 6 cores and 12 threads, clocked at 3.9 GHz with boost speeds up to 5.4 GHz. Then there's the Ryzen 7 Pro 9745 with 8 cores and 16 threads, featuring the same 5.4 GHz boost clock but a slightly reduced 3.8 GHz base clock. The final model is the Ryzen 9 Pro 9945, which only has 12 cores and 24 threads, clocked at 3.4 GHz and boosting up to 5.4 GHz. Cache levels also remain unaltered in comparison to analogous Ryzen 9000 models.

All three SKUs share the same 65W TDP, despite the standard Ryzen 9 9900X — which the Pro 9945 would be based on — featuring a 120W TDP. But it makes sense given there are 4 fewer cores on the Pro 9945. There are consistent base and boost clock gains over the previous generation Ryzen PRO 7000 series, like a 300 MHz boost clock increase on the Ryzen 5 Pro SKUs. However, the Ryzen Pro 9945 loses 300 MHz in its base clock when compared to its predecessor (3.4 GHz vs 3.7 GHz).

Performance-wise, AMD shared some slides highlighting the improvements these Zen 5-based enterprise processors carry. Even though they're technically not focused on raw numbers, the Ryzen 9 Pro 9945 is reportedly up to 44% faster in Blender and up to 22% faster in other productivity benchmarks, when compared to Intel's Core i7-14700 processor. Moreover, surprisingly, these CPUs will also come with a bundled Wraith Stealth stock cooler

A common thread among increasing user reports of failing Ryzen 9000 CPUs was their connection to an ASRock AM5 motherboard. Citing a conversation with the partner at Computex, Tech Yes City has brought to light that ASRock's initial PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) presets were set too aggressively for initial CPU samples. It is believed these aggressive settings are what ultimately lead to the premature demise of these processors. AMD declined to comment on the story, while ASRock wasn't immediately available.

Earlier this year, reports of failing AMD Ryzen 9000 (Granite Ridge) processors were common on Reddit and other forums. ASRock initially dismissed reports connecting their motherboards to the problem as 'misinformation', all the while supplying a new BIOS to address boot-up and memory compatibility issues. Affected users had no other choice but to RMA their broken CPUs.

According to new details from Tech Yes City, the problem stems from the amperage (current) supplied to the processor under AMD's PBO technology. Precision Boost Overdrive employs an algorithm that dynamically adjusts clock speeds for peak performance, based on factors like temperature, power, current, and workload. The issue is reportedly confined to ASRock's high-end and mid-range boards, as they were tuned far too aggressively for Ryzen 9000 CPUs.

AMD announced its new Zen 5-powered Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000 WX-series and non-Pro processors here at Computex 2025 in Taipei, Taiwan, touting up to 96 cores and 192 threads in the flagship 9995WX. AMD's newest 'Shamida Peak' Threadrippers bring the benefits of the Zen 5 architecture to AMD's premier WX-Series workstation and non-Pro processors, saying they deliver up to 2.2X the performance in rendering than Intel's fastest competing Xeon-W chips.

AMD also revamped its non-Pro Ryzen Threadripper 9000-series chips, with the flagship 9980X HEDT chip wielding 64 cores and 128 threads. AMD's full Threadripper 9000 series will be available in July.

The Threadripper 9000 chips have much in common with their predecessors, the Threadripper 7000 series, with AMD continuing to split the chips into the Pro and HEDT swimlanes. The chips also have the same core counts, base clocks, and cache capacities (up to 384MB) as the prior-gen models across the range of the product stack, but the peak boost clocks have been bumped up to 5.4 GHz for all models, an increase ranging from 100 to 300 MHz. The TDP ratings also remain the same 350W for all models.

The processors provide up to 22% more performance than the prior-gen in threaded workloads, and the lion's share of their increased performance from the jump from the Zen 4 architecture to Zen 5, which imparts a 16% IPC gain, and the move from 5nm to 4nm for the compute dies.

AVX-512 support is also fully baked into the design, dramamatically improving performance in applications that utilize the dense instruction set. The chip also come with all of the same I/O connectivity as before, including up to 128 PCIe 5.0 lanes, but memory support has been bumped up from DDR5-5200 to DDR5-6400. ECC is fully supported and AMD's Pro chips feature the AMD Pro Technolgies suite of RAS features.

As with all of AMD's Threadripper chips, these models have the same design as AMD's data center chips, in this case, the EPYC 'Turin' 9005 series, but come with special firmware and power tuning to optimize them for workstation platforms.

As you can see above, the chips have a large central 6nm I/O die flanked by rows of 4nm compute dies. With this generation, AMD has rotated the eight-core compute dies 90 degrees and arranged them into four vertical rows of three chips apiece, for a total of 12 compute dies with 96 cores for the flagship 9995WX. AMD removes four of those chips to create the 64-core 9980X, with further adjustments to the number of compute dies for the different models.

Both families of Threadripper 9000 chips will drop into the same sTR5 socket as the prior-gen chips. The WR90 platform with support for eight channels of memory will house the Pro chips, while value-optmized TRX50 boards with support for four channels of memory house the HEDT processors.

After a BIOS update, the new chips are compatible with existing motherboards. AMD expects a few new refreshed motherboard models from vendors, but it says the chips will largely leverage the existing ecosystem of sTR5 motherboards. As such, all of the existing sTR5 coolers on the market are fully compatible with the new processors.

AMD shared a few benchmarks to underline its performance superiority over Intel's Xeon-W lineup, but as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, take them with a grain of salt. We've included the full test notes below.

AMD claims the 96-core Threadripper 9995WX is 2.2X faster than Intel's 60-core flagship W9-3595X in the Cinebench multi-core rendering benchmark, an incredible lead. It's also 22% faster than the previous-gen 96-core Threadripper 7995WX.

AMD also shared a broader spate of benchmarks, with impressive gains ranging from 140% to 245% faster than the W9-3595X in a diverse set of real-world applications like media and entertainment, design and manufacturing, and LLM inference verticals, among others.

Overall AMD's Threadripper 9000 series appears poised to continue its utter dominance over Intel's competing workstation processors. AMD hasn't shared pricing yet, but given that its most affordable previous-gen HEDT model weighed in at $1,400 while the flagship retailed for $4,999, these chips will undoubtedly be pricey. As you'd expect, we'll have our own benchmarks coming around the time of launch in July.

It might not be Memorial Day yet, but Newegg has already gotten on board the deals train. Among the best on offer right now is the humble Ryzen 5 9600X, which is currently $208.99, a saving of $70 off the original MSRP.

The deal includes AMD's entry-level AM5 CPU and a 16 GB kit of DDR5-6000 TeamGroup T-Force DELTAα RGB RAM alongside it. So, you save a cool $70 on the CPU itself and around $75 on memory, bringing the total value of your savings to around $145.

AMD's Ryzen 5 9600X offers a good entry point for users who want good gaming performance on the modern AMD AM5 platform, without splashing out for any of their faster, fancier 3D V-cache-equipped processors, such as the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Launched in August 2024, AMD's Ryzen 5 9600X is a solid performer, which we've even listed as our best mid-range CPU for gaming. While its original MSRP might have been a tough pill to swallow, the chip keeps getting cheaper, first falling to below $250, and now to just $208. Thanks the the CPU's maturity, those brave enough can also select an alternative BIOS which can boost the chip's TDP from 65W to 105W, which has its own benefits in certain productivity applications.

Just note that despite its 3.9 GHz base clock and 5.4 GHz boost clock, the chip doesn't come with AMD's Wraith series coolers, so you'll have to buy one for yourself. Luckily, the 9600X is easy to cool, as we noted in our review.

Best of all, the bundle already includes RAM, so if you are moving from an older AM4 build, you won't have to worry about purchasing another kit for your new build. While the TeamGroup RAM included in the bundle includes snazzy RGB lighting, it isn't the fastest DDR5-6000 kit out there, but for a mid-range build, it should suffice. Considering that AM5 chips have previously been fairly pricey in the past, now could be the perfect opportunity to upgrade your older system.

Furthermore, the 9600X isn't just a solid CPU, but if you inevitably wish to upgrade it later down the line, AMD has committed to the AM5 socket until at least 2027 or beyond.

Given the amount of value offered for this deal, it might be one of the better PC component deals we see on this side of Memorial Day.

AMD is reportedly going big on core-counts with Zen 6 mobile next-generation, as suggested by a new rumor from HXL, backed by several other leakers. Codenamed "Medusa Point", these APUs will reportedly carry up to 22 hybrid cores, based on Zen 6, with classic, dense, and low-power options. Since Zen 6 is at least a year off, and mobile versions might not arrive until early 2027, we need to be careful about putting too much faith in this leak.

Medusa Point is slated to be the follow-up to AMD's current Zen 5-based Strix Point APU series. We probably won't see a direct shift to Medusa Point as AMD is reportedly working on the Gorgon Point (Strix Point refresh) family, planned as an intermediate step.

That being said, architecturally, Medusa Point will switch to the Zen 6 architecture, which should be detailed by AMD sometime around Computex next year. The graphics engine will allegedly adopt the updated RDNA 3.5+ design, though RDNA 4 would've been the ideal choice for many. It's probable RDNA 4 won't make its way to the APU landscape, since AMD's next-generation graphics architecture, UDNA 1 / RDNA 5, is projected for release during the same timeframe.

The mainstream Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 offerings from Medusa Point have been purported to feature up to 10 hybrid cores, divided across four classic Zen 6 cores, four dense Zen 6c cores, and two new LP (Low Power) cores. These LP cores are very likely smaller than their Zen 6c siblings, with their Voltage/Frequency operation tweaked for maximum efficiency. This is complemented by an eight Compute Unit equipped RDNA 3.5+ based graphics engine, similar to the Radeon 860M. The iGPU is a downgrade from the current 16-CU design on the Radeon 890M, but this was likely done to free up space on the chip for other components.

Specifications for AMD's next-generation Zen 6-based server products have surfaced at Baidu, via HXL at X. Venice, the successor to AMD's current Turin server offerings, will reportedly pack as many as 256 cores based on the Zen 6c design, suggested with 1GB of total L3 cache, and that's without any additional 3D cache chiplets. We must tread with caution and not treat these details as definitive, since these products are likely a year or more away from launch.

AMD's current-generation Zen 5-based server EPYC 9005 CPUs, codenamed Turin, slot into the SP5 socket, similar to EPYC 9004 (Genoa), which used Zen 4 cores, adopting a design similar to Arm's big.LITTLE. AMD also launched these CPUs with denser Zen 4c/5c cores, with Turin Dense reaching up to 192 cores/384 threads. Similarly, AMD also offers the cost-effective SP6 socket, which currently supports AMD's EPYC 8004 (Siena) offerings with up to 64 Zen 4c cores, also rumored to be compatible with the speculated Zen 5-based EPYC 8005 (Sorano) family.

AMD is rumored to introduce new SP7 and SP8 sockets for its next-generation server offerings, succeeding SP5 and SP6, respectively. The larger SP7 platform is expected to accommodate EPYC 9006 (Venice) CPUs, which reportedly feature as many as 256 Zen 6c cores, divided across eight CCDs. This lands us at 32-core Zen 6c CCDs, which are also purported to feature 128MB of L3 cache, for 1GB of total L3 cache (128MB x 8) for a 256-core chip.

Today, we'll put the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K in a heated contest to see which chip comes out on top. The best processor is not necessarily the one with the most number of cores or the highest clock speeds; rather, it is the one that fulfills your specific requirements and fits within your budget. Gamers do not necessarily require the highest-end chip to enjoy the latest AAA games, although having one wouldn't hurt. However, numerous compelling reasons exist for a consumer to seek to acquire a flagship processor.

You may be part of a small, elite crowd of enthusiastic gamers with the financial capacity to acquire the latest and greatest mainstream processor. Alternatively, you could be among the type of users who use their systems for more than just casual gaming, thereby warranting a more substantial investment in a processor that provides considerable processing power alongside exceptional gaming performance. The million-dollar question remains whether to choose between Intel or AMD, as both chipmakers have released highly compelling flagship processors in the current market.

AMD currently has two coexisting mainstream processor lineups in the retail market. The vanilla Ryzen 9000 (codename Granite Ridge) series was the inaugural launch, later followed by the Ryzen 9000X3D series, which incorporates AMD's 3D V-Cache technology, significantly enhancing gaming performance. Consequently, AMD has two flagship products: the Ryzen 9 9950X3D from the 3D V-Cache branch and the Ryzen 9 9950X from the main family. In contrast, Intel only has the Core Ultra 200S (codenamed Arrow Lake) series to compete against AMD, with the Core Ultra 9 285K as the singular leader of Intel's army.

Features and Specifications: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D features Zen 5 execution cores and adheres to a conventional 16-core, 32-thread configuration. On the contrary, the Core Ultra 9 285K employs a hybrid design, integrating P-cores (Lion Cove) and E-cores (Skymont). Consequently, the Core Ultra 9 285K showcases a 24-core, 24-thread design. With Arrow Lake, Intel went with an approach without Hyper-Threading, so the Core Ultra 9 285K has fewer threads than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

Concerning clock speeds, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D exhibits a 16% greater base clock speed than the Core Ultra 9 285K. However, both processors possess identical boost clocks. For cache capacity, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is equipped with AMD's 3D V-Cache, providing a total cache of 144MB (16MB L2 + 128MB L3). On the other hand, the Core Ultra 9 285K is accompanied by a cache capacity of 76MB (36MB L2 + 40MB L3). Consequently, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has 3.2X more L3 cache, which is advantageous for gaming and specific workloads.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has a 36% greater TDP (Thermal Design Power) or, in Intel's case, PBP (Processor Base Power), than the Core Ultra 9 285K. Nevertheless, the latter features a 9% higher MTP (Maximum Turbo Power). Therefore, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has superior power efficiency to the Core Ultra 9 285K.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Core Ultra 9 285K support PCIe 5.0 connectivity and DDR5 memory. Both provide 24 high-speed PCIe 5.0 lanes to support the latest graphics cards and PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Regarding memory support, only the Core Ultra 9 285K has embraced CUDIMMs (Clocked Unbuffered Dual In-line Memory Modules), bumping the native supported frequency up to DDR5-6400. As far as conventional DIMMs are concerned, both support DDR5-5600.

Platform longevity favors the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, as the chip resides on the AM5 platform, which was launched in 2022 with AMD's commitment to providing support until 2027. On the other hand, the Core Ultra 9 285K uses the LGA1851 platform, which was released in 2024, but its life span is likely to be limited. There are indications that Intel may refresh Arrow Lake for LGA1851 before transitioning to the LGA1954 platform for forthcoming processors.

⭐ Winner: Tie

Specification-wise, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has a big L3 cache thanks to AMD's 3D V-Cache technology and lower power consumption overall than the Core Ultra 9 285K. Another of AMD's strengths is the life expectancy of the AM5 platform, which is substantially higher than LGA1851. Investing in the platform now offers a ticket for future processor upgrades.

The LGA1851, in contrast, represents a fading platform. Arrow Lake may be the sole chip to utilize the LGA1851 platform, or possibly Arrow Lake Refresh, assuming the latest rumors are true. This is not particularly surprising, as the typical cadence for Intel sockets has consistently been two or three generations of chips, unlike AMD.

In LGA1851's defense, it is presently the sole platform that completely supports CUDIMMs. One advantage the Core Ultra 9 285K holds over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the possibility of leveraging CUDIMMs, such as high-speed memory DDR5-9200 and beyond. Nevertheless, considering the long life span of AM5, it is likely that full CUDIMM support will be introduced for AMD's platform in due course.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

This article provides an overview of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Core Ultra 9 285K's performance metrics. We have also published in-depth individual reviews of these two CPUs, which you can refer to for more details. These graphs show the geometric mean of our gaming test results with these two CPUs at 1080p (1920x1080) resolution.

We paired both CPUs with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card to minimize potential bottlenecks. Testing at 1080p might seem irrelevant for such a powerful setup, but this resolution allows us to see the full potential of our CPUs in gaming.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D outperformed the Core Ultra 9 285K in gaming performance. This outcome was anticipated, as gaming performance is the former's most notable strength, attributable to the substantial L3 cache enabled by AMD's 3D V-Cache technology.

Cumulatively, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D yielded average frame rates that were 34% higher than those of the Core Ultra 9 285K throughout our testing suite of 16 games, utilizing a combination of High and Ultra graphical settings at 1080p. Furthermore, the AMD flagship demonstrated a 27% higher result in 1% Lows.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Core Ultra 9 285K hit the market at $699 and $620, respectively. The former presents 0.28 FPS per dollar, while the latter offers 0.23. Despite costing 13% more, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has more gaming value for your money. While the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has maintained its pricing, the Core Ultra 9 285K has dropped to $589, reaching 0.25.

⭐ Winner: AMD

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is undoubtedly the better choice for gaming enthusiasts. While the Core Ultra 9 285K is a capable gaming processor, it falls short compared to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which is almost 35% faster in average frame rates and close to 30% faster in 1% Lows.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has consistently maintained a higher price point than the Core Ultra 9 285K. Notwithstanding the recent price reductions of the Core Ultra 9 285K, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D continues to provide better value in gaming.

Productivity Performance: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D flaunts superior multi-threaded performance, but the contest is heated. The Zen 5 processor delivers a mere 3% higher multi-threaded performance than the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Looking at benchmarks individually, there are times when the Core Ultra 9 285K is substantially faster. For example, the Intel chip boasted 18% higher results in POV-Ray or 11% higher in HandBrake x265. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D also has its moments, such as in V-Ray 6, where it outperformed the Core Ultra 9 285K by 17%.

Intel continues to be the leader in single-threaded performance; however, the disparity has been narrowing, as evidenced by the current generation. The Core Ultra 9 285K achieved a 9% better single-threaded overall than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

The POV-Ray benchmark clearly favors the Core Ultra 9 285K, which significantly surpassed the Ryzen 9 9950X3D by an impressive 31%. Conversely, the performance delta between the two processors wasn't as big in other workloads.

⭐ Winner: Tie

There is no definitive victor in this comparison. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has higher multi-threaded performance relative to the Core Ultra 9 285K. Nevertheless, the disparity stands at merely 3%, a difference that may not be noteworthy across all workloads.

Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 9 285K is better at single-thread performance than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, where the former exhibits a speed increase of 9% over the latter. It can be argued that a loss of 3% is more tolerable than a loss of 9%; this perspective holds validity when one prioritizes a chip for productivity purposes while overlooking gaming considerations.

Overclocking: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K have unlocked multipliers and are ready for your manual overclocking endeavors. The quality of overclocking can vary significantly between processors, and currently, we do not possess a substantial number of samples from which to derive definitive conclusions. Our results are primarily based on our overclocking experiences with the single sample available in our lab.

In the context of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, we activated AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) functionality. For the PBO configuration, we utilized the 'advanced' and 'motherboard' power settings, accompanied by a 10X scalar adjustment and an increase of 200 MHz in the clock speed. Furthermore, we implemented a -15 all-core Curve Optimizer offset.

We've also experimented with Intel's latest '200S Boost' feature combined with some manual overclocking. But the long story short is that there isn't much practical headroom for performance gains with fabric overclocking. Intel also offers manual tuning for the P-cores and E-cores, though the actual performance gains are heavily weighted towards the latter.

⭐ Winner: Tie

Unlike the old Pentium, modern processors arrive with little headroom for serious overclocking with conventional cooling. It's a two-way street. On a positive note, you can rest easy at night knowing their chips are at or near their potential. However, on the downside, the art of extracting additional performance at no cost is slowly fading away.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

On the contrary, the Core Ultra 9 285K reveals a higher power consumption during various workload scenarios. The Intel chip operates within a power range of 219W to 325W, whereas its AMD counterpart operates between 178W and 228W. Notably, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has a peak power consumption that is 30% lower than that of the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Most PCs rarely truly idle; users might leave various applications open on the desktop. There's also an 'active idle' use case wherein the user does a low-load activity, such as browsing the web or watching a YouTube video. To model this behavior, we created an active idle test (second slide) with two browser windows open (one with two tabs idling on a website and another window with a 4K YouTube video stream playing). We measure this level of activity across a 15-minute timespan.

The Core Ultra 9 285K has 30% lower idle power consumption than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Furthermore, the Core Ultra 9 285 K's active idle power consumption during YouTube playback is particularly notable, as it consumes 39% less power.

The Core Ultra 9 285K was more power efficient in the Linpack workload, displaying a 5% lower watt-hour. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D excelled in the Cinebench 2024 workload, landing a 10% higher watts per point and a 13% lower watts per FPS in the HandBrake x265 test.

The ideal balance is performance at a reduced power consumption. To elaborate, the processor at the bottom right corner of the power efficiency charts represents the best chip in terms of efficiency. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D outperforms the Core Ultra 9 285K in multiple benchmarks.

⭐ Winner: AMD

The Core Ultra 9 285K wins at idle power consumption, but the Ryzen 9 9950X3D consumes less power under load. While both idle and average power consumption should be considered, the latter is ultimately more important since we typically use our systems under heavier use or in 'active idle' conditions rather than letting them truly idle for prolonged periods.

Furthermore, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has better power efficiency than the Core Ultra 9 285K. A power-efficient processor helps reduce system costs, including processor cooling and power supply capacity expenses. It also positively contributes to electricity savings.

Pricing: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D launched last month at $699. Since this processor recently came out of the oven, it's unrealistic to expect any price adjustments. Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 9 285K debuted at $620 in October 2024. Nowadays, you can find the flagship Arrow Lake chip at U.S. retailers for $589, 5% below the launch price.

Intel processors usually maintain their value until the next generation arrives. Therefore, it's unlikely that the Core Ultra 9 285K will officially get any cheaper. You may still find a retailer deal here or there.

To put things in perspective, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's gaming performance is 34% higher than the Core Ultra 9 285K while being 19% more expensive. The Zen 5 part has a 3% multi-threaded advantage over the Core Ultra 9 285K, but the Intel chip does have up to 9% higher single-threaded performance, though.

⭐ Winner: AMD

At $699, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D may look like a scary investment. However, our results show that even with that hefty price tag, the 3D V-Cache flagship gives you more value for your money in gaming. The multi-threaded performance isn't shabby, but it does lose out to the Core Ultra 9 285K in single-threaded performance.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D already looks good. However, its appeal will grow further when the pricing starts to decline, whether through official price reductions or retailer promotions during special events such as Black Friday.

Bottom Line: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The gaming performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D was never in doubt, particularly given that lower-tier Zen 5 components equipped with 3D V-Cache have already surpassed the Core Ultra 9 285K by massive margins. However, the more important question is whether the Ryzen 9 9950X3D possesses any appeal outside the gaming realm. The answer to this inquiry is yes.

In addition to being a great gaming processor, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D can double as a productivity monster, similar to the vanilla Ryzen 9 9950X. Thanks to the Zen 5 architecture and the 16-core, 32-thread configuration, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has no issues tackling demanding workloads, as long as they benefit from multi-threading. Unfortunately, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's single-threaded performance lags behind the Core Ultra 9 285K.

However, if you can overlook the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's single-threaded weakness, the Zen 5 chip is a fantastic all-around performer that's power efficient and offers support for the latest technology. And unlike the Core Ultra 9 285K, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D doesn't leave you feeling like you just bought an obsolete processor—at least for a couple of years.

Motherboard vendors have started to deploy BIOS updates based on the AGESA 1.2.0.3C firmware. The new BIOS addresses a critical security vulnerability in AMD's Zen 5 chips found last month. This security flaw impacts Zen-based microprocessors across all product lines. While firmware updates patched Zen 1 to Zen 4, this vulnerability was only recently discovered with Zen 5.

According to AMD's security bulletin, the company relayed the updated firmware to motherboard vendors late last month. Due to the time each partner needs to integrate and validate new firmware for their unique BIOS on each motherboard model, we're only starting to see adoption now. So far, only MSI has the updated BIOS for some of its 800-series motherboards.

The specific vulnerability in question is called EntrySign (ID: AMD-SB-7033), and it allows unsigned and potentially malicious microcode to be executed on the CPU. The flaw stems from AMD's signature verification process, which used a weak hashing algorithm (AES-CMAC). This allowed researchers at Google to craft forged signatures for arbitrary or even malicious microcode. The catch is that said bad actors must have kernel-level (ring 0) privileges, and at that point, this bug should be the least of your concerns, at least in consumer-grade environments.

To be clear, hot-loaded microcodes don't persist across reboots. Every time you power down and reboot your system, the microcode resets to one that was permanently embedded in your CPU from the factory unless changed later in the boot process by the BIOS/OS, which adds another set of guardrails.

Last month, the Google Security Team identified a security vulnerability in AMD's CPUs ranging from Zen 1 to Zen 4 dubbed "EntrySign" that allowed malicious users with ring 0 access to load unsigned microcode patches. An update to the AMD security bulletin now adds Zen 5, in all its forms across server and mainstream product lines, to the list of impacted infrastructures.

The security flaw leverages an improper signature verification in AMD's microcode patch loader, allowing third parties to execute arbitrary microcode on your processor.

EntrySign (ID: AMD-SB-7033) targets your CPU's microcode, which are low-level instructions that essentially bridge the gap between machine code (binary) and the physical hardware. Your CPU ships with a base microcode from the factory, embedded in its Read-Only Memory (ROM), and is immutable. Now, in case a vulnerability is found after the CPU starts retailing, manufacturers like Intel and AMD can simply push out a new microcode as a fix (take the Raptor Lake instability case, for instance).

While it is true that the CPU's built-in microcode cannot be changed, modern Operating Systems or your system's firmware (BIOS/UEFI) can load microcode updates during the early boot stages. This patch only lasts for the duration of that specific session, however.

Exposing a weakness in AMD's hashing algorithm, EntrySign can bypass the signature validation process and execute potentially unsafe microcode. The vulnerability stems deeper in servers, and is capable of compromising AMD's SEV/SEV-SNP technologies (ID: AMD-SB-3019) — potentially resulting in unauthorized access to data from virtual machines.

The primary requirement is access to ring 0, or kernel-level privileges, on the target system. Likewise, these patches do not persist after a system restart, dialing down the security alarm a notch. More creative/academic avenues open up in turn, such as a challenge at the RVSPOC (RISC-V Software Porting and Optimization Championship) 2025 that tasks contestants with running RISC-V binaries on Zen-based hardware, by leveraging this exploit to load custom microcode.

All Zen 5 CPUs, including Ryzen 9000 (Granite Ridge), EPYC 9005 (Turin), Ryzen AI 300 (Strix Halo, Strix Point, Krackan Point), and Ryzen 9000HX (Fire Range) processors are prone to this vulnerability. AMD has already deployed the ComboAM5PI 1.2.0.3c AGESA firmware for motherboard makers as a fix, so keep an eye on your vendor's website for an upcoming BIOS update. The mitigation addressing the SEV vulnerability counterpart hasn't been released yet for EPYC Turin — though it's scheduled for release sometime later this month.

The $600 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D slots into AMD's 9000 X3D product stack as a midrange alternative between the current best CPU for gaming, the eight-core $480 Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and the company's flagship 16-core $700 Ryzen 9 9950X3D. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D leverages the same game-boosting 3D V-Cache technology as its X3D counterparts to deliver impressive Intel-beating gaming performance while still maintaining most of its performance potential in productivity applications, thus reducing the trade-offs of selecting one of AMD's gaming-specific processors. But not all of the news is good.

AMD has been curiously reluctant for the press to test the Ryzen 9 9900X3D — it didn't sample the chip to press, so we had to purchase it at retail. Sure, the prior-gen Ryzen 7 7900X3D wasn't received well, but AMD claimed that some of the issues with the prior-gen model have been resolved with this generation, such as reducing the performance chasm between the Ryzen 9 X3D models, and saying that the 99000X3D beats the prior-gen 16-core 32-thread flagship 7950X3D in gaming. We've put those claims to the test.

Intel isn't much of a contender, as it faces a vexing issue with its latest lineup of chips — it has no single chip that can compete with the Ryzen 9000X3D processors in both gaming and productivity work. The new Core Ultra chips aren't as fast as their prior-gen counterparts in gaming, but they serve up impressive performance in productivity applications. As a result, the $620 Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is 23% faster in multi-threaded productivity tasks than the 9900X3D, but the 9900X3D is 28% faster in gaming. Meanwhile, the prior-gen $445 Core i9-14900K shaves away some of the deficit, but the 9900X3D is still 18% faster in gaming.

AMD's goal is to master both disciplines — gaming and productivity — with its dual-chiplet X3D processors, but that's a challenge. To build on the success of the first-gen models, the company altered its underlying 3D V-Cache design and refined its chipset drivers to deliver more accurate thread scheduling. AMD also added full overclocking support this time around, which we’ve tested, allowing you to eke out more performance in gaming and productivity work.

If you're looking for a quick take on performance, see the image album below, which breaks down performance in gaming and productivity applications. These overall measurements are backed up by our benchmarks and power testing on the following pages, so be sure to check those out. As you can see, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D is compelling, but its counterparts retain distinct advantages.

That makes the 9900X3D a better all-rounder than any competing Intel chips, but its real competition comes from within AMD's own lineup. Just as we saw with the last-gen model, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D faces a conundrum due to its price point. Let's quickly look at the 900X3D's specs, then move on to the benchmarks.

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Pricing and Specifications

As with the prior-gen Ryzen 9 7000X3D chips, the new 9900X3D uses two compute dies, with one die featuring a 3D-stacked V-Cache chiplet that increases L3 cache capacity to 128 MB. The 9900X3D's standard chiplet boosts to higher frequencies to deliver more performance in both single- and multi-threaded tasks. Overall, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D is built on the same foundation as the Ryzen 9 9900X; it just has a single L3 SRAM chiplet placed under one of the compute dies.

The Zen 5-powered Ryzen 9 9900X3D has 12 active cores and 24 threads spread evenly across the two compute chiplets (six active cores and two deactivated cores per chiplet). AMD's newly-revamped chipset drivers, which we covered in depth here, do a better job of pinning the gaming code to the single compute die with the cache.

While gaming, this technique essentially creates a six-core 12-thread processor with 3D V-Cache. Meanwhile, both the 9950X3D and 9800X3D operate as eight-core 16-thread chips while gaming, so they obviously have an inherent advantage in gaming performance, which is reflected in our benchmarks.

The 9900X3D's other cores kick in during productivity work, giving you 12 cores and 24 threads to chew through more computationally demanding work faster than you can with the eight-core 9800X3D. That said, the 9950X3D remains the king of the X3D hill for productivity work with its 16-core 32-thread design.

The 9900X3D has 140 MB of total cache and a peak boost clock rate of 5.5 GHz, a 100 MHz decline compared to the prior-gen Ryzen 9 7900X3D. Both chips have the same 5.5 GHz base clock. Like its predecessor, the 9900X3D has a 120W TDP and a 162W PPT (maximum power draw). We have extensive power testing on the following pages as well.

Let's move on to the gaming, productivity, and workstation benchmarks on the following pages.

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AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Gaming Benchmarks — The TLDR

We'll start with the high-level view of gaming performance, using the geometric mean of our 16 gaming benchmarks at 1080p, which is then followed by our individual benchmarks further down the page. We're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 FE to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions and fidelity.

As expected, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D beats Intel's competing chips easily. The 9900X3D is 28% faster on average in 1080p gaming than Intel's current-gen Core Ultra 9 285K and 18% faster than Intel's fastest gaming chip, the previous-gen Core i9-14900K. That cements the entire Ryzen 9000X3D lineup as comfortably in the gaming performance lead over Intel's competing chips. However, the Core i9-14900K costs $155 (26%) less for roughly 15% less performance in gaming, giving it some room as a value alternative — albeit with higher power use that can eat into the pricing difference over time.

For those interested solely in gaming, the Ryzen 9 9800X3D remains the best value in the X3D lineup — this chip costs $120 less than the 9900X3D but is roughly 8% faster. It's also the fastest gaming chip on the market, by the slimmest of margins against the 9950X3D. If you don't need more heavy lifting in productivity apps or don't commonly do heavy multitasking during gaming (e.g. recording, encoding on the CPU, etc.), the 9800X3D remains the best overall choice.

If you need more grunt power, the Ryzen 9 models come into focus. If you look solely at the fps-per-dollar metrics, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D has a slight lead over the 16-core 9950X3D; the 9950X3D is 7.3% faster but costs 17% more, skewing the calculation in the 9900X3D's favor. However, the 9950X3D does hold the performance lead over the 9900X3D.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D are both faster in gaming because AMD's thread-targeting mechanisms make them operate as eight-core processors during gaming, whereas the 9900X3D operates as a six-core chip. That means the 9900X3D isn't as future-proof for gaming in titles that effectively utilize heavier core/thread counts, calling into question the wisdom of spending $600 for what's essentially a six-core chip for gaming.

The difference between the two Ryzen 9 X3D processors is more important in productivity applications, especially given the target market and the slim pricing difference. As you'll see on the following page, there's a much larger difference in heavily-threaded applications that makes it hard to select the 9900X3D over the 9950X3D — the latter is 27% faster in threaded applications, but only costs 17% more. If you're already willing to spend $600 for a gaming-optimized chip that's also great at productivity work, earmarking an extra $100 for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which is faster in both gaming and applications, is a no-brainer.

The 9900X3D is 20% faster than the comparable previous-gen Ryzen 9 7900X3D, an impressive gen-on-gen gain. It's also 12% faster than the previous-gen flagship, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, backing up AMD's claims.

AMD has finally brought full overclockability to its X3D series, but we tested with AMD's simple auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature (marked with 'PBO' in the chart). It delivered an imperceptible sub-1% gain in gaming, so we left that entry out of the individual game tests below. However, PBO is more impressive in the heavily threaded workloads in our productivity benchmarks, as you'll see on the following page. More targeted tuning might yield better results in gaming, but as always, your mileage will vary.

Our gaming suite is heavily skewed toward CPU-limited titles, and our selection is also very 3D V-Cache-friendly, though not all games will benefit equally. The competition between AMD and Intel chips can vary based on the title (particularly with X3D models) and the GPU you use. It's best to make an informed decision based on the types of games you frequently play, so be sure to check out our individual game tests below. (Our lab isn't as temperature-controlled as we would like, so consider the gaming temperature measurements a rough guide.)

The results below are very repetitive, so we'll skip most commentary on the individual titles. We've also included AMD's benchmarks with a broader range of 40 titles at the end of this page to provide a more balanced view of the impact of 3D V-Cache in some titles that don't benefit from the extra L3 capacity.

A Plague Tale: Requiem Benchmarks

This is one of the bigger deltas in favor of AMD's other chips. The 9900X3D places third, but it's only barely faster than the prior gen 7800X3D.

Baldur's Gate 3 Benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077 can be an incredibly GPU-heavy game with ray tracing, so we're opting for the more CPU-constrained ultra (non-RT) settings without upscaling. Note that none of our CPU gaming tests have upscaling of any form enabled.

F1 2024 Benchmarks

We tested F1 24 with the ultra preset, which does enable some RT effects. The game is relatively lightweight compared to other games, and we're still hitting 200+ FPS on most CPUs.

Far Cry 6 Benchmarks

Far Cry 6 is an AMD-promoted game that responds incredibly well to 3D V-Cache.

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks

Hitman 3 Benchmarks

Hitman 3 leverages Intel's E-cores for certain game functions, but it also likes Ryzen X3D's voluminous L3 cache. We enabled ray tracing effects for this title to further tax the CPUs, but as you can see, the RTX 5090 still chews through this title easily if the CPU keeps it fed.

Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Benchmarks

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 obviously benefits from L3 cache — the Ryzen X3D chips are incredible in this title. We've added the newer version of this game to our benchmark suite, too, but we'll keep this one around as well due to its popularity.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks

We've also begun testing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. This title relies heavily on data streaming and has a unique game engine, so it's time to start poking at it. As you can see, it inherits Flight Simulator 2020's love for 3D V-Cache (perhaps even more so).

Minecraft — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Monster Hunter Wilds

Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks

Starfield Benchmarks

The Last of Us, Part 1

Watch Dogs Legion Benchmarks

Watch Dogs Legion closes out our testing with mundane scaling instead of the typical large deltas we see with the X3D chips.

AMD's Ryzen 9 9900X3D Gaming Benchmarks

As mentioned, performance can vary based on the title. AMD shared its own benchmarks to highlight what you should expect in various titles, so this is useful information — especially given that our test suite is 3D V-Cache-friendly. As with all vendor-provided performance data, view it with the appropriate skepticism. AMD's test notes are on the final slide.

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AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Productivity Benchmarks — The TLDR

This page covers a broad range of 'standard' desktop PC productivity applications, while the following page dives deeper into workstation-class workloads with SPECworkstation 4 benchmarks.

We boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single-threaded and multi-threaded. These slides show the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each of these categories, but be sure to look at the expanded results below for a more granular analysis.

The $620 Core Ultra 9 285K is the $600 Ryzen 9 9900X3D's real competitor in productivity workloads; it delivers far more performance in threaded workloads than the Core i9-14900K. In our overall measurement, the Core Ultra 9 285K is 23% faster than the 9900X3D in threaded workloads, but the $445 Core i9-14900K is still an impressive 10% faster than the Ryzen 9 9900X3D.

In our cumulative single-thread performance measurement, the Core Ultra 9 285K is 7% faster than the 9900X3D, and the 14900K is 3.5% faster.

The $700 Ryzen 9 9950X3D remains the king of the productivity hill, delivering 27% more performance than the $600 Ryzen 9 9900X3D in heavily threaded apps, an advantage borne of the higher core count and 170W TDP. It also offers 3% more performance in lightly threaded applications due to its higher boost clock. This generally mirrors the performance deltas we saw between the last-gen Ryzen 9 models, too.

The 9950X3D's impressive amount of extra performance over the 9900X3D costs $100 more (17%). Again, spending an extra $100 when you're already considering the already expensive $600 Ryzen 9 9900X3D isn't much of a lift, and it delivers a tangible benefit. That's not to mention that the 9950X3D is much faster in gaming, too.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D takes a slight lead in multi-threaded workloads over its counterpart, the Ryzen 9 9900X, which has the same number of cores but lacks 3D V-Cache tech, but the two chips jockey back and forth for the lead across our multi-threaded workloads, so the competition is close enough to call a tie. That makes the less expensive $380 Ryzen 9 9900X the obvious choice if you're only interested in productivity performance. Notably, the 9900X is ~2% faster in single-threaded work, perhaps due to better core residency in a few single-threaded workloads (the two chips have the same boost clock rates).

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D delivers a strong gen-on-gen improvement of 19% in heavily threaded applications and a 7% gain in lightly threaded workloads over the prior-gen Ryzen 9 7900X3D.

The 9900X3D can't quite keep pace with the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X3D in threaded work, but it comes close — the 7950X3D is surprisingly only 7% faster in threaded workloads despite having 33% more cores. The 9900X3D is about 6% faster in single-threaded work than the 7950X3D, though, showing the benefits of the Zen 5 architecture's higher instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput.

Our simple PBO overclock yielded a 7% boost for the 9900X3D in threaded workloads with minimal fuss, and we also included those results in the albums below. We gained 5% when overclocking the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Remember, the Intel processors would also benefit from overclocking, but this would require far more manual intervention.

As a side note, we have long included the y-cruncher benchmark in our cumulative measurement of threaded performance. However, this heavily-threaded AVX-512 benchmark recently received tuned optimizations that deliver explosive gains for the Ryzen 9000 processors, but the massive deltas don't generally align with what we see in actual AVX-512-enabled applications. As such, we've removed the benchmark from our overall calculation, but you can still see the individual results below.

Rendering Benchmarks

The Core i9-14900K matches or beats the 9900X3D in nearly all rendering workloads but at a much lower price point. Meanwhile, the Arrow Lake Core 9 285K dominates the Ryzen 9 9900X3D by much larger margins.

The Ryzen 9 900X3D delivers strong gains in some workloads from the PBO feature, and we also notice there's often only a slim difference between the 9900X and 9900X3D.

Encoding Benchmarks

Most encoders tend to be either heavily threaded or almost exclusively single-threaded — and it takes an agile chip to master both disciplines. Handbrake, SVT-HEVC, and SVT-AV1 serve as our threaded encoders, while LAME and FLAC are indicative of how the chips handle lightly-threaded engines.

Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve

The PugetBench for Creators suite is a wonderful tool for benchmarking multiple types of Adobe applications, not to mention DaVinci Resolve. We used the benchmark for Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci workloads.

The Ryzen 9000X3D chips lead Intel across the board in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, but Adobe Premier Pro finds a much more contested picture, with the 285K taking the lead over the 9900X3D while the 14900K challenges. The 14900K claws out a slim lead over the 9900X3D in DaVinci Resolve Studio, while the 285K leads once again.

Web Browser, Office Benchmarks

The Core Ultra 9 285K has a 4% lead over the 9900X3D in the WebXPRT4 overall score, while the Core i9-14900K trails slightly. In contrast, the 9000X3D leads convincingly in the Edge browser benchmark.

Compilation, AVX, Scientific Workloads, Chess Engines, Others

This selection of tests runs the gamut from massively parallel molecular dynamics simulation code in NAMD to compression/decompression performance.

Y-cruncher computes Pi with the AVX instruction set, making for an exceedingly demanding benchmark. This benchmark was recently updated with specific tuning for AMD's AVX-512 implementation. The new code delivers a big boost to Ryzen, but it isn't as representative of performance in real-world applications as the older, unoptimized version. Most code simply isn't as well tuned, or doesn't utilize AVX-512 to such a heavy extent. Intel's new chips make big strides in this benchmark over the prior generation, but they only support AVX-256 natively, so AMD gets an easy win — the Ryzen 9 chips are incredibly impressive in the BPP benchmark.

The 285K takes a strong lead in the NAMD simulation code benchmark, while the AMD processors excel at most Chess engine benchmarks.

Compression, Encryption

We've added several more compression, decompression, and encryption benchmarks to better capture the performance deltas in different algorithms. The Intel chips generally take the lead, but that isn't always the case. Some workloads, like Google's Brotli compression engine, favor AMD's chips.

AI Workloads, Geekbench 6

The Core Ultra 9 285K easily leads in the Procyon Computer Vision Benchmark with the larger float32 data type. However, the AMD processors are more competitive with float16 and ultimately take the lead in the integer benchmark.

The GeekBench AI results in the slide deck above show performance with the workload running on the CPU cores via OpenVino and ONNX. Only two CPUs in this group have in-built NPUs — the Core Ultra 9 285K and Ultra 7 265K — making them the only processors capable of running the workload on a dedicated NPU. Given that the NPU is focused on low-power inference tasks, the results are impressive relative to the performance when the workload executes on the CPU cores.

Java, PHP Workloads

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The new SPECworkstation 4 benchmark suite is designed to measure workstation performance in professional applications. The full suite consists of 23 workloads with 80 subtests that target four hardware subsystems.

This industry-standard benchmark measures performance across seven industry verticals, but we've winnowed down the list to tests that largely focus on CPU performance. We haven't submitted these benchmarks to the SPEC organization, so be aware that these are not official benchmarks.

Financial Services and Energy

The Energy category of tests pertains to workloads commonly executed in energy-related industries, such as seismic data processing, reservoir simulations, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The Intel processors excel in the SRMP seismic data processing benchmark and the Poisson Jacobi Square Grid equation (used to simulate electrostatics, heat conduction, and fluid flow). The Ryzen 9 9900X3D is more competitive in the Convolution and Poisson Rectangular Square Grid benchmarks.

The Financial Services category measures performance in various financial applications and options pricing tasks, such as Monte Carlo probability simulations and Black Scholes pricing models. Here we can see that the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, and all of the X3D chips for that matter, perform well in these applications. This is most likely due to the additional L3 cache capacity. The Core Ultra 9 285K takes a convincing lead in the Binomial workload.

Product Design

The Product Design vertical addresses workstation performance in common tasks for product designers and engineers, such as CAD and related applications used for 3D modeling, product visualizations, and design.

The Intel chips take a pronounced lead in most of these benchmarks, including AutoDesk Inventor, Finite Element Analysis (FEM), OpenFOAM CFD, Rodinia CFD, and the hidden line removal workload.

Productivity and Development

The Productivity and Development vertical addresses software development, code compilation, general office productivity, and related activities. The CPU-sensitive tests in this lineup include extensive Python 3 benchmarks using the NumPy library and the LLVM code compilation benchmark. Intel wins those benchmarks across the board. AMD is more competitive in the Octave benchmarks, taking the lead.

AI and Machine Learning

The AI and Machine Learning vertical is one of the most important of the new benchmarks in SPECworkstation 4, as unleashing the power of AI on workstation-class workloads can deliver groundbreaking capabilities. AMD generally leads the ONNX throughput benchmarks in both SuperResolution and RestNet50 flavors, though it's more competitive in the int8 benchmarks.

The Intel chips also excel in the AI and ML benchmarks using the Pandas, Scikit-learn, and XGBoost Python-based data libraries.

Life Sciences

The Life Sciences vertical measures performance in medical imaging, genomics, molecular modeling, and pharmaceutical research workloads. For instance, the Rodinia Heart Wall test tracks the motion of the heart wall in a medical ultrasound image. The LAMMPS and NAMD benchmarks quantify performance in various molecular dynamics simulations.

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AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Power Consumption and Efficiency

We measure CPU power consumption metrics directly at the EPS12V connector because software-based measurements can be 'cheated' by motherboard vendors. This approach gives us the best visibility into accurate power consumption metrics but differs from results gathered from the wall plug (which include full system power) and software-based measurements. Our measurements represent the power the CPU power delivery subsystem consumes directly from the PSU, but it doesn't account for VRM efficiencies (roughly 10% on high-end motherboards).

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D isn't as power hungry as its larger sibling, the 9950X3D. The chip peaked at 181W but hovered in the 160–170 Watts range during many of the workloads.

As expected, the Core i9-14900K is an egregious power guzzler, sucking down up to 383W during the Blender workload, but it does deliver more overall performance in our suite. The Core Ultra 9 285K is more miserly than the 14900K, but it peaks at 325W, showing it can also have a voracious appetite.

As expected, we see a disproportionately large increase in power consumption for slim performance gains when we kick on the 9900X3D’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature. PBO isn’t worth the extra power consumption for gaming, where it delivers imperceptible benefits, but it's far more useful for those focused on productivity work or heavy multi-tasking.

We measure our standard idle power metrics after a lengthy time of inactivity with all background tasks terminated. The Ryzen processors consume more idle power than comparable Intel models, largely due to the need to keep the large I/O Die powered despite low-load conditions. Here, the Core Ultra processors bring idle power consumption to new lows, with the 285K consuming only 8W. In contrast, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D pulls 22W at idle, a notable disadvantage.

Most PCs rarely truly idle; users might leave various applications open on the desktop. There's also an 'active idle' use case wherein the user does a low-load activity, such as browsing the web or watching a YouTube video. To model this behavior, we created an active idle test (second slide) with two browser windows open (one with two tabs idling on a website and another window with a 4K YouTube video stream playing). We measure this level of activity across a 15-minute timespan.

We measured the Core Ultra 9 285K at 20W under these conditions, but the Ryzen 9 9900X3D consumed 37W. While we can see that the 9900X3D has improved compared to the previous-gen Ryzen 7000X3D models, this is still a significantly higher amount of active idle power draw than the Intel chips.

The watts-per-FPS chart quantifies power efficiency during an x265 HandBrake workload. The 9900X3D is near the top of the list with strong power efficiency metrics. We see a similar trend in the other efficiency metrics.

The last three slides take a slightly different look at power consumption by plotting the cumulative energy required for an x265 HandBrake, Linpack, and Blender workload. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart, with performance charted on the x-axis.

These workloads consist of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the performance during the job (bottom axis), thus generating a useful power chart. Faster compute performance and lower task energy are ideal. That means processors closest to the bottom right corner of the chart are the best.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D falls into the sweet spot of performance and power efficiency in these charts, with a particularly strong showing in Blender. Meanwhile, the 285K and other Arrow Lake chips greatly improve over their 14th-Gen predecessors.

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Test Setup

We tested with the latest version of Microsoft Windows 24H2 (22631) and have updated all drivers, BIOSes, and applications to the latest versions. To speed up the testing process, we use XMP/EXPO as the default memory profile for all tested configurations. The memory speeds used for each chip are shown in the table below.

We tested the Ryzen 9 9900X3D in standard stock trim and with the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature enabled. We used the 'advanced' and 'motherboard' power settings for the PBO configuration with a 10X scalar and 200 MHz clock adjustment. We also dialed in a -15 all-core Curve Optimizer offset.

We used lifted power limits for the Intel processors, which results in higher power consumption and heat, but you get faster performance in exchange.

We use the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Founders Edition for our game testing. For the sake of expediency, our power measurements in the gaming section are gathered by polling the motherboard sensor loop, while the metrics in the dedicated power testing section use more precise direct measurements at the EPS12V connector.

Microsoft has advised gamers to turn off several security features to boost gaming performance. For maximum performance, we disabled Virtualization Based Security (VBS) on all systems. Be aware that, due to hardware acceleration, some processor architectures handle virtualization better than others. This can provide a performance advantage when gaming with VBS enabled, but we haven't observed meaningful differences in our testing.

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The $600 Ryzen 9 9900X3D is the middle child in AMD's gaming-optimized X3D lineup, and those willing to pay the extra $200 premium over the standard Ryzen 9 9900X for the game-boosting tech are going to be primarily interested in gaming performance with a side of additional performance in productivity and heavy multitasking workloads. However, while the 9900X3D is now the fastest 12-core gaming chip on the market, it faces stiff competition from AMD's own lower- and higher-priced chips, making its $600 price tag hard to justify, just like the previous-gen model.

Unfortunately for Intel, neither of its competing chips can make a compelling case in gaming against the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, unless you're looking for a lower-priced value alternative in the $445 Core i9-14900K (which may not be a great value after factoring in power use over time). The Intel chips are strong alternatives for those interested solely in productivity work, but they aren't strong contenders against the 9900X3D's niche target market.

Below, we have the geometric mean of our gaming test suite at 1080p and a cumulative performance measurement in single- and multi-threaded applications. We conducted our gaming tests with an Nvidia RTX 5090, so performance deltas will shrink with lesser cards and higher resolution and fidelity settings.

In 1080p gaming, the 9900X3D is 28% faster on average than Intel's current-gen Core Ultra 9 285K and 18% faster than Intel's fastest gaming chip, the previous-gen Core i9-14900K. As such, the similarly priced 285K isn't competitive. However, the Core i9-14900K costs $155 (26%) less for roughly 15% less performance in gaming, giving it some room as a value alternative, especially in light of its faster performance in productivity applications.

Speaking of which, the $445 Core i9-14900K is 10% faster in multi-threaded work than the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 3% faster in single-threaded. Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 9 285K is 23% faster than the 9900X3D in threaded workloads and 7% faster in single-threaded. Still, its woefully slower gaming performance and similar pricing make it unattractive compared to the Ryzen 9 9900X3D.

The 9900X3D's real competitors come from AMD's own stable and bracket it on both sides of the pricing equation. If you're solely interested in gaming, the Ryzen 9 9800X3D costs $120 (25%) less than the 9900X3D but is roughly 8% faster in gaming. Conversely, the 9900X3D is 36% faster in multi-threaded applications, but if you don't need more heavy lifting in productivity apps or don't commonly do heavy multitasking while gaming, the 9800X3D is the chip for you.

The $700 Ryzen 9 9950X3D is better still. For $100 (20%) more than the 9900X3D, you get 7% more gaming performance, matching the fastest gaming chip on the market, 27% more performance in heavily-threaded work, and 3% more performance in single-threaded applications. If you're already willing to spend $600 for a gaming-optimized chip that's also great at productivity work, earmarking an extra $100 for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is clearly the better choice.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D are more future-proof gaming chips, too. Both chips essentially operate as an eight-core processor during gaming, while the Ryzen 9 9900X3D operates as a six-core processor. Games are inevitably making better use of higher core and thread counts as the years go on, and spending $600 for what is essentially a six-core gaming chip, albeit with a large L3 cache, doesn't feel like a wise investment for longevity.

Overall, the best CPU for most gamers remains the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, while the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the best option for higher performance in gaming and more demanding productivity tasks. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D will need a significant price adjustment to earn our recommendation.

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There have been several reports of AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPUs refusing to boot on ASRock motherboards. The two companies have been aware of them since February 2025, with ASRock immediately releasing a beta BIOS update to address the problem. After a few weeks of investigation, the cause of the issue has finally been identified as a memory compatibility problem, but it has already been resolved with the latest BIOS release.

“We are aware of a limited number of user reports involving ASRock AM5 motherboards failing to complete POST. Following a joint investigation, AMD and ASRock identified a memory capability issue present in earlier BIOS versions, which has been rectified in the latest BIOS,” AMD told Tom’s Hardware. “ASRock has already issued guidance on this behavior and addressed a singular report of a damaged CPU.”

Even though more than a hundred motherboards failing to post with a 9800X3D chip have been documented, that is still a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands, if not millions, of motherboards and CPUs out there in countless variations. “It’s worth noting that a failure to POST can be caused by a range of factors and does not necessarily indicate a non-functional CPU,” added AMD. “We recommend that users start by updating their BIOS to the latest version available for their specific motherboard model.”

Still, if you have a problem even after updating your BIOS, the company says you should contact customer support. AMD adds, “If the issue persists, we encourage users to contact our customer support team for further assistance and diagnostics.” If the company can’t fix the problem on-site, it will probably tell you to RMA the CPU, which, in most cases, fixes the boot problem.

As for the February report of a burnt-out 9800X3D, AMD said that the motherboard did not have burn marks and that it was just debris that needed some cleaning. Sure enough, the motherboard successfully booted after this procedure and even passed some long-term testing.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is one of the best gaming CPUs you can buy today, so both AMD and its motherboard partners are likely vigilant on any problems that might appear on these components. Thankfully, it seems that the issues that do occur are minor and can be easily resolved. However, we're following up with AMD for more details. Stay tuned.

Update 4/1/2025 4:21 PT: Clarified the below text that not all of the 100 reports are indicative of chip failures. Rather, some could be due to boot issues.

Updated article:

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D, regarded as one of the best CPUs, has captured the attention of gamers seeking to upgrade their gaming rigs. However, AMD's 3D V-Cache chip has also sparked another discussion, as user feedback regarding alleged premature failures on Reddit (courtesy of natty_overlord) has grown to over 100 cases. Many of the cases have been resolved by RMA'ing the CPUs.

The first cases of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D issues date back to November of last year. However, it seems to be an ongoing issue, as new user reports have periodically popped up over the past few months. Redditor natty_overlord, who did all the legwork, compiled a list of all the user reports with their respective links in the Reddit thread. So far, the tally of problematic Ryzen 9000 (codenamed Granite Ridge) processors has reached 120 cases. However, it isn't entirely clear how many units have failed to boot due to defective silicon or are simply refusing to boot due to a firmware issue. Regardless, a large number of the units have been RMA'd, and replacement CPUs tend to correct the issue.

According to the statistics, 108 incidents are associated with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, while there have only been two cases involving the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Meanwhile, the remaining 10 incidents originate from the vanilla Ryzen 9000 lineup. Overall, the numbers aren't alarming, considering that AMD likely sells hundreds of thousands of these Zen 5 chips. Nonetheless, history has taught us that no matter how small the number of affected cases may be, they still warrant an investigation.

Ryzen 9000 Failures By Motherboard Brands

Most of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D problems seemed to have occurred on ASRock motherboards. Up to 82% of the incidents were on an ASRock motherboard. Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte rank second, third, and fourth, respectively, with participation rates of 13%, 4%, and 1%.

It's important to highlight that the data has nothing to do with motherboard quality or reliability. It could be a matter of consumer preference, as ASRock motherboards are typically more friendly on the pocket than rival brands. It's hard to pinpoint a specific model since the failures have appeared on entry-level models, such as the B850M-X, up to the flagship X870E Taichi SKU.

In February, ASRock released new firmware for its AM5 motherboards that reportedly solves boot issues. The firmware's description reads, "improve minority proportion of AMD 9000 series CPU boot issue." While ASRock addresses the boot issues, the company didn't share any information on whether these issues are related to all of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D issues. It is possible that these boot issues spurred many of the RMA requests.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D Failures By Chipset

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D's issues have happened on the latest 800-series motherboards and the last-generation 600-series motherboards. However, it was more prevalent in the former, with the X870 chipset accounting for 45% of the boot failures and the B650 accounting for 33%. At first glance, the problem should not be about motherboard quality since the X870 chipset is usually featured on premium motherboards with robust design and components.

It was the opposite on the 600-series motherboards, where the B650 chipset corresponded to 15% of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D failures and the X670 chipset with just 7%.

Only a thorough investigation can uncover what is truly happening. ASRock Japan previously attributed the issue to a memory problem and stated that the recently released firmware would resolve it. We can't help but recall the earlier Ryzen 7000 burnout scandal related to AMD EXPO profiles and SoC voltages and wonder if we're witnessing a similar malfunction. ASRock retrieved one malfunctioning Ryzen 7 9800X3D, found debris in the AM5 socket, and demonstrated that properly cleaning the AM5 socket restored it to working order. However, not all cases are related to debris in the socket.

The time of failures looks random, with some user feedback pointing to a couple of hours and others to a few months. It's not a contest or anything, but the record is currently at the half-hour mark. The problem continues to spread as we see constant user feedback in the ASRock subreddit's mega-thread. The last report was from an hour ago, where one Redditor showed the underside of his Ryzen chip with scorch marks, which points to a severe problem in that case.

Last CES saw AMD unveil its Ryzen 8000G lineup of APUs for AM5, bringing together speedy Zen 4 cores alongside the first RDNA-based graphics engine to desktops, succeeding their Vega-powered predecessors. Hardware leaker HXL suggests a potential successor is expected for a Q4 launch later this year, with the likely designation of Ryzen 9000G. Other details regarding the core architecture and silicon have not been detailed, so we'll primarily have to rely on guesswork.

Ryzen 8000G APUs were based on AMD's Phoenix silicon and featured Zen 4 cores, while some models down the stack included both Zen 4 and smaller Zen 4c cores. Similar to the Ryzen 7040 APUs for laptops, AMD equipped these processors with up to 12 RDNA 3-based CUs (Compute Units) capable of basic 1080p gaming. This is thanks to the inclusion of DDR5 support on AM5, which is also considered why AMD likely skipped porting Rembrandt to AM4, as it was limited to DDR4.

Zen 5-based mobile APUs are divided into Strix Point for the high-end and Krackan Point for the mid-range. AMD is expected to reuse the same silicon for the Ryzen 9000G family, giving us an inkling about the specs. Strix Point tops 12 hybrid cores (four Zen 5 + eight Zen 5c) in a dual-CCX layout, alongside a beefy 16 Compute Unit iGPU (Radeon 890M) based on RDNA 3.5.

Krackan Point drops this to eight hybrid cores (four Zen 5 + four Zen 5c). While we're still awaiting die shots for confirmation, it's suggested that all eight hybrid cores in Krackan Point share the same 16MB cache pool (single-CCX), similar to AMD's budget Phoenix 2 offerings. We find a Radeon 860M solution on the graphics end, outfitted with eight RDNA 3.5-based Compute Units.

Both families have an XDNA 2 NPU capable of dishing 50 TOPS of AI performance. If our assumptions prove accurate, AMD might be in the running to deliver the first Copilot+ certified desktop offerings with these chips. As AMD reportedly plans a Strix Point refresh with Gorgon Point (Ryzen AI 400?) in 2026, they can leverage surplus Ryzen AI 300 silicon for Ryzen 9000G APUs.

While still no more than a guess, this is a pretty significant uptick in specifications and, thus, performance over existing Phoenix APUs on desktops. It's unlikely, however, that we'll see something like Strix Halo ported to AM5 anytime soon, mainly due to its size, design, and cost. Ryzen 9000G is likely among the last Zen 5 offerings, as AMD is expected to march on to Zen 6 in 2026.

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X was the flagship Zen 5 CPU for the company’s latest Granite Ridge family of processors before the arrival of the $699 Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but if gaming prowess isn't your main concern, then the 9950X is still king for 16-core workloads. One of the most powerful consumer CPUs around, the 9950X is the perfect processor for multiple-core and multi-threaded workloads and tasks such as content creation and video editing. You can use the 9950X for gaming, but there are better CPU options now available.

Hitting an all-time low price in Amazon's Big Spring Sale, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor is only $528. The Ryzen 9 9950X has an impressive 16 cores with 32 threads and uses 80MB of combined L2/L3 cache with only a TDP of 170W. The base clock speed of the 9950X is 4.3GHz, which can boost to a clock speed of 5.7GHz.

If you're already on the AM5 ecosystem and looking to upgrade, the Ryzen 9 9950X drops into the existing AM5 LGA1718 socket and is backward-compatible with all 600-series chipsets. The Ryzen 9 9950X shines in multi-threaded performance applications and can still be used for gaming but pales compared to gaming-focused CPU iterations like the 9800X3D and recently released 9950X3D. The 9950X3D is also a 16-core processor, so you're paying $167 more for the 3D V-Cache and gaming performance.

For detailed testing and benchmarking results, please check out our review of the Ryzen 9 9950X. In our testing, we found the Ryzen 9 9950X is up to 23% faster than Intel's Core i9-14900K in heavily threaded workloads but falls slightly behind in single-threaded performance. The same is true when compared to Intel's latest Core 9 285K CPU, which also outperforms in multi-core/threaded workloads but is slightly behind in single-core performance.

As the launch of AMD's Zen 5-based Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series processors, codenamed Shimada Peak, is getting closer, more of these CPUs are spotted in various databases and shipment manifests. This week, blogger Everest noticed 24-core and 32-core Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series processors in shipping manifests in the Global Trade Data and Customs Database. This does not mean that these units are set to hit the market shortly, but it means that someone is testing CPUs with appropriate names.

The processors in question are AMD's upcoming Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9975WX with 32 cores and Ryzen Threadripper 9965WX with 24 cores. Both CPUs feature a thermal design power of 350W, which aligns with the TDP of AMD's current-generation Ryzen Threadripper 7000-series CPUs. The same TDP will ensure the drop-in compatibility of AMD's Threadripper Pro 9000-series processors with existing platforms with appropriate firmware to support Zen 5-based CPUs.

Keep in mind that the information in shipping manifests is unofficial. However, observers have spotted three out of five or six Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series CPUs in various shipping manifests. AMD still has to send its flagship Ryzen Threadripper 9995WX processor with 96 cores and entry-level Ryzen Threadripper 9955WX with 16 cores to one of its overseas offices for testing so that we could, to some degree, confirm the lineup, which could look as follows:

Ryzen Threadripper 9000 CPU Specifications*

*Specifications are unconfirmed.

AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series family is expected to feature five CPUs with 16, 24, 32, 64, and 96 cores relying on the Zen 5 microarchitecture. As AMD's Zen 5 core complex die (CCD) packs eight cores with 32 MB of L3 cache, this means that a 16-core Threadripper Pro 9000-series CPU will use two compute dies, a 32-core version will use four CCDs, a 64-core variant will come with eight CCDs, and a 96-core one will house 12 core complex dies and 384 MB of L3 cache. T

These values nearly match the current Threadripper 7000-series generation and suggest no changes to the cache structure. However, AMD may omit a 12-core version this time, at least according to rumors.

Regarding compatibility, the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series processors use an LGA-4844 packaging called 'SP6' in shipment manifests, which is not technically correct. While AMD's SP6 and sTR5 sockets are physically identical in dimension and the number of pins, they are not electrically compatible, meaning processors designed for one socket cannot operate in the other. AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9000-series will continue to use the socket sTR5.

Asus has unveiled a new BIOS feature called AI Cache Boost, which is designed to enhance AI performance on systems equipped with AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series processors. The new feature is part of a recent BIOS firmware update for Asus AMD 800 Series motherboards. It focuses on improving the efficiency of data transfers between the CPU cores, cache, and memory, which is crucial for handling extensive AI workloads.

Upon enabling AI Cache Boost in the BIOS under the Extreme Tweaker tab, the system overclocks the Infinity Fabric clock (FCLK) to 2100MHz. This increase in FCLK enhances the bandwidth of data transfers within the CPU architecture, which Asus says facilitates more efficient processing of large datasets commonly associated with LLMs. As per Asus, enabling AI Cache Boost can boost performance by up to 12.75% when working with LLMs (Large Language Models).

This feature is tailored for AI enthusiasts, researchers, and professionals who utilize AMD Ryzen 9000 Series processors, specifically those with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology, like the recently launched Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Asus says it is particularly beneficial for users engaged in AI workloads that involve processing massive datasets, such as training and deploying large language models.

Asus has clarified that the new AI Cache Boost feature is specifically designed to enhance AI workloads, not gaming performance. While the feature can technically be enabled alongside other BIOS settings like GPU Boost, doing so may compromise overall system stability without delivering any noticeable benefit in gaming scenarios.

For users focused solely on maximizing AI capabilities, Asus offers additional tuning options beyond AI Cache Boost. By activating both Game Turbo and AI Cache Boost modes, disabling simultaneous multi-threading, and deactivating one CCD (Core Complex Die) on Ryzen processors, Asus says AI performance can be pushed even further. In fact, Asus own tests on a Ryzen 9 9950X3D configured with a single eight-core chiplet showed up to a 19.4% improvement in AI tasks. As with all company-provided benchmarks, take that with a grain of salt.

Asus conducted internal testing using a system equipped with ROG Crosshair X870E Hero motherboards, Nvidia RTX 5090 or 4090 GPUs, and Ryzen CPUs with AMD 3D V-Cache, showing performance uplifts in various AI benchmarks. In Geekbench AI tests, enabling AI Cache Boost resulted in improvements between 3.4% to 8%, with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D demonstrating the most significant gains. The uplift was similarly positive when tested with previous-gen RTX 4090 GPUs, showing a boost of up to 7.57%.

Asus testing using the UL Procyon AI Computer Vision Benchmark the Ryzen 7 9800X3D achieved double-digit improvements of up to 12.75%. As mentioned earlier, Asus says combining AI Cache Boost with Turbo Game Mode can yield even higher gains. For example, the company says the Ryzen 9 9950X3D saw up to a 19.35% performance increase in specific AI workloads when both features were enabled. This combination is particularly beneficial for AI users whose tasks don’t fully utilize the CPU's multithreading capabilities.

If it works as advertised, the AI Cache Boost features could be a straightforward way for Ryzen 9000 series users to extract more performance out of their systems when working with AI-related tasks.

Tom’s Hardware has tested dozens of processors from AMD and Intel to find the best CPU for gaming. Our list of 2026 CPU gaming benchmarks currently comprises 17 of the most demanding titles available on the market, which we run each gaming processor through to see the chips that come out on top. We select our picks based on the data in our CPU benchmark hierarchy, so all of the CPUs below are backed by hundreds of hours of real-world, hands-on testing where we gather extensive data on how a CPU performs and behaves while gaming. If you want a broader look at the CPU market, our AMD vs. Intel article shows you where the current CPU duopoly stands, while our CPU buying guide can help you narrow down the best processor for you.

Now in the back half of the year, we don’t expect major new releases from AMD or Intel. AMD has been on a tear with refreshes, particularly among X3D CPUs. We recently reviewed the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, AMD’s first CPU with 3D V-Cache on both CCDs, and it’s the most powerful chip from Team Red currently available. It’s earned a spot on this list, though the (much cheaper) Ryzen 9 9950X3D isn’t far behind in overall performance.

We’ve also seen the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, which is technically the fastest gaming processor on the market, as you can see in our Ryzen 7 9850X3D review. However, we’ve kept the base Ryzen 7 9800X3D as our top recommendation for the best CPU for gaming due to its price. It’s only marginally behind the refreshed model (about 3% on average), and much cheaper. For most gamers, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D makes more sense.

Intel has seen a recent boost in gaming performance with Arrow Lake Refresh, and both the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus and Core Ultra 7 270K Plus have earned spots on our list. AMD dominates in gaming at the moment, however. Our sights are set on Intel’s next-gen Nova Lake chips for a big gaming boost from Team Blue, as well as the rumored ‘Raptor Lake Next’ lineup that’s supposedly arriving early next year.

For the rest of the year, we have the Ryzen 7 7700X3D and Ryzen 7 5800X3D 10th Anniversary Edition to look forward to, which are arriving in July and June, respectively. We don’t anticipate they’ll make a major impact on our rankings here, but we plan on reviewing both CPUs as soon as they’re available.

In addition to the fastest CPUs from AMD and Intel, we’ve included a few DDR4 options on this list. The price of DRAM and NAND flash has made building even a budget PC prohibitively expensive, so DDR4 platforms are a great way to save money. Vendors are signaling a shift back toward DDR4 platforms at the moment, so we may reconsider some older CPUs for our rankings as pricing and availability allows.

Here are the gaming CPUs we recommend buying. We have a shortlist of the top options and some alternatives below, but you can click the ‘More’ links to read our thoughts about a particular CPU and where it stands in the current market.

Best CPU for Gaming in 2026 at a glance (more info below):

The list below is for the best CPUs for gaming, while the best budget CPUs can help you find a cheap chip. Processors benefit from the best thermal paste, so check out our guide if you're shopping for a new processor. But if you're after the best CPU for gaming, you're in the right place.

Best CPU for Gaming Benchmarks

We rank all the Intel and AMD processors based on our in-depth CPU benchmarks hierarchy. You can see some of those numbers in the charts above, including CPU overclock performance results (marked as PBO for AMD processors). We're currently retesting all of these processors with the Nvidia RTX 5090, but only the first four slides have that testing. The remainder are historical testing results with the RTX 4090, which we'll remove once we have fully retested all of the gaming CPUs with the RTX 5090 for our benchmarks. This group of results comprises only the chips that have passed through our newest test suite. Additionally, the tables in our CPU benchmark hierarchy include rankings based on past CPU benchmarks and breakdowns of single- and multi-threaded performance in productivity applications across a broad spate of processors. Finally, be aware that the pricing in the charts above can fluctuate.

Quick Shopping Tips

When choosing the best CPU for gaming in 2026, consider the following:

• You can't lose with AMD or Intel: As noted in our AMD vs. Intel feature, AMD tends to make the best all-around CPU for gaming for mainstream PCs lately, but both offer compelling performance options at any given price point.
• Eight cores is sufficient for gaming: If you’re looking at a pricey flagship, you’re likely wasting some money if gaming is your primary focus. You can game on as little as a quad-core CPU, but performance scaling really falls off past eight cores.
• Budget platform costs: You never want to pair a strong CPU with a weak GPU, RAM, and storage. Right now, it’s especially important to consider platform costs, however. DDR5 prices are peaking, and you’ll need to factor in the cost of DDR5 and a new motherboard if you’re coming from an older socket like AM4.
• Overclocking isn’t for everyone, but if you follow our How to Overclock a CPU guide, you can scrape out extra performance gains.

Best CPU for Gaming 2026 - $300 to $400

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D technically isn’t the fastest gaming chip on the market any more. That title goes to the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D, though the victory is marginal. As you can read in our Ryzen 7 9850X3D review, AMD’s latest X3D offering pushes ahead by 3.3% on average. Despite a minor uplift, we’re still recommending the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. With prices as they currently are, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is only 3.3% faster despite costing around 6% more than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

This chip really has no peer in the market outside of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D — the Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivers outstanding gaming performance, beating Intel's fastest gaming chip, the $469 Core i9-14900K, by 30% in our test suite. The 9800X3D is also almost unbelievably 35% faster than the current-gen Intel flagship, the $560 Core Ultra 9 285K. The stock Ryzen 7 9800X3D's 1% low frame rates (a good smoothness indicator) also deliver an exceptionally smooth gaming experience, benefiting gamers even in GPU-limited scenarios.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has eight cores and 16 threads that operate at a 4.7 GHz base and 5.2 GHz boost clock rate. The chip employs AMD's 3D V-Cache tech with a new spin, which places a 3D-stacked SRAM chiplet underneath the die to deliver an incredible 96MB of L3 cache to great effect. AMD moved the L3 cache chiplet from the top to the bottom of the compute die this generation. That gives the integrated heat spreader (IHS) direct access to the compute die, allowing for more thermal headroom, and in turn, higher clock speeds. The end result is a comparatively low-power chip that delivers incredible gaming performance and comparable productivity performance to other eight-core models on the market.

3D V-Cache previously came with trade-offs in the productivity department, but that’s not the case with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Still, 3D V-Cache doesn’t provide a performance benefit in every game, and the performance benefit is less pronounced as your display resolution climbs.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has much lower power consumption than the Intel competition, making it a far cooler processor that won't require as expensive accommodations, like a beefy cooler, motherboard, and power supply. It also takes particularly well to undervolting, which is easy to accomplish with AMD’s Curve Optimizer. That means the 9800X3D delivers top-notch gaming performance and a cooler, quieter, and less expensive system than you'll get with an Ultra 9 or Core i9.

Read: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review

The $305 Ryzen 7 9700X had a rough initial product launch, but AMD's targeted firmware and operating system improvements have changed the picture tremendously, allowing the chip to place much higher on our CPU benchmark hierarchy (head there for the most up-to-date gaming benchmarks). Combined with lower-than-launch pricing, the Ryzen 7 9700X is a strong contender, tying Intel's Core i9-14900K in gaming and beating the Core i7-14700K. That's not to mention that it beats Intel's entire lineup of Arrow Lake processors as well. Now, all of those processors offer faster performance in heavily-threaded productivity applications than the 9700X, but when it comes to a pure gaming experience, the 9700X either ties or beats all current Intel competitors.

The Ryzen 7 9700X has eight Zen 5 cores with 16 threads that operate at a 3.8 GHz base and 5.5 GHz boost clock. The chip has a 65W TDP, though AMD retroactively added a 105W TDP option you can select in the BIOS that helps boost performance in productivity applications. It's covered by the warranty, as well. With either setting, the 9700X has comparatively tame power consumption, so it is an easy chip to cool. You'll have to buy your own cooler for the processor, though.

The Ryzen 7 9700X drops into socket AM5 motherboards, and B-series motherboards make the most sense for this class of chip. B850 and B840 motherboards get AMD's latest chipset with features like mandatory PCIe 5.0 support on the top M.2 slot and better availability for features like Wi-Fi 7. However, the Ryzen 7 9700X will still work with the older B650 chipset if you can find a board on sale.

Read: Ryzen 5 9700X Review

The $350 Core Ultra 7 270K Plus performs like a flagship CPU, but it costs about half as much. In games, it narrowly outclasses the Core i7-14700K and offers a 2.4% boost over the competing Ryzen 7 9700X. AMD’s last-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D still offers around a 10% boost over the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, but it’s also around $50 to $80 more expensive depending on sales.

It’s a solid gaming CPU, and certainly a better recommendation than the Core i7-14700K given prices right now. Compared to the Ryzen 7 9700X, things are tighter. The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus gains an edge with productivity performance. Short of the 9950X, it’s at the top of our multithreaded performance rankings, more than doubling the performance of the Ryzen 7 9700X.

On the gaming front, it supports Intel’s new Binary Optimization Tool, which offers an average of an 8% improvement in gaming performance based on our testing. It’s only available in a limited number of games at the moment, but Intel says it plans to support the feature with updates in the future.

For specs, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is close to the 285K. It comes with 24 cores and threads, split across eight Lion Cove P-cores and 16 Darkmont E-cores. The P-cores boost up to 5.4 GHz and the E-cores can climb to 4.7 GHz. Across the CPU, you get a total of 76 MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. It comes with a 125W TDP and 250W MTP. Critically, the Core Ultra 270K Plus also comes with a 900 MHz boost in die-to-die frequency and 400 MHz boost in fabric frequency compared to stock Arrow Lake chips.

The Core Ultra 7 270K Plus slots into existing 800-series motherboards with the LGA 1851 socket. This is an unlocked chip, so if you want to get the full benefits of overclocking, you’ll need a Z890 board. However, it’ll still work with H- and B-series motherboards, just without CPU overclocking support.

Read: Core Ultra 7 270K Plus Review

Mid-Range Best CPU for Gaming - $200 to $300

Intel has returned to gaming prominence with its Arrow Lake Refresh CPUs, and nowhere is that clearer than with the $220 Core Ultra 5 250K Plus. It’s priced like a budget CPU at $220, but it can perform as well (and sometimes even better) than chips that cost twice as much. It doesn’t dominate the gaming charts in the same way as AMD’s X3D offerings, but at this price, it doesn’t need to. It offers marginally better performance than AMD’s competing six-core Ryzen 5 9600X in games while running the tables with application performance.

On average, the Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is 1% faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X at 1080p, and 9% faster than the 245K. It’s functionally identical, but Intel’s new iBOT feature allows the chip to hold some solid leads in certain titles. For instance, it’s 10% ahead of the 9600X in Cyberpunk 2077. Even in a non-iBOT title like Doom: The Dark Ages, the 250K Plus leads by 12%. There are still some games that struggle with the unique Arrow Lake architecture like F1 2024, but the losses are less pronounced with the souped-up Arrow Lake Refresh chips compared to the stock offerings.

The application performance is what really stands out with the 250K Plus, however. With 18 cores, it outpaces the Core i7-13700K, nearly matches the Core i7-14700K, and more than doubles the performance of the Ryzen 5 9600X in multithreaded applications. In single-threaded applications, it beats the Ryzen 5 9600X by 6%.

Although you get 18 cores, they’re split between six Lion Cove performance cores and 12 Darkmont efficient cores. The P-cores climb up to 5.3 GHz, while the E-cores top out at 4.6 GHz. The CPU comes with a combined 60 MB of L2 and L3 cache, along with a TDP of 125W and a MTP of 159W. Like all Arrow Lake chips, it doesn’t support Hyper-Threading, so you get 18 total threads.

The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus slots into existing motherboards with the LGA 1851 socket. It’s unlocked for overclocking, so a Z-series motherboard is an ideal pairing. However, Intel increased the die-to-die frequency and the fabric frequency out of the box, and you’ll see those improvements in action on B- and H-series motherboards, as well. It’s locked to DDR5 memory, unlike Raptor Lake and Alder Lake platforms, and it officially supports speeds up to 7200MT/s.

Read: Core Ultra 5 250K Plus Review

The $230 Ryzen 5 7600X3D is currently the best value gaming CPU you can get right now, though it trades performance in other areas to reach that status. It's just 4.5% slower than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D based on our testing, giving you most of the performance of AMD's coveted 3D V-Cache in games without the extra cost.

In games, it outclasses more expensive CPUs with ease, including the Ryzen 7 9700X, and averaged just 65W of power draw during our gaming tests. Outside of games, however, the Ryzen 5 7600 X3D struggles. The Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is more than twice as fast in multithreaded performance, and in single-threaded performance, even the base Ryzen 5 7600X is around 13% faster.

The lagging productivity performance makes sense. The Ryzen 5 7600X3D is a six-core / 12-thread chip, so it has limited multithreaded potential, and it only clocks up to 4.7 GHz. The limited specs give AMD room to cram 102 MB of combined L2/L3 cache on the die, however, which comes with a sizeable boost in gaming performance. Compared to the base Ryzen 5 7600X, the X3D version is 22% faster despite coming in at lower peak clocks and power draw.

You can slot the Ryzen 5 7600X3D into socket AM5, which is available on 600- and 800-series motherboards, though the latter may require a BIOS update. Memory and CPU overclocking is available on both B- and X-series chipsets; however, the Ryzen 5 7600X3D has a locked multiplier, so the only overclocking you can access is through AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive, or PBO.

Read: Ryzen 5 7600X3D review

Highest Performance Best CPU for Gaming - $400+

How do you improve upon a CPU that already claims a dominating position in gaming and productivity workloads? You add more cache, of course. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is powerful, expensive, and hungry for wattage, but it’s the best of the best if you want top-shelf gaming and application performance. It throws value out the window, and it’s only marginally better than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, but it is still better.

Based on our testing, it’s about 3.9% ahead of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D in multithreaded applications, and in lockstep in gaming at 1080p. Compared to Intel’s Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is 9% ahead in multithreaded performance and 23% ahead in average gaming performance. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivers a better value on the gaming front, and the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a monster productivity chip at a third of the price of the 9950X3D2. But the magic trick of this chip is that it can do both without breaking a sweat.

Under the hood, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is similar to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. It’s a 16-core / 32-thread chip packing AMD’s Zen 5 architecture, and it tops out with a 5.6 GHz boost clock; just 100MHz behind the 9950X3D. As the name suggests, this processor is unique because it uses AMD’s 3D V-Cache on both CCDs. Both eight-core CCDs have 32 MB of onboard cache, plus an additional 64 MB chunk placed under the cores, giving you a total of 192 MB of L3 cache.

The extra cache slightly accelerates multithreaded performance overall, though only by around 4%. There are specific workloads where the advantage is more present, with some data science workloads showing performance gains in the realm of 26% over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Those specific workstation-class workloads are where the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 earns its stripes.

Otherwise, it’s the chip to buy because you simply want the best, no matter what the cost or how marginal the improvements are. It slots into existing AM5 motherboards, and it’s best suited for newer 800-series chipsets. AMD officially supports memory speeds up to DDR5-5600, though we find that DDR5-6000 is the sweet spot for Zen 5 CPUs.

Prices have dropped since release, though the 9950X3D2 is still expensive. It launched at $1,000, but you can find the chip for around $900 now.

Read: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Review

The prior-gen $469 Core i9-14900K is now selling for all-time low pricing, primarily because the newer $560 Core Ultra 9 285K has arrived to take its place. However, the Core Ultra 9 285K is actually slower than the 14900K in gaming, so it isn't a suitable replacement. The new Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is marginally slower based on our testing, as well. Even in the face of Intel’s 200S Boost update, which was meant improve gaming performance, the competitive landscape remains unchanged. In our testing, the Core Ultra 9 285K gained an average of 7% from the update, which means it’s still slower than the Core i9-14900K.

You should be aware that the much more economically-priced 14700K (listed above) is only 2% slower than the 14900K in gaming but costs over $100 less. The Ryzen 7 9700X, also listed above, is also less expensive and effectively ties the 14900K in gaming.

However, there are Intel fans willing to pay extra for the absolute most gaming performance they can get from an Intel platform. Also, the 14900K does offer more multi-threaded horsepower than the 14700K and 9700X, which could be useful if you game, stream, and record simultaneously or do other heavy multi-tasking while gaming. Just make sure that your use case justifies the extra cost.

The 14900K sports leading-edge connectivity, supporting DDR4-3200 or up to DDR5-5600 memory, along with 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 SSDs.

The chip comes with eight P-cores that support Hyper-Threading and 16 single-threaded E-cores for a total of 32 threads. The P-cores have a 3.2 GHz base, and peak frequencies reach an amazing 6.0 GHz with Turbo Boost Max 3.0 (this feature is only active on P-cores). Meanwhile, the E-cores have a 2.4 GHz base and stretch up to 4.4 GHz via the standard Turbo Boost 2.0 algorithms. The chip also has 36MB of L3 cache and 32MB of L2.

This 14900K has a 125W PBP (base) and 253W MTP (peak) power rating, but we recorded considerably lower power consumption than its prior-gen counterpart. You'll need to buy a capable cooler for the chip, and you'll also need either a 700-series or 600-series motherboard. Like other Raptor Lake Refresh chips, you can find DDR4 and DDR5 motherboards, though you’ll need to go with a DDR5 board for the highest performance.

The lower price of DDR4 might entice some gamers, but you'll lose anywhere from 5-8% of gaming performance with higher-end Intel chips. You can step up to the much more expensive DDR5 if you need access to more memory throughput and, thus, every bit of performance possible.

Beyond specs, the Core i9-14900K was at the center of a years-long controversy concerning instability. An error in the microcode (CPU firmware) meant the Core i9-14900K would degrade faster than expected, starting with instability in games. Intel has rectified the issue with microcode 0x12F, so make sure you update your BIOS immediately if you pick up Intel’s last-gen flagship

Read: Intel Core i9-14900K Review

Best Budget CPU Pick - $100 to $150

The $164 Ryzen 5 7600X is an attractive budget CPU at its new price, forced down by Intel's new Arrow Lake Refresh chips. It’s marginally slower than the Ryzen 5 9600X, but also marginally cheaper – the Ryzen 5 7600X offers about 90% of the performance of the Ryzen 5 9600X for 94% of the price. It’s a slightly worse value, but it’s still a good option to keep in mind, especially if you find it on sale. The Ryzen 5 7600, sans X, is available at around the same price. We’ve yet to see it drop below the Ryzen 5 7600X, however.

With the 7600X, you get six cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, clocked at 4.7GHz with boost speeds up to 5.3GHz. Unlike the Ryzen 5 9600X, the Zen 4-based version comes with a TDP of 105W. Cooling it shouldn’t be an issue, and you’re free to run in AMD’s 65W Eco mode through the Ryzen Master software.

The Ryzen 5 7600X slots into AM5 motherboards, including 600- and 800-series chipsets, and it supports PCIe 5.0. DDR5 is required, which is a tough pill to swallow at this bang-for-your-buck price point, but it’s hard to avoid soaring RAM prices.

Read: Ryzen 5 7600X review

The $135 AMD Ryzen 5 5600 delivers a solid blend of performance in both gaming and productivity applications, bringing a new level of value to the Zen 3 lineup. If you're fine sticking with a previous-gen AM4 motherboard, the Ryzen 5 5600 makes a great base for a budget build. The primary trade-off for the AM4 platform is that you're limited to DDR4, and you don't have access to PCIe 5.0. You also have a limited runway for upgrades, as the fastest gaming CPUs on AM4 – the Ryzen 7 5700X3D and Ryzen 7 5800X3D – have reached end of life.

The Ryzen 5 5600 also makes an absolutely unbeatable budget chip if you're updating a first-gen Ryzen system. The 5600 unseats the Ryzen 5 5600X, a long-time favorite. The 5600X is only a mostly imperceptible ~1% faster in gaming and multi-threaded PC work than the non-X model, but provides a 4% advantage in single-threaded work.

Our testing shows that the Ryzen 5 5600 generally matches the gaming performance of its more expensive sibling, the ~$230 Ryzen 7 5800X. That makes the 5600 an incredibly well-rounded chip that can handle gaming well, from competitive-class performance with high refresh rate monitors to multi-tasking gaming workloads like streaming, while also serving up more than enough performance for day-to-day productivity apps. As with all AMD CPUs for gaming, you can fully overclock the chip.

The Ryzen 5 5600 has a 3.7 GHz base and 4.6 GHz boost clock. The chip also has a 65W TDP rating, so it runs cool and quiet. Existing AMD owners with a 500-series motherboard will be happy, as the 5600X drops right into existing 500-, 400-, and 300-series motherboards. If you need a new motherboard to support the chip, AMD's AM4 motherboards are plentiful and relatively affordable, with the B-series lineup offering the best overall value for this class of chip.

Prices for the Ryzen 5 5600 have drifted upward as stock depletes, but that’s offset by platform costs. In addition to low prices on AM4 motherboards, the Ryzen 5 5600 is limited to DDR4. High DDR5 prices are a significant roadblock to opting for a newer chip, as prices continue to surge. So it’s hard to recommend a newer budget CPU, even if it’ll net you higher performance. In the event you already have a kit of DDR5, the $189 Ryzen 5 7600 is a compelling option, and it includes AMD’s Wraith Stealth cooler.

Read: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 Review

Entry-Level Best CPU for Gaming - For gaming on integrated GPUs

The $268 Ryzen 7 8700G, AMD's flagship desktop APU, delivers the fastest socketed performance on the market from integrated graphics, bringing passable 1080p gaming to the desktop PC without a discrete graphics card, but its high price point relegates it to a niche audience.

In contrast, the $191 Ryzen 5 8600G delivers 90% of the 8700G's performance but for ~$80 less, making it a solid alternative for gaming systems that don't use a discrete GPU.

Naturally, you'll have to accept lower fidelity settings and be realistic about which titles can play at 1080p resolution. Still, AMD's Hyper-RX suite of features, which includes in-driver Radeon Super Resolution upscaling tech, frame generation with AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF), Anti-Lag+, and Radeon Boost, helps boost performance at a slight cost to image quality. This new feature set, a first for AMD's iGPUs, is a boon for budget gamers.

The Ryzen 5 8600G has six Zen 4 CPU cores and the RDNA 3 GPU engine with eight CUs. The Ryzen 5 8600G drops into the AM5 platform, with value-focused B650 and A620 motherboards being the obvious best combination. These systems offer a new level of connectivity for AMD's APU processors, which were previously on the aging AM4 platform but require DDR5 memory. That adds some cost, so do a value analysis before selecting this processor. If you're looking for the lowest entry price possible with an APU, the Ryzen 5 5600G listed below slots in as the value alternative.

The Ryzen 7 8600G only supports 16 usable lanes of PCIe 4.0 connectivity, while other processors on the AM5 platform support PCIe 5.0. However, we don't feel this will impact this class of system.

More: AMD Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G Review

The Ryzen 5 5600G steps into the arena as the value champ for APUs, which are chips with strong enough integrated graphics that they don't require a discrete GPU for light gaming—just be sure you're willing to accept lowered quality settings.

The Ryzen 5 5600G gives you 96% of the gaming performance on integrated graphics than its more expensive sibling, the Ryzen 7 5700G, but for 25% less cash. Our testing shows that its level of performance makes it the best value APU on the market. As long as you're willing to sacrifice fidelity and resolution and keep your expectations in check, the Ryzen 5 5600G's Vega graphics have surprisingly good performance in gaming.

The 5600G's Vega graphics served up comparatively great 1280x720 gaming across numerous titles in our tests, but options become more restricted at 1080p. Of course, you can get away with 1080p gaming, but you'll need to severely limit the fidelity settings with most titles.

With eight cores and 16 threads that operate at a 3.9 GHz base and boost up to 4.4 GHz, the Ryzen 5 5600G also offers solid performance for its price point in standard desktop PC applications. The chip also comes with a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler, sweetening the value prop, and drops into existing 500-series and some 400-series motherboards, though support on the latter will vary by vendor.

The Ryzen 5 5600G is nearly five years old, and as a result, it’s hard to find it in stock at a reasonable price. AMD updated this model with the Ryzen 5 5600GT in early 2024, which features identical silicon and a slight boost to clock speed, and you’ll generally find it for less at around $150.

If your budget is tight and you're looking to build a system for modest gaming, you should check out our Best Cheap CPU feature. Some of those chips can deliver passable gaming performance without a graphics card, and their prices start at just $55 (£40).

Read: AMD Ryzen 5 5600G Review

• MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
• MORE: AMD vs Intel
• MORE: Best Cheap CPUs
• MORE: Best CPUs for Workstations

AMD's 3D V-Cache technology has proven to be the killer tech that delivers dominating performance over Intel in gaming, and the second-gen revision propels the 16-core, 32-thread $699 Ryzen 9 9950X3D to a whole new level of gaming performance — all while preserving the lion's share of performance in productivity applications. Our CPU benchmarks show the 9950X3D is an incredible 37% faster than Intel's flagship Core 9 285K on average in 1080p gaming. It also beats Intel’s fastest competing gaming chip, the Core i9-14900K, by 26% on average in our test suite. In fact, on average, the 9950X3D even ties the hands-down best CPU for gaming on the market, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Naturally, performance will vary by title due to the vagaries of the 3D V-Cache tech, but the 9950X3D is impressive in a wide range of workloads, and its higher 170W TDP also unlocks exceptional Intel-beating performance in many of our productivity benchmarks.

AMD's game-boosting 3D V-Cache tech is now in its third generation, and this time around, AMD moved the vertically-stacked 64MB L3 cache chiplet from the top to the bottom of the compute chiplet to enable higher thermal headroom (details here). As a result, the 9950X3D has the same 170W/230W TDP threshold as the standard Ryzen 9 9950X model instead of the 50W lower rating the company used with the previous-gen 7950X3D model, which ultimately hampered performance.

AMD's goal is to master both disciplines — gaming and productivity — with its dual-chiplet X3D processors, but that's a tricky technical challenge. To build on the success of the first-gen models, the company also refined its chipset drivers to deliver more accurate thread scheduling in some corner cases. This helps reduce the performance delta between its single- and dual-chiplet X3D models. AMD also whipped in full overclocking support for the 9950X3D, which we’ve tested, allowing you to eke out more performance in gaming and productivity work.

AMD also launched the lower-tier $599 Ryzen 9 9900X3D today, saying its new drivers help reduce the vast differences between the two last-generation models. We don't yet have the 9900X3D for testing, but we're working to obtain a sample.

If you're looking for a quick take on performance, see the image album below, which breaks down performance in gaming and productivity applications. These overall measurements are backed up by our benchmarks on the following pages, so be sure to check those out. As you can see, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a tremendous chip in nearly every single category.

For now, all eyes are on the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, and from what we've seen, it's another grand slam against Intel. Team Blue still hasn't developed a counter to AMD's 3D V-Cache technology, effectively ceding the gaming crown to its rival in the desktop PC market. AMD's new optimizations serve widen the gap even further. Let's take a quick look at the new tech, then move on to the benchmarks.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Pricing and Specifications

As with the prior-gen 7000X3D chips, the two new 9000X3D chips use two compute dies, with one die featuring a 3D-stacked V-Cache chiplet that increases L3 cache capacity to 128MB. This keeps game data close to the execution cores, boosting performance in many types of titles (but not all). Meanwhile, the other standard chiplet can boost to higher frequencies to deliver more performance in both single- and multi-threaded tasks. Overall, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is built on the same foundation as the Ryzen 9 9950X; it just has a single L3 SRAM chiplet placed under one of the compute dies.

The Zen 5-powered Ryzen 9 9950X3D comes armed with 16 cores, 32 threads, 144 MB of total cache, and a peak boost clock rate of 5.7 GHz. This chip has a 170W TDP, 50W higher than the prior-gen model. That's because AMD’s previous-gen 3D V-Cache chips employed a 3D-stacked chiplet on top of the compute die, which trapped heat and constrained the operating temps/voltages, ultimately forcing AMD to lower the TDP.

The new models now have the L3 SRAM die on the bottom of the chip, removing a barrier between the hotter compute die and the chip cooler. That unlocks higher thermal headroom. AMD extracts the additional headroom with the higher 170/230W TDP, allowing higher clocks and longer sustained boost activity.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D sports 12 cores, 24 threads,140 MB of total cache, and a 5.5 GHz boost. This chip has the same 120/162W TDP as its predecessor and its non-X3D counterpart, the Ryzen 9 9900X, so we expect significantly less performance than the 9950X3D across the board. AMD hasn't sampled this chip but says it has dramatically reduced the performance gulf between the two Ryzen 9 X3D models. We included the company's 9900X3D benchmarks at the bottom of the following page.

AMD's Updated Chipset Drivers 

We've covered AMD's chipset drivers in-depth in the past. The drivers have a suite of components that enable its dual-chiplet processors to operate as close as possible to the single-chiplet comparables, despite having only a single L3 cache die under one of the compute chiplets.

AMD's first dual-chiplet X3D processors employed a new version of thread targeting that works in tandem with putting unneeded cores to sleep, thus forcing game code to run on the single chiplet that houses the performance-boosting L3 cache. However, this implementation made an irreversible change to the operating system that could hamper performance if the chip were later swapped out for a single-CCD processor, with the only remedy being a complete reinstallation of the operating system.

As you can see in the slides above, AMD has now fixed that issue with an updated Provisioning Packages Service (the engine that manages core parking and thread targeting). After roughly 15 minutes of idle time, this driver now automatically detects when a new processor has been installed in the system and adjusts the provisioning accordingly, so there's no need for an operating system reinstall. Things are essentially plug-and-play now, as they should be. AMD also addressed a shortcoming with its 3D V-Cache Performance Optimizer, so it now works when Virtulization-Based Security (VBS) is enabled on Windows 10.

Despite multiple components working in concert to ensure that games run smoothly on the dual-CCD models, some game titles remain problematic. To fix this, AMD revived its Application Compatibility Database (ACD), a technology that debuted with the first Threadripper CPUs. The ACD is a list-based feature that detects when certain games are launched (listed in the image above). It then triggers a mechanism that reduces the number of threads, thus hiding them from the operating system and fully preventing the game code from running on the unoptimized chiplet.

Internally, AMD has affectionately nicknamed this 'Core Lie' because the feature lies with the operating system about the number of cores available. This mechanism assures optimal performance with several of the more stubborn titles, helping to once again reduce the difference between the single- and dual-chiplet X3D models.

Let's see what all of this looks like in our gaming benchmarks on the next page.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gaming Benchmarks — The TLDR

Nearly every title in our 16-game test suite benefits tremendously from 3D V-Cache acceleration, but this isn't the case with all games in the wild. Some games simply don't benefit as much, or at all, from the 3D V-Cache. This can be due to either the game code or a GPU limitation. We have also included AMD's benchmarks with a very broad range of 40 titles at the end of this page to provide a more balanced view of the impact of 3D V-Cache in some titles that don't benefit.

Here is the high-level view of gaming performance, using the geometric mean of our 16 gaming benchmarks at 1080p, which is then followed by our individual benchmarks further down the page. We're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 FE to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions and fidelity.

Once again, AMD's 3D V-Cache technology impresses us with stunningly good performance across our gaming benchmarks, with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D matching AMD's claims of being within roughly one percent of the current fastest CPU for gaming, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The 9800X3D was 0.4% faster than the 9950X3D across our full 1080p gaming suite, which is a tie. However, this removes much of the underlying nuance — the dual-CCD Ryzen X3D models are faster than the single-CCD models in some titles, while roles are reversed in others. You can see which titles favor which below, but the big takeaway is that the 9950X3D is wicked fast in gaming.

AMD only claims a 20% lead over the 285K, but the Ryzen 9 9950X3D leads the Core Ultra 9 285K by a whopping 37% in our benchmarks, mirroring the delta we saw with the 9800X3D launch. Intel's previous-gen Core i9-14900K is actually the best contender against the AMD lineup in gaming, but the 9950X3D is still an insurmountable 26% faster.

Surprisingly, during our tests, we regularly saw the 9950X3D's V-Cache CCD boost to ~5.5 GHz, while the 9800X3D was often in the 5.2 to 5.3 GHz range. In the albums below, you can see the average clockspeeds of each processor during each game.

Intel's troubled Arrow Lake continues to suffer. Intel originally said the Core Ultra chips would match the previous-gen Core i9-14900K, but a chaotic launch found the chips severely trailing even the prior-gen parts. Intel promised fixes to bring Arrow Lake up to the original claims of performance parity with its 14th-Gen chips, but our testing found that those fixes didn't help. In our testing, the latest Windows updates benefited the 14th-Gen chips more than Arrow Lake, worsening the situation.

We retested again for this review. Even with the latest version of Windows and the RTX 5090, things haven't improved for our Arrow Lake test platform.

The 9950X3D is also a respectable 15% faster than the prior-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 20% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. As you can see above, there isn't as much of a gap between the new 9000X3D series models as with the prior-gen 7900X3D and 7950X3D.

AMD has finally brought full overclockability to its X3D series, but we haven't done much fine-grained tuning. Instead, we tested with AMD's simple auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature (marked with 'PBO' in the chart), and it delivered less than a 1% gain in gaming. As such, we left that entry out of the individual game tests below. However, PBO was very impressive in the heavily threaded workloads in our productivity benchmarks, which you can see on the following page. More targeted tuning might yield better results in gaming, but as always, your mileage will vary.

Our gaming suite is very heavily skewed toward CPU-limited titles, and our selection is also very 3D V-Cache-friendly. Again, not all games will benefit equally. The competition between AMD and Intel chips can vary based on the title (particularly with X3D models) and the GPU you use. It's best to make an informed decision based on the types of titles you frequently play, so be sure to check out our individual game tests below. (Our lab isn't as temperature-controlled as we would like, so consider the gaming temperature measurements a rough guide.)

A Plague Tale: Requiem Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

The Ryzen 9 98000X3D starts out the gaming results with what will become a familiar trend throughout the rest of the results — it resides comfortably above the competing Intel processors.

Baldur's Gate 3 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

As you can see, the dual-CCD 9950X3D beats the single-CCD 9800X3D in this title, and the previous-gen dual-CCD Ryzen 9 7950X3D also beats its single-CCD comparable, the 7800X3D.

There are several more examples of this trend throughout the albums below; some titles respond better to the dual-CCD design, while others favor the single-CCD design. Given that most games are locked to a single CCD regardless, we think this is largely the result of the 9950X3D's higher effective clock rates on its cache-equipped CCD.

Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Cyberpunk 2077 can be an incredibly GPU heavy game with ray tracing, and we're opting for the more CPU constrained ultra (non-RT) settings, without upscaling — and note that none of our CPU gaming tests have upscaling of any form enabled.

F1 2024 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

We test F1 24 with the ultra preset, which does enable some RT effects. They're relatively lightweight compared to other games, and of course we're still hitting 200+ FPS on most of the CPUs.

Far Cry 6 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Far Cry 6 is an AMD-promoted game that responds incredibly well to 3D V-Cache.

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Hitman 3 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Hitman 3 leverages Intel's E-cores for certain game functions, but it also likes Ryzen X3D's voluminous L3 cache. We enabled ray tracing effects for this title to further tax the CPUs, but as you can see, the RTX 5090 still chews through this title easily if the CPU keeps it fed.

Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Hogwarts Legacy is yet another game that slightly favors the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's dual-CCD design.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 obviously benefits from L3 cache — the Ryzen X3D chips are incredible in this title. We've added the newer version of this game to our benchmark suite, too, but we'll keep this one around as well due to its popularity.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

We've also begun testing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. This title relies heavily on data streaming and has a unique game engine, so it's time to start poking at it. As you can see, it inherits Flight Simulator 2020's love for 3D V-Cache (perhaps even more so).

Minecraft — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Monster Hunter Wilds — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Starfield Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

The Last of Us, Part 1 — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Watch Dogs Legion Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Watch Dogs Legion closes out our testing with mundane scaling instead of the typical large deltas we see with the X3D chips.

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gaming Benchmarks

As mentioned, performance can vary based on the title. AMD shared its own benchmarks to highlight what you should expect in various titles, so this is useful information — especially given that our test suite is 3D V-Cache-friendly. As with all vendor-provided performance data, view it with the appropriate skepticism. AMD's test notes are on the final slide.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Productivity Benchmarks — The TLDR

We boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single-threaded and multi-threaded. These slides show the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each of these categories, but be sure to look at the expanded results below for more granular analysis.

Selling a 16-core chip for $699 means it has to deliver the goods in productivity workloads, too. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D lives up to that billing, delivering a solid 20% gain over the prior-gen Ryzen 7 7950X3D. Unlike the trends we saw with the previous-gen models, the 9950X3D matches the vanilla Ryzen 9 9950X in our overall measure of performance in multi-threaded workloads. Notably, there are plenty of examples of the 9950X taking the lead in the heavily threaded workloads in the albums below, but the difference in many of the real-world workloads is surprisingly slim.

The $620 Core Ultra 9 285K is the 9950X3D's real competitor in productivity workloads; it delivers far more performance in threaded workloads than the Core i9-14900K. Regardless, the 9950X3D is 11% faster in threaded workloads than the 285K. However, our overall measurement is heavily influenced by performance in AVX-512 workloads. The 9950X3D has an easy leg up due to its support for AVX-512, while the 285K can't leverage the performance-boosting instructions. The results below also have plenty of examples where the 285K takes the lead over the 9950X3D in threaded workloads.

Our simple PBO overclock yielded a 6% boost for the 9950X3D with no real effort, and we also included those results in the albums below. Remember, the Intel processors would also benefit from overclocking, but this would require far more manual intervention.

What the Intel chips lack in sheer threaded horsepower, they make up for in single-threaded performance. In our cumulative single-thread performance measurement, the Core Ultra 9 285K is 7% faster than the 9950X3D, and the 14900K is 3% faster.

Rendering Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Intel's Arrow Lake excels in many of the heavily threaded rendering workloads, like its huge leads in POV-Ray, C-Ray, and LuxMark C++. It also delivers leading performance in the single-threaded Cinebench R23 and 2024 benchmarks.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D also has its advantages, easily leading in Blender, Embree, and both Cinebench multi-core benchmarks, among others. Again, we see strong gains in some workloads from the PBO feature and a surprisingly slim difference between the 9950X and 9950X3D.

Encoding Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Most encoders tend to be either heavily threaded or almost exclusively single-threaded — and it takes an agile chip to master both disciplines. Handbrake, SVT-HEVC, and SVT-AV1 serve as our threaded encoders, while LAME and FLAC are indicative of how the chips handle lightly-threaded engines.

Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

The PugetBench for Creators suite is a wonderful tool for benchmarking multiple types of Adobe applications, not to mention DaVinci Resolve. We used the benchmark for Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and DaVinci workloads.

Web Browser, Office Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Compilation, Compression, AVX, Chess Engines, Others — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

This selection of tests runs the gamut from massively parallel molecular dynamics simulation code in NAMD to compression/decompression performance.

Y-cruncher computes Pi with the AVX instruction set, making for an exceedingly demanding benchmark. This benchmark was recently updated with specific tuning for AMD's AVX-512 implementation. The new code delivers a big boost to Ryzen. Intel's new chips make big strides in this benchmark over the prior generation, but they only support AVX-256 natively, so AMD gets an easy win — the Ryzen 9 chips are incredibly impressive in the BPP benchmark.

Intel has historically performed well in compilation tasks, but the 9950X/3D clawed back the leadership spot in the LLVM benchmark, but by a slim margin. The 285K takes a strong lead in the NAMD simulation code benchmark, while the AMD processors excel at most Chess engine benchmarks and the John the Ripper password cracker.

Geekbench 6, Geekbench AI — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

The GeekBench AI results in the slide deck above show performance with the workload running on the CPU cores via OpenVino and ONNX. Only two CPUs in this group have in-built NPUs — the Core Ultra 9 285K and Ultra 7 265K — making them the only processors capable of running the workload on a dedicated NPU. Given that the NPU is focused on low-power inference tasks, the results are impressive relative to the performance when the workload executes on the CPU cores.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Power Consumption and Efficiency

We are now measuring CPU power consumption metrics at the EPS12V connector, so our new results are not comparable to the data in our prior reviews. We previously used software monitoring tools like AIDA64 and HWinfo for our power measurements. These tools scrape power consumption measurements directly from the motherboard's sensor loop, thus removing VRM inefficiencies from the values and presumably showing us exactly how much power the processor consumes.

However, motherboard OEMs can game these measurements, so we always did spot checks with various hardware-based measurement tools (Powenetics hardware or Passmark's In-Line PSU), and we've avoided using certain motherboards with unreliable power metrics in the past. We ultimately chose software monitoring because we can integrate it into our scripted tests, thus simplifying and speeding up the process, and it allows us to catch more granular workload data.

Intercepting power at the EPS12V connectors (the eight-pin connectors on the motherboard) is great for measuring power consumption. However, the main drawbacks are that it doesn't measure the true amount of power flowing into the processor due to VRM inefficiencies, typically in the range of 10 to 15% on high-end motherboards, and it wasn't easy to script a software trigger.

We finally have hardware-based power monitoring with Benchlab equipment that can be integrated and scripted into our test suite. You can see those results below. As a reminder, these values are measured before VRM inefficiencies are taken into account.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a comparatively miserly chip, given the level of performance it delivers throughout our test suite. The chip peaked at 233W but hovered in the low 200s during most workloads.

In comparison, the Core i9-14900K is an egregious power guzzler, sucking down up to 383W during a Blender workload, and bear in mind this chip doesn’t match the 9950X3D in productivity workloads.

The Core Ultra 9 285K is more miserly than the 14900K, but it peaks at 325W, showing it can also have a voracious appetite. In most workloads, the 285K draws as much or more power than the 9950X3D in its overclocked PBO configuration.

As expected, we see a disproportionately large increase in power consumption for slim performance gains when we kick on the 9950X3D’s PBO feature. Given the small gains in gaming, PBO certainly isn’t worth it for gaming, but it is far more useful for those focused on productivity work.

The watts-per-FPS chart quantifies power efficiency during an x265 HandBrake workload. As you can see, the 9950X3D is near the top of the list with exceptional power efficiency, particularly given its 16-core design.

The last two slides take a slightly different look at power consumption by plotting the cumulative energy required for an x265 HandBrake and Blender workload. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart, with performance charted on the x-axis.

These workloads consist of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the performance during the job (bottom axis), thus generating a useful power chart. Faster compute performance and lower task energy are ideal. That means processors closest to the bottom right corner of the chart are the best.

As you can see, the newest AMD chips gather in that area during the HandBrake workload but migrate to the upper right corner in the Blender plot. Meanwhile, the 285K and other Arrow Lake chips greatly improve over their 14th-Gen predecessors.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Test Setup

We have moved from the RTX 4090 to the RTX 5090 FE for our game testing, which spurred an update to our gaming and application suites. We tested with the latest version of Microsoft Windows 24H2 (22631) and updated all drivers, BIOSes, and applications to the latest versions (sans y-cruncher). To speed up the testing process, we use XMP/EXPO as the default memory profiles for all tested configurations. The memory speeds used for each chip are shown in the table below.

We tested the Ryzen 9 9950X3D in standard stock trim and with the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature enabled. We used the 'advanced' and 'motherboard' power settings for the PBO configuration with a 10X scalar and 200 MHz clock adjustment. We also dialed in a -15 all-core Curve Optimizer offset.

We used lifted power limits for the Intel processors, which results in higher power consumption and heat, but you get faster performance in exchange.

Microsoft has advised gamers to turn off several security features to boost gaming performance. For maximum performance, we disabled Virtualization Based Security (VBS) on all systems. Be aware that, due to hardware acceleration, some processor architectures handle virtualization better than others. This can provide a performance advantage when gaming with VBS enabled, but we haven't observed meaningful differences in our testing.

The $699 Ryzen 9 9950X3D sets a new bar for the company’s potent lineup of gaming-optimized X3D processors, sharing the top spot with the Ryzen 9 9800X3D as the fastest gaming CPUs in the world. AMD’s continued evolution of its ground-breaking 3D V-Cache tech has dramatically reduced the tradeoffs of lower productivity performance that used to be associated with its X3D chips, leaving little reason not to buy the chip if you prize both leading-edge gaming performance and real grunt power in productivity workloads.

Intel doesn't have a chip that can deliver a comparable blend of performance in both gaming and productivity. For gamers interested in Intel chips, the 14th-Gen processors remain the fastest for gaming, but they can’t compete with AMD’s X3D processors, and their aging design isn’t as powerful in productivity workloads as Intel’s newer Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 285K.

Unfortunately for the Core Ultra 9 285K, while it maintains a lead over the 9950X3D in single-threaded work, it doesn’t establish itself firmly enough in multi-threaded applications to give it a complete win over Ryzen 9 in productivity work, and it is obviously a painfully inadequate competitor in gaming. That leaves Intel without a meaningful competitor for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

Below, we have the geometric mean of our gaming test suite at 1080p and a cumulative measure of performance in single- and multi-threaded applications. We conducted our gaming tests with an Nvidia RTX 5090, so performance deltas will shrink with lesser cards and higher resolution and fidelity settings.

It’s a dead heat in 1080p gaming at the top of the chart, with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D matching the 9800X3D. More impressively, the 9950X3D dispatches Intel’s chips easily, beating the 285K by 37% and the Core i9-14900K by 26%. Gaming is simply a no-contest.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is impressive in productivity work, too, matching the standard Ryzen 9 9950X in our overall measure of both single- and multi-threaded workloads, an impressive accomplishment. It’s also 11% faster than the 285K in threaded workloads, though Intel fires back by taking a 7% lead in single-threaded work.

It isn’t often that a generational increase in TDP and power consumption is considered a good thing, but that’s exactly what we get with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. The previous-gen 7950X3D had to step back 50W behind its standard counterpart due to its top-mounted L3 cache chiplet, but AMD's decision to move the chiplet to the bottom has drastically improved its ability to dissipate heat effectively. While we saw strong gains from this new technique with the single-chiplet 9800X3D, it is perhaps most important with the dual-CCD models. In the case of the 9950X3D, the extra 50W of headroom unleashes more horsepower for gaming and productivity work, making it the most powerful all-arounder that money can buy.

AMD will also release the 9900X3D tomorrow, but this chip doesn't look as promising. AMD's previous-gen 7900X3D suffered from a sizeable performance gap with its more powerful counterpart, scuttling the value proposition. The company says it has reduced that disparity this time around; however, the price delta is still slim between the two chips, especially given what will be substantial differences between the chips in productivity workloads. Don't pull the trigger on that chip until you see third-party testing.

Meanwhile, Arrow Lake remains a disappointment for us, and pretty much everyone else, too. Despite a string of BIOS, driver, Management Engine, and Windows updates, the Arrow Lake processors remain underwhelming on the multiple platforms we've tested.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D scores another walk-in touchdown for AMD, easily earning its $699 price tag. Given the intense demand for the Ryzen 9 9800X3D and the resulting rolling shortages, we expect it might be hard to get your hands on the Ryzen 9 9950X3D at first, especially at MSRP. For those on the hunt for the highest-end performance money can buy, it will be worth the effort. If you can afford it, you won't find a mainstream desktop PC chip that offers a stronger blend of gaming and productivity performance.

AMD has announced that it will release its long-awaited Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D processors on March 12th. AMD's new top-of-the-line CPUs will be sold for $699 and $599, respectively.

After being announced at CES 2025, AMD's new flagships will arrive to an excited market that has not seen a new CPU release since the Ryzen 7 9800X3D arrived in November. The 9800X3D has suffered from inflated pricing since its launch, and the addition of new X3D models should help to broaden the availability of AMD's gaming-optimized tech, though these new premium models will come at a much higher price point

The $699 Ryzen 9 9950X3D will launch at the same price point as its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. We fully expect the 9950X3D to become among the best CPUs for gaming on the market, as the current top dog, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, already beats Intel in gaming workloads, and 9950X3D's 16 cores are likely to make it a solid productivity CPU as well.

While we still don't know the base clocks of the two new releases, what we do know about their speeds and feeds is exciting, to say the least. The chips will be 16-core and 12-core parts, with the 9950X3D turboing up to 5.7 GHz. The "X3D" in the CPU names refers to the inclusion of 3D V-Cache technology, a game-boosting AMD invention that stacks a wicked-fast cache chiplet beneath the CPU dies to maximize gaming performance.

The 9950X3D will arrive with 144MB of total cache, dwarfing the 80MB found on the 9950, non-X3D. The 9900X3D's 12 cores will turbo up to 5.5 GHz and be aided by 140MB of total cache, almost double that of its non-X3D flavor. The chips will run mighty warm, with TDPs rated at 170W and 120W.

As far as getting your hands on a 9950X3D on release day, there are no promises to be made. The top-end CPUs and GPUs have been scarce lately; the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is currently out of stock via AMD and selling at inflated pricing at retailers, and not much needs to be said about the difficulty of obtaining Nvidia or AMD's newest GPU releases. So, while AMD's 9950X3D will be wonderful for gaming, if a CPU crushes frames with no one around to buy it, is it still the best number cruncher?

Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gaming and Content Creation Benchmarks

While we don't have independent benchmarks just yet, AMD claims the gaming and productivity performance of the 9950X3D and 9900X3D are outstanding. Per AMD's own internal testing shown at CES, the 9950X3D is 20% faster than Intel's flagship Core Ultra 9 285K in 1080p high gaming tests. The chip also ekes out an 8% performance increase over the last-gen AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, a nice generational improvement.

AMD's CES panel also stated that 9950X3D's performance is within 1% of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which comes as little surprise as it matches the performance delta between last-gen's 7950X3D and 7800X3D. The 9900X3D didn't get nearly as much love in the panel, receiving no comparative tests, which is a bit worrying but not entirely surprising; last-gen's Ryzen 9 7900X3D was a 3-star chip at best playing in 7950X3D's shadow.

In terms of productivity, the same 3D V-Cache technology that blesses gaming speeds typically hampers productivity numbers a fair bit. The 3D V-Cache chiplet affixed to the die doesn't seem to be too much of an albatross around the neck of 9950X3D, with AMD claiming a 10% lead over the Core Ultra 9 285K in performance benchmarks. The testing suite shown off at CES seemed to be heavily weighted towards multi-core workloads, which the 16-core 9950X3D understandably run away with, but the 285K already leads over AMD's non-X3D SKUs in single-threaded performance testing, so those users with a productivity suite prioritizing single-core power may not fall in love with the 9950X3D.

For everything else we know about the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D, be sure to check out our CES writeup on the chips. March 12th will likely bring with it a new chapter in AMD's gaming CPU dominance, though whether it also brings enough supply to keep up with rabid demand is entirely up in the air. Keep your eyes on us for our full benchmark reviews on the chips coming very soon.

For the PC enthusiast hungry to build a new PC, the modern DIY PC landscape is brutal thanks to low supply and ever-climbing prices. Thankfully for the prospective high-end builder, one of AMD's best CPUs has dropped to a low, low price, allowing more room in your budget to combo with one of Nvidia and AMD's newest GPU releases.

The 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is currently available for $289 at Amazon, dropping well below its recent price trend of $315-330 and MSRP of $360. The card also comes along with a free copy of Monster Hunter Wilds, the most popular new video game this month. No indication is made as to when this sale will end, but for now, it stands as one of the best ways to get near the peak performance that Zen 5 has to offer.

The Ryzen 7 9700X is perhaps the best 8-core CPU of the current generation. The chip edges ahead of Intel's i7-14700K in most tests, and at half of the power draw. AMD's 9700X is an 8-core, 16-thread CPU, which is clocked at 3.8 GHz. Of course, the chip will boost up to 5.5 GHz, and has headroom for plenty of overclocking. It also offers 32MB of L3 cache, and supports up to 192GB of RAM. The chip sits at a low 65W TDP, but the BIOS includes an optional 105W mode for those looking to push performance even higher.

Our initial review of the Ryzen 7 9700X gave it a 3.5 out of 5 star rating, but in the months since its release, the 9700X has grown immensely more attractive. After firmware updates, better OS optimization, and a gradual price decline, the 9700X now stands as our second pick for the best overall CPU for gaming, and is one of the top dogs in our full CPU hierarchy. It's only beaten by AMD's X3D chips with 3D V-Cache and a few of the current gen's $400+ offerings.

Monster Hunter Wild, also comes bundled with the CPU for free as part of AMD's current hardware bundle. Wilds has sold $150 million in units since releasing on February 28th, with $69 million of that coming on day one. Capcom's biggest PC launch ever has already hit 1,300,000 concurrent players and offers sprawling, half-hour-long boss fights; though with its bad performance on all hardware, you will likely need the 9700X to reach acceptable framerates.

The 9700X, as its name would suggest, is part of AMD's Ryzen 9000-series, the first processors to launch on AMD's Zen 5 platform back in July. The Granite Ridge family slots into the AM5 socket, which AMD promises to support until 2027 and beyond, and is compatible with DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen5. Zen 5 is as future-proofed as a CPU architecture can be, especially when paired with an A-series motherboard (though we might suggest sticking with B850 for the 9700X).

For more savings on the rest of your PC build, keep your eyes on our list of the best GPU deals this month, as stock continues to phase in and out and AMD's RX 9000-series GPUs release very soon.

AMD has announced the Radeon RX 9070 at $549 and the RX 9070 XT at $599, both of which ship on March 6. The AMD RDNA 4 architecture and Radeon RX 9000-series GPUs were partially revealed at CES 2025, except they weren't part of AMD's keynote. Very little was known (officially) other than the names of the first two graphics cards for the family. That changes today, with AMD detailing many of the architectural upgrades, specifications, and more, during a video presentation. These will go up against the Nvidia Blackwell RTX 50-series GPUs and the Intel Battlemage Arc B-series GPUs and will likely join the ranks of the best graphics cards in the coming days.

Like Nvidia's RTX 50-series graphics cards, AMD's RDNA 4 launch seems to have been delayed, though perhaps for different reasons. There were rumors that the cards would be revealed at CES 2025 and launched in January, then February, and finally March. That last is no longer a rumor, with the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 set to go on sale on March 6 — and in typical fashion, the "MSRP" or base model cards will have reviews go up the day before, followed by the overclocked non-MSRP models on the launch date. Nvidia's RTX 5070 will likely land right around the same time, just to make things even more exciting.

But if you look at graphics card availability right now, what becomes immediately clear is that virtually everything is sold out or, at the very least, seriously overpriced. AMD has had difficulties with GPU transitions in the past, with the prior generation hanging around for too long and competing with the new parts. This time, it seems to have gone the opposite way, with RX 7000-series GPUs mostly having disappeared from retail shelves in December and January. Only the lower tier RX 7600 and RX 7600 XT are still in stock at MSRP (or close to it).

The result has been dramatically increased demand for everything from mainstream to high-end graphics cards, and Nvidia's RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti all sold out almost instantly at launch. Will AMD's 9070 XT and 9070 fare better? We can hope so, but we suspect there's so much pent-up demand that even with another two months' worth of production and supply, it will still be insufficient. Hopefully, things will settle down later this year, but in the near term, we expect inadequate supplies and increased retail prices — and, yes, scalping.

No doubt Nvidia's record profits driven by AI are a big contributor, and while AMD isn't selling quite as many data center GPUs, a lot of its wafer allocation from TSMC is likely going to data center CPUs and GPUs as well. Gamers are no longer the top priority for either company, in other words; for the time being, they just get the scraps that fall from the AI table.

But enough sad talk. Let's check out the specifications for AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs, talk about architectural updates, and dig into all the other details. We even have pricing information, though as you can guess, that's worth about as much as the paper this is printed on. We'll continue updating this article as additional details become available, but for now, here's everything you need to know about the AMD RDNA 4 and Radeon RX 9000-series GPUs.

RDNA 4 GPU specifications

Here are the known specifications for the RX 9070 series GPUs, along with placeholder information on the RX 9060 series. AMD did share the 9060 name at CES 2025, but no other details have been shared. There are rumors, however, which we've used to flesh out the table — these are indicated by question marks in the various cells.

The RX 9070 XT and 9070 columns should be fully accurate. We're reasonably sure there will be a trimmed-down RX 9060 XT using the same Navi 48 die as the 9070 cards, just with fewer CUs (Compute Units) and memory controllers enabled. Below that, things get murky.

The RX 9060 could use a further binned Navi 48, or it could use Navi 44. Most of the details on Navi 44 are questionable at best, but we'll certainly find out more in the coming months. There might even be RX 9050-class GPUs at some point, but we've avoided listing those for the time being.

Looking at the RX 9070 XT, it uses a fully enabled Navi 48 die that includes 64 RDNA 4 CUs. Combined with a 2.97 GHz boost clock and a 256-bit memory interface with 20 Gbps GDDR6 VRAM, the other specifications mostly come from straight mathematical calculations. The RX 9070 is mostly the same configuration, just with 56 CUs and a 2.52 GHz boost clock — substantially lower than its bigger sibling, though we'll have to wait and see what real-world clocks actually look like.

Power targets also play a role in the final clock speeds, and where the 9070 XT has a 304W TBP (Total Board Power), the 9070 cuts that all the way down to 220W. That's probably a big factor in the 450 MHz difference in boost clocks.

Raw compute works out to 48.7 TFLOPS FP32 on the 9070 XT and 36.1 TFLOPS on the 9070. On paper, that makes the XT up to 35% faster. In practice, we suspect the two chips will be quite a bit closer and that the actual clocks in most games may only be a couple hundred MHz apart, despite what the specs suggest.

AMD has also given the Ray Accelerators and AI Accelerators in the CUs a massive overhaul compared to RDNA 3. For AI, each can do twice as many FP16 operations per cycle and they now support sparse operations. Sparsity can skip up to half of the zero multiply operations to potentially double performance, and it's a feature Nvidia has supported since its second-generation RTX 30-series GPUs. (AMD has also supported sparse operations on its CDNA family of GPUs for several years.)

Moreover, the AI units also support FP8, INT8, BF8, and INT4 operations, with the 8-bit calculations being twice as fast as 16-bit, and 4-bit integers double that again. Put it all together, and you get 389 TFLOPS of sparse FP16 compute and up to 1557 TOPS of sparse INT4 compute.

Keep in mind that the previous generation RDNA 3 architecture featured GPUs with up to 96 CUs and a 384-bit memory interface on the RX 7900 XTX, so while RDNA 4 GPUs are faster on a per-CU basis, AMD doesn't expect the RX 9070 XT to beat the RX 7900 XTX in all workloads.

There's a lot more going on than the raw specs will tell you. First, let's cover the pricing and launch date, then move on to the architectural deep dive.

RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 Performance

How fast are the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 graphics cards? We can't share our own internal benchmarks yet, but AMD provided comparisons against its previous generation RX 7900 GRE. In it's testing of 11 rasterization games and nine ray tracing games, the 9070 XT was on average 42% faster at 4K and 38% faster at 1440p, while the 9070 was 21% faster at 4K and 20% faster at 1440p.

Breaking things down into pure rasterization and pure ray tracing performance, the 9070 XT delivered 37% and 33% improvements in performance at 4K and 1440p in rasterization mode. In ray tracing games, it was 53% and 49% faster on average, again at 4K and 1440p, respectively. The RX 9070 meanwhile provided 18% and 17% higher rasterization performance at 4K and 1440p, while in ray tracing it was 22% and 20% faster on average.

These are AMD's own numbers, so we can't fully vouch for them, but we can use them to get a reasonable idea of where the new AMD cards might land relative to the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 4070 Ti Super (both 16GB cards).

In our GPU benchmarks hierarchy, at 4K in our rasterization test suite the RTX 4070 Ti Super beats the 7900 GRE by 13% at 4K and 7% at 1440p. The RTX 5070 Ti on the other hand was 14% faster than the 4070 Ti Super at 4K and 11% faster at 1440p. Taken together, our existing test results indicate the 5070 Ti would be around 29% faster than the 7900 GRE for 4K rasterization and 19% faster at 1440p.

Flip over to ray tracing and our data has the 4070 Ti Super beating the 7900 GRE by 64% at 4K and 60% at 1440p. The new RTX 5070 Ti leads the 4070 Ti Super by 12% at both 4K and 1440p. That would thus put the 5070 Ti potentially 84% and 79% ahead of the 9070 XT.

Clear as mud? Let's put it this way: Our existing data combined with AMD's data suggests the 9070 XT will beat the 5070 Ti by perhaps 6% at 4K for rasterization and 12% at 1440p. In ray tracing, however, Nvidia would appear to still have the edge and be around 20% faster at 4K and 1440p. We can't be precise just because there are other factors in play — different testing suites, different platforms, and two levels of extrapolation (because we haven't tested the 7900 GRE on our new test suite yet), but overall it appears the 9070 XT will land reasonably close to the 5070 Ti in perforamnce.

Doing the same calculations for the vanilla RX 9070, it would be a decent 12 to 17 percent slower than the 9070 XT, which would be about where the RTX 4070 Ti sits in our testing. But we don't know precisely where the RTX 5070 will land yet, so we can't really come to any conclusion. With only 12GB of VRAM on the Nvidia 5070, however, it seems more likely that the 9070 will take an overall lead. We'll find out for certain next week, so stay tuned.

RX 9000-Series Pricing

How much will the RX 9000-series GPUs cost? AMD has announced the Radeon RX 9070 will start at $549 and the RX 9070 XT will start at $599, placing them firmly in the "mainstream" segment. Given the current market conditions, however, it probably doesn't matter what AMD has given as the MSRP. Short-term, certainly, we expect the cards will all sell out and end up costing much more than the MSRP.

As we said in the Nvidia Blackwell overview, for dedicated desktop graphics cards, we're now living in a world where "budget" means around $250–$300, "mainstream" means $400–$700, "high-end" is for GPUs costing $800 to $1,000, and the "enthusiast" segment targets $1,500 or more. AMD is going after the mainstream segment with the 9070 series, and possibly the lower mainstream and upper budget segments with future 9060 series parts.

Depending on supply, as well as performance, the RDNA 4 series should be worth the price AMD is asking. More likely is that there simply won't be enough cards to satisfy the current demand, not for many months. Given the reasonably low-ish prices, don't be surprised if scalpers and retail markups step in and push the prices up.

It's basically a repeat of the cryptocurrency GPU mining shortages, only this time it's caused by AI and demand from that sector may not go away for many years. Let's hope we're wrong, but the RTX 50-series launches so far have not been promising.

RDNA 4 Release Dates

We listed the March 6, 2025 release date for the RX 9070 cards already, but AMD has also at least partially teased an RX 9060 family of GPUs. Will there be multiple cards or only one? Will there be lower-tier RX 9050 cards as well? The short answer: We don't know. The nebulous answer: Sometime between April and the end of the year, hopefully sooner than later.

We've seen rumored die sizes for Navi 44 that suggest it's a much smaller chip, like more of a replacement for the current Navi 33 (RX 7600 series). If that's correct, it may not come out any time soon. There still appear to be plenty of RX 7600 and RX 7600 XT GPUs floating around, and that's because when those launched there were still a lot of similar performing Navi 23 (RX 6650 XT / RX 6600 XT / RX 6600) cards still available, at lower prices.

The naming scheme from AMD suggests that the RX 9060 will compete with the RTX 5060 family. That would perhaps require a larger chip than what's indicated. But RX 7600 does technically compete with the RTX 4060, and there's no RTX 4050 and probably won't be an RTX 5050.

Will AMD be making a "true budget" RDNA 4 chip? Again, rumors suggest that's at least possible, perhaps even likely. At less than half the size of Navi 48, AMD may try to create a $200~$250 graphics card to go after budget-minded gamers — and OEMs. Certainly it could get a lot more chips per wafer with the rumored 150~160 mm^2 die size.

But if the cards then only sell for $250 or less? That hardly seems worth the effort, not when companies can charge tens of thousands for data center GPUs.

RDNA 4 Core GPU Architecture

The above slide gallery covers the architectural briefing AMD provided in advance of today's reveal, including some of the specifications discussed above as well as finer details. AMD worked to refine the underlying architecture to improve per-CU performance in all major workloads: rasterization, ray tracing, and AI.

Rasterization performance sees the smallest generational gains, but it's still about 40% faster than RDNA 3 according to AMD. Ray tracing performance is basically doubled, and AI performance is doubled for dense FP16 compute, with lower precision formats delivering even higher performance.

The specific details of the rasterization improvements are a bit nebulous. RDNA 4 supports out of order memory requests, which AMD specifically notes as being helpful for ray tracing, but it can help rasterization tasks as well — we just don't have any details on how much. The other major change involves dynamic register allocation. RDNA 3 (and earlier) allocated registers for the worst case for shaders. By dynamically allocating extra registers only when needed, AMD provides an example use case where it could have an extra wave in flight. The slides show three waves versus four waves, which would be a 33% increase, but we don't know if that's representative of real workloads or just for illustrative purposes.

Moving on to ray tracing, this is where AMD spent a significant amount of effort. It doubled the ray/triangle and ray/box intersection rates per RT unit as a start. Then it offers some enhancements including hardware instance transforms (rather than doing a lot of the work via GPU shaders), oriented bounding boxes, an improved BVH (Bounding Volume Hierarchy) structure and traversal, the above-mentioned out of order memory returns, and better ray hardware stack management.

Most of the improvements come from the doubling of intersection rates and BVH compression, but the other aspects combine to deliver a solid improvement as well. How does RDNA 4 compare with Nvidia's latest hardware? That's not fully clear, but certainly it's going to do better per CU than what we saw with RDNA 3 and RDNA 2. It likely won't match Blackwell, but it might be better than Ampere and at least closer to Ada levels of performance.

AI, as already noted, sees the biggest changes. Nvidia has been iterating on its AI tensor cores since the RTX 20-series, and even before that the Volta data center GPU had tensor cores. So Nvidia is on its fifth generation of AI matrix cores while AMD is mostly on its second generation — mostly because it looks like AMD took a lot of the work that's been happening in its CDNA GPUs and brought it over to RDNA 4.

RDNA 3 CUs could do 512 FP16 operations per cycle, with no sparsity support, or 1024 INT4 operations per cycle. With RDNA 4, AMD doubles the baseline FP16 throughput for dense operations, doubles that again for sparse operations, and doubles that again for FP8 workloads — which are proving useful in the AI space. That's up to 8X higher AI throughput for FP8 on RDNA 4 compared to FP16 on RDNA 3, and the INT4 throughput sees a similar up to 8X improvement.

AMD gave a real-world example of how this affects AI performance using Stable Diffusion XL. The RX 9070 XT with 64 CUs took on the RX 7900 XT with 84 CUs. That gives the older GPU a 31% advantage in compute units, but the 9070 XT ended up delivering very close to 2X the performance. That will prove very helpful for other AI and machine learning workloads, including ML-based upscaling and frame generation (see FSR 4 below).

Alongside these changes, AMD has reworked some of the cache and memory hierarchy with RDNA 4. It didn't provide any clear details on what has changed, but it notes that this is the third generation of Infinity Cache. The capacity remains 64MB, the same as what was present on the 256-bit 7900 GRE and 7800 XT, but now the cache is again part of the monolithic chip, so it likely has better latencies and throughput.

RDNA 4 Other Architectural Improvements

RDNA 4 isn't just about core architecture upgrades. Along with the above rasterization, ray tracing, and AI enhancements, AMD has also upgraded a few other areas. One of the big changes is with the media encoding hardware. Last time we checked video encoding performance and quality, AMD came in last place, clearly behind Nvidia and Intel. It looks like RDNA 4 will close the gap.

AMD says it has improved H.264 (AVC) quality by up to 25%, H.265 (HEVC) by 11%, and improved the AV1 encoding efficiency. It also has better support for AV1 and VP9 decoding and reduced memory accesses.

Besides the quality improvements, RDNA 4 adds a dual media engine. Nvidia did this with its Ada architecture, and AMD seems to be taking a similar approach. It likely doesn't help all workloads equally, but AMD says it doubles the AV1 encoding throughput.

Realistically, there's only so far you can go with improving video encoding quality, particularly with hardware encoders. Intel and Nvidia are pretty comparable, but AMD was behind on quality while being ahead on performance with RDNA 3. It sounds like RDNA 4 will continue to be faster while offering similar quality to the competition, which is a good thing.

Another change with RDNA 4 is that AMD has added hardware flip queue support, which offloads video frame scheduling to the GPU. While Nvidia discussed something similar for MFG (Multi Frame Generation), it sounds like AMD's solution is focused on improving video playback by reducing CPU load, as opposed to being something to improve the scheduling of generated frames.

Radeon Image Sharpening (RIS) has also been updated, to RIS2. This is a driver level sharpening solution that's based on AMD's CAS algorithm (Contrast Aware Sharpening), only now the quality is supposed to be better. It's a single click toggle to apply RIS2 across all APIs.

Finally, RDNA 4 GPUs will support PCIe 5.0 interfaces. That doubles the throughput over the x16 link, though in practice most workloads likely won't see much benefit. Gaming in particular doesn't tend to need more than PCIe 3.0, or perhaps 4.0, when using a full x16 connection. However, AI and certain content creation tasks can benefit from the added bandwidth. Don't be surprised if the future Navi 48 chips and possibly even the RX 9060 XT cut the interface down to x8 or even x4 widths.

Sticking with GDDR6 VRAM

One thing that isn't changing from RDNA 3 is the memory support. While Nvidia has moved all of the announced Blackwell RTX 50-series solutions to GDDR7 memory, AMD will continue to use GDDR6 memory, clocked at up to 20 Gbps. Coupled with a 256-bit interface on the 9070 XT and 9070 GPUs, that results in 640 GB/s of memory bandwidth. That's the same VRAM capacity as the RX 7900 GRE and RX 7800 XT, and also the same as Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 4070 Ti Super.

The 64MB Infinity Cache will improve the effective bandwidth, though AMD didn't elect to provide any estimates of cache hit rates so far. The RX 7900 GRE and RX 7800 XT both had 64MB Infinity Caches, and AMD provided effective bandwidth rates that were about 4X the base memory bandwidth with those GPUs, so we'd anticipate the Navi 48 GPUs will see similar results.

It's also possible that further improvements to the Infinity Cache have made it less critical for AMD to move to GDDR7 at present. Considering that Nvidia gets a 40% improvement in raw bandwidth from 28 Gbps GDDR7 compared to AMD's 20 Gbps GDDR6, that might seem like a sizeable advantage. However, effective bandwidth after factoring in the large caches may not be all that different.

Plus, there's only so much bandwidth needed to drive a 64 CU GPU. Nvidia's RTX 5070 Ti for example has 70 SMs (Streaming Multiprocessors), which are roughly analogous to AMD's CUs, and the 5070 Ti has a 48MB L2 cache. Putting a larger 64MB L3 cache with fewer GPU processing clusters could reduce the need for higher memory speeds.

AMD continues to use 16Gb (2GB) GDDR6 modules, and we're unaware of any companies currently pursuing 24Gb (3GB) capacities. That's one area where GDDR7 support could prove beneficial for Nvidia in the future, though so far only the RTX 5090 Laptop GPU is using the higher capacity chips.

Monolithic GPUs, Built on TSMC N4P

One of the interesting changes with RDNA 4 is that AMD is, at least for now, ditching the GPU chiplets approach. It may come back to that in the future, but the Navi 48 and presumably the rumored Navi 44 will be monolithic chips. Along with that design choice, AMD is also upgrading from TSMC's N5 process node used on RDNA 3 to the N4P node for RDNA 4.

N4P provides for modest improvements in performance and efficiency compared to the N4 node, which in turn refines the base N5 node. Our understanding is that N4P may introduce some additional metal layers, and N4 used more EUV than N5. What's not entirely clear is how N4P compares to 4N and 4NP — the "for Nvidia" variants that are used with Hopper, Ada, and Blackwell. It's probably pretty similar in most respects, which means that AMD will be on node parity with Nvidia this round.

But AMD isn't really trying to take down Nvidia's top GPUs. The lack of GDDR7 memory and the lack of a larger design prove this. The Navi 48 chip will house 53.9 billion transistors in a 356.5 mm^2 die. Nvidia's GB203 used in the RTX 5080 and 5070 Ti contains 45.6 billion transistors in a 378 mm^2 die... which might suggest AMD actually has a superior process node and/or design. But we can't really conclude that.

While die sizes are pretty straightforward, transistor counts are not. They're more of a mathematical estimate, and there are different ways of counting what constitutes a "transistor." Perhaps AMD does have a denser design with more transistors, perhaps not. Ultimately, we'll have to see how the various GPUs perform.

One interesting side note here is that Navi 31, the top solution from the RDNA 3 family, had a 300 mm^2 GCD (Graphics Compute Die) with six 37.5 mm^2 MCDs (Memory Cache Dies). I wondered when AMD revealed the specs just how much it was actually saving by going the chiplet route. The GCD had 45.6 billion transistors, which means the overall transistor density — looking at the RDNA 3 GCD compared to the RDNA 4 monolithic design — is basically identical (152 MTrans/mm^2 on Navi 31 GCD compared to 151.2 Mtrans/mm^2 on Navi 48).

But let's not get too carried away. It's known that scaling on external interfaces — like the GDDR6 memory controllers — is quite poor with newer process nodes. Navi 31 used twelve 32-bit controllers while Navi 48 has eight 32-bit controllers. If AMD had attempted to make a 384-bit interface on a monolithic design, it would have certainly required a larger chip. Putting that on an older process node for the prior generation did make financial sense at the time, and may yet prove a smart approach for a future AMD product.

No "Made By AMD" Reference Cards

If it wasn't clear yet, AMD will not be making or selling its own reference model RX 9070 series graphics cards. Despite providing some slides of what appear to be MBA (Made By AMD) cards, these are merely graphical renders rather than photos of actual hardware. There were certainly prototype cards created during the design, testing, and validation process, but what those looked like isn't really important.

All of the RX 9070 series graphics cards will be made by AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners. That means two things. First, we'll see a lot of variation in final clock speeds and power draw, not to mention things like the number of fans and RGB lighting. But more importantly, it means AMD has a lot less say in the actual retail graphics card prices.

Very likely AMD has a requirement that all of the AIBs have at least one model for each GPU that will be nominally priced at the stated MSRP. Beyond that, however, all bets are off. "Here's our RX 9070 XT Red Herring for $599... and we sold all of those. Sorry! But you can pick up our Redder Herring OC model for $799!" We saw something like this with the RTX 5070 Ti cards, where there also isn't a reference model from Nvidia.

Long-term, if there's insufficient supply to meet the demand, most AIBs are going to produce higher tier models with a few minor extras and drastically inflated prices. If on the other hand the supply catches up to demand, then it's easy enough to drop prices as needed.

FSR 4 and HYPR-RX

Besides the hardware, AMD has been working on a variety of feature improvements. The biggest one is undoubtedly FSR 4. The fourth iteration of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) algorithm, it will break with tradition in a couple of key ways.

First, FSR 4 will leverage the more potent AI accelerators in the RDNA 4 GPUs. At launch, it will require an RDNA 4 GPU. Down the road a few months, AMD may try back-porting the algorithm so that it can run on RDNA 3 and maybe even RDNA 2 GPUs... but it seems unlikely.

Instead, FSR 4 will basically co-exist with FSR 3.1, or rather, the non-AI upscaling will continue to be offered. It's not entirely clear exactly how this will play out, but keeping everything unified under one name makes more sense. What we do know is that AMD plans to allow gamers to use the more potent FSR 4 algorithm on games that have FSR 3.1 support. Will that happen automatically or require a driver settings toggle? It seems like the latter but we'll have to wait and see.

FSR 4 isn't just for upscaling, either; it also has frame generation. From our understanding, both upscaling and framegen will use the AI accelerators of the RX 9000-series GPUs. AMD also says RDNA 4 is "neural rendering ready" without really going into further detail. Presumably that's related to Microsoft's new Cooperative Vectors feature, which is something Nvidia also talked about with Blackwell.

We've asked for additional details on how FSR 4 works, in terms of the computations. AMD hasn't responded, but one slide does note that the RX 9070 XT offers "up to 779 TOPS AI Acceleration" while talking about FSR 4. Now, that's either dense INT4 operations or sparse INT8 operations, as the 9070 XT hits double that figure for sparse INT4, but we don't have a direct answer on whether the algorithms are using INT4 or INT8 yet. Either way, that's a lot more theoretical compute than what you can get from prior generation AMD GPUs, which is why we don't anticipate the AI upscaling and framegen models getting backported.

We also asked if FSR 4 was using a transformers-based network or a convolutional neural network. DLSS 4 offers better image fidelity than DLSS 3 by using transformers, and AMD may have skipped the CNN approach since it's late to the AI-powered upscaling and framegen party. However, we don't have a direct answer yet. We do have some image quality comparisons from AMD, in the slides above, and FSR 4 definitely looks better than FSR 3.1.

As with Nvidia's use of performance mode upscaling with framegen, we don't generally focus on the promised performance after all these extras. Framegen in particular is very heavy on marketing in our experience. It's less problematic when you already have a high base framerate, but then it's also less necessary when you're already getting 100+ FPS.

AMD says it will have over 30 games with FSR 4 enabled for the RX 9070 series launch, with 75+ games coming in 2025.

AMD also talked about HYPR-RX, which combines a variety of driver-level performance boosting features and can be enabled with a single click. We've poked at it a bit in the past, and it can be useful in some cases, but we prefer sticking with apples to apples comparisons. If you're just playing games, however, enabling HYPR-RX to apply all of the features including FSR/RSR, Anti-Lag, Radeon Boost, and AFMF 2 could be useful.

AMD also has a new AFMF 2.1 release that imprves the quality of the algorithm, reducing ghosting, improving fine features, and detecting and handling overlays better.

Drivers and Software

The last item AMD discussed is its new Adrenalin 25.3.1 drivers along with some new software. While most of the driver interface will be familiar to AMD GPU users, there are some new additions along with some behind the scenes changes. AI plays a role in both areas. We've already discussed FSR 4 upscaling and framegen, so let's talk about the other AI uses.

First, AMD is using AI to help find rendering errors and to detect instability and other issues. AMD claims its new 25.3.1 drivers will be perhaps the best and most stable drivers it has ever released, with fewer rendering errors. We'll have to wait and see how that goes...

Moving on, similar to Nvidia's Chat RTX and other tools, AMD is providing some easy to access AI-powered features. These are all managed by a new AMD Install Manager that sits alongside the usual AMD Software in your system tray. Besides your GPU drivers, it can also detect if you have an AMD platform and keep your chipset drivers updated. And then there are some new extras: AMD Chat, AMD Image Inspector, and the AI Apps Manager (among others).

AMD Chat is a chatbot designed to answer questions specifically about your PC hardware and GPU. You can ask it about GPU temperatures, performance, and more. It's a hefty 25GB download, though, so you might not want to install if it you're low on space — or if chatting with your PC isn't something you plan on doing.

The AI Apps Manager provides a list of software and utilities that can use AI that are installed or available to install. So if you have Adobe CC, some of those apps might show up. Or you can use it to install Amuse, AMD's tuned AI image and video generation tool.

Finally, the Image Inspector is a feature to help with finding and reporting rendering errors and bugs. AMD is already using AI to help it find issues internally, and the Image Inspector is an opt-in feature that allows you to participate. Using spare GPU resources (so it won't go crazy and use all your GPU power if you're in a demanding game), it can automatically capture rendering errors and submit them to AMD, should you enable the feature. It sounds interesting, but we suspect there might be a performance hit still, even if it's small.

The GPU landscape

Frankly, RDNA 4 feels like what AMD should have been doing with RDNA 3 rather than pursuing the abandoned-for-now GPU chiplets approach. AMD has finally decided to put serious effort into ray tracing hardware and AI in its consumer product line. We can understand why RDNA 2 was lacking in these areas — Nvidia's GeForce RTX feature set probably caught the company off guard — but when RDNA 3 arrived in 2022, it really needed to do more and be more.

What's interesting is that all of these new hardware features haven't caused a massive bloat in the die size. Navi 48 is 357 mm^2 on a 5nm-class node (N4P). Navi 31 was 300 mm^2 on a 5nm-class node (N5), with Infinity Fabric links to the external memory and cache chiplets. Rip out those links, rework the cores, and this was all possible several years ago. Which is obvious, since Nvidia already did that, but it felt like RDNA 3 doubled down on the "ray tracing and AI aren't really that important" marketing and got left behind. RDNA 4 finally rights that misstep, or at least attempts to. Now we just need to see how the actual hardware performs in a variety of tasks.

AMD's RDNA 4 GPUs will have to compete with Nvidia Blackwell RTX and Intel Arc Battlemage solutions. As we discussed already, supply and availability of all graphics cards has become quite poor of late. (Yes, that's a sarcastic understatement.) Every recently launched GPU has sold out quickly, with many cards then selling at prices far above the original MSRP. It started with the Arc B580 and became especially painful with Nvidia's Blackwell launches.

Things aren't going to get better in the near term. The big issue is that there are a lot of companies competing for a limited supply of silicon manufacturing. TSMC only has the ability to process so many wafers in a month. Right now, AMD, Apple, Intel, and Nvidia are all using TSMC for various chips, and there are plenty of other companies as well — Broadcom, Facebook, Google, Amazon... the list can get quite large.

Even if a company pays for a certain number of wafers in a given month, what to do with those wafers is still up for debate. Just looking at the main PC companies, AMD could make RDNA 4 GPUs on TSMC's N4P node, sure. Or it could make Zen 5 CPU chiplets for both Ryzen and EPYC CPUs, CDNA 3 data center GPUs (MI300X), other Ryzen APU designs for laptops and handhelds, or the future CDNA 4 GPUs that are likely coming this year. Nvidia has Grace CPUs, Hopper and Blackwell data center GPUs, NVLink processors, Ada Lovelace previous generation GPUs, and the new Blackwell RTX GPUs that are all using variants of TSMC's 5nm-class nodes. And Intel has leveraged TSMC for all or part of its Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, and Battlemage product lines.

Nvidia made record profits last year of $130 billion, primarily driven by AI. Its consumer gaming division only accounted for $11.35 billion, 8.7% of the total. And going forward, Nvidia will likely invest even more heavily in data center GPUs. That will eat up a lot of wafers, needless to say, and gaming will have to compete for its share.

The good news is that more manufacturing capacity is coming online. A lot of that will likely go to create more AI processors, but the more capacity that exists, the more likely it is for other, less profitable chips — like consumer GPUs — to get made. And maybe AMD and Intel will try to grow their gaming GPU divisions while Nvidia is otherwise occupied. Or maybe Nvidia will treat gaming as a passion project that started the company and so it will try to ensure at least a reasonable number of chips get made. Maybe, maybe...

Whatever happens, what's clear right now is that, as long as AI continues to grow as an industry, gaming GPUs are now a lower priority item for most of the biggest players in the graphics space. Let's hope that, like cyptocurrency mining, this turns out to be just a passing phase. But we wouldn't bet the farm on that.

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Benchmarking software developer PassMark publishes the average results of all Windows PC tests across the globe every two weeks in a line graph. In line with what many enthusiasts might expect, the PassMark graph has always shown a consistent increase in processor performance year-on-year. However, for the first time since the company started keeping track in 2004, the average CPU mark score for desktop and laptop processors has dropped, with laptops dropping 3.4% year-over-year.

We see the biggest drop in laptop CPU performance results. PassMark recorded an average result of 14,632 across 101,316 samples last year. But, in 2025, the average score sat at an average of 14,130 points between 25,541 samples, decreasing the average score by 3.4%.

The average desktop PC result in 2024 netted 26,436 points for 186,053 samples. But for 2025, the average score currently sits at 26,311 points for over 47,810 samples — a 0.5% drop from last year. While that drop is small, we should only see a continued progression of faster performance.

We’ve also seen results for the top-performing CPUs, and it seems that we’ve basically reached a performance plateau, will little to no uplift in PassMark scores for the past three years for desktop chips and laptop CPUs. This happened after we received a massive uplift of 58.6% in the Top Desktop CPU benchmark scores in 2023, with the introduction of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX. The arrival of the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D laptop CPU in the same year also delivered a 69.9% jump in average performance for laptops. However, a new desktop chip that will dethrone the Threadripper Pro 7995WX is yet to arrive, while Intel’s new Core Ultra 275HX has provided a measly 6.8% increase in performance points on mobile.

What’s quite baffling, though, is that AMD, Intel, and even Qualcomm have just released new desktop and laptop CPUs that should have increased performance levels, according to their marketing. While it’s true that the AMD Ryzen 9000 series (except for the new X3D chips) and Intel Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200S processors were a disappointment for many enthusiasts, these should have at least delivered a modest increase in performance, particularly in productivity applications.

Passmark itself mused on X (formerly Twitter) that it could be that people are switching to more affordable machines that deliver lower power and performance. Or maybe Windows 11 is depressing performance scores versus Windows 10, especially as people transition to it with the upcoming demise of the latter. We've certainly seen plenty of examples of reduced performance in gaming with some of the newer versions of Windows 11, particularly as Intel and AMD struggled to upstream needed updates into the OS.

At the moment, we don’t know the cause of this drop, but it could also be that we’re just in the first quarter of 2025. As more people get newer gear and run tests for the remainder of the year, this number could climb and reflect the performance of newer chips that arrived recently, or will arrive in the coming months.

PassMark also muses that bloatware could contribute to the sudden decline in performance, but that seems like a longshot. In the end, the decline could simply be due to an odd interaction between the benchmark itself and the latest versions of Windows 11.

Following widespread reports of GPU PCIe connector wear associated with Asus' Q-Release Slim feature on select motherboards, Colorful has taken the opportunity to showcase its solution for the problem (via Weibo). While Colorful's alternative might not bear fancy names, the mechanism is relatively simple. It allows you to remove your GPU with an On/Off button—at least, the marketing material shows. This new feature will be available on upcoming X870 motherboards debuting under the brand's CVN lineup.

Colorful has not released any 800-series motherboards from AMD, including the X870E/X870 family, officially launched in September last year, and even those based on AMD's latest B850/B840 chipsets. The company didn't precisely detail how its solution fares against competitors or operates. However, we can draw some inferences from the shared images. Colorful's strategy includes a simple On/Off toggle switch next to the RAM slots and an M.2 connector for easy access.

Toggling the switch on should automatically release the GPU latch, mirroring Asus' first iteration, Q-Release, which used a push button a few years back. Asus' revamped mechanism, Q-Release Slim, allowed users to eject their GPU by simply tilting the card while pulling it outward, removing the need for mechanical buttons.

Sadly, innovation rarely comes without challenges. A handful of reports suggest that Asus' Q-Release Slim redesign caused a metallic piece in the PCIe slot to scrape against the GPU's PCIe connector, introducing unwanted wear and tear. Colorful is also experimenting with this GPU quick-release trend, promising enhanced security and convenience, likely compared to Asus' design.

The showcased CVN X870 motherboard is adorned in a white/silver tone and equipped with heatsinks for the VRMs and the M.2 SSD. We hope that Colorful's implementation goes without any problems, as no one would want to damage their precious RTX 5090/RTX 5080 for the dozens that managed to get one, even if it's just cosmetic damage.

In any case, Colorful should eventually release more 800-series boards, including budget B840 and B850 offerings. Colorful has yet to announce an exact release date or MSRP for this CVN X870 model, but we can expect more details shortly.

Reports suggest that AMD will debut its 16-core and 12-core Ryzen 9000X3D CPUs in late March, coinciding with the launch of its Radeon RX 9000 series graphics cards. Citing internal sources, French hardware news website CowCotLand claims that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D are planned for release by the end of Q1, aligning with AMD's provided release timeframe.

AMD revealed its high-core count Ryzen 9000X3D offerings at CES, boasting a 20% performance bump in gaming against Intel's Core Ultra 200S (Arrow Lake) processors. There is no difference in the total cache size versus the last generation, as the chipmaker will continue offering the 3D V-Cache on a single CCD. However, AMD's 2nd-generation V-Cache technology, which has the SRAM chiplet beneath the CCD, allows these chips to have a higher thermal headroom with a Tjmax of 95 degrees Celsius. This enables higher boost clocks, as seen with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D's V-Cache equipped CCD suffered a hefty 500 MHz frequency penalty compared to the CCD without the X3D cache, which should be resolved with the changes to the stacking structure.

CowCotLand suggests that these processors will arrive by the end of next month. While the source doesn't explicitly mention an expected timeline for RDNA 4, preliminary listings suggest RDNA 4 pre-orders start March 23. AMD will likely introduce the RX 9070 series first, followed by budget-friendly offerings later in the year. Given the hype behind AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is practically impossible to find at MSRP anywhere, let's hope supply for upcoming dual-CCD models is enough to keep up with demand.

Specifications for the RX 9070 XT and its non-XT counterpart have been leaked beforehand. The main highlight is that both GPUs are rumored to boast 16GB of memory, with the flagship RX 9070 XT allegedly trading blows with Nvidia's RTX 4080 Super. Our testing suggests a 10% performance gap between the elusive RTX 5080 and RTX 4080 Super. While this is purely speculative, the RX 9070 XT is projected to be within 15-20% of the RTX 5080. The best part? The 9070 XT might be in stock, unlike the RTX 5080.

AMD seems to be planning two major launches next month. According to leaks, RDNA 4 looks good, so it makes sense that it would have a dedicated launch event. However, AMD has not yet announced any details.

AMD’s top-of-the-line Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D chips are expected to have the same gaming performance as the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, one of the best gaming CPUs on the market. AMD Product and Business Development Manager Martijn Boonstra told VideoGamer that the two chips will “provide similar overall gaming performance to the 9800X3D.”

“There will be some games that perform a bit better, and some games will perform a little worse,” added Boonstra, “but on the whole the experience is comparable.” The former will be noticeable for titles that favor more cores and threads, especially as the Ryzen 9 9900X3D will have 12 cores while the Ryzen 9 9950X3D will have a whopping 16 cores versus the Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s eight cores. However, it's a rare case since not many games utilize more than eight cores. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D still has the upper hand in games that favor eight cores since everything is done on a single CCD.

In its announcement, AMD claims that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D will outperform Intel’s latest top chips, especially when using productivity and creator apps. It says the Ryzen 9 9950X3D performs about 10% better using multi-threaded creator apps like Photoshop than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. So, AMD will likely market the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D to professionals and creators who are also into gaming, while the Ryzen 7 9800X3D targets the general gamer enthusiast market.

Unfortunately, AMD hasn’t released pricing information for these chips yet, although we expect them to be released this January. However, if we look at historical pricing, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D launched at $449, while the Ryzen 9 7900X3D was announced at $599, and the Ryzen 9 7950X3 was priced at $699. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s launch price is $479, some $30 more than its predecessor. If AMD sticks to its pricing, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D would likely be $629, while the Ryzen 9 9950X3D will be $729. However, AMD says it will reveal actual pricing closer to launch, so we’ll have to be more patient with that.

Although the Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been on the market for several months, it’s still quite challenging to find, even if you know where to buy it. Hopefully, the launch of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D will relieve some pressure, allowing gamers and enthusiasts to purchase these chips much more quickly. But in the meantime, all we can do is wait and be aware of fake 9800X3D listings and fake 9800X3D processors to avoid getting scammed.

According to user forum posts, fake AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D chips are circulating in China. Japan's Uniko's Hardware found these ChipHell-sourced tales and highlighted what appears to be an MSI China social media post warning about AMD CPU shenanigans and outlining anti-counterfeit measures users can take. Sadly, we couldn't track down the MSI China notice, which has been screen-captured for ChipHell, to verify it (even after looking through all its Weibo posts from January, December, and November).

A machine translation of the MSI China notice reads: "Recently, there have been many cases of AMD CPUs being opened and replaced by customers. Dealers, please pay attention. In case of returns or malfunctions, the CPU must carefully check whether there are any abnormalities between the cover and the PCB, and report to the police in time to avoid losses!"

This discussion of counterfeit CPUs centers on a purported AMD after-sales service inspection report for a fake Ryzen 7 9800X3D, also from ChipHell. Despite the counterfeiters' efforts, there are some noticeable differences between the fake and genuine chips, at least in this instance.

We've reproduced the warning images next to the original color image. The genuine AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is placed above the fake in these images.

Firstly, the PCB numbers don't match. According to the inspection report, a genuine AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D will be marked 22050. Meanwhile, the fake/copy bears the number 32546, which is from a Ryzen 7000 series R7 or R9 chip, it is explained. If you have good color vision, you will also observe the different PCB colors, with the genuine one being a shade of blue, not green.

Reports concerning faked PC components are all too standard, and half-convincing counterfeits are likely attractive to fly-by-night sellers on social networks and loosely regulated online marketplaces. Back in November, we reported on Amazon US being flooded with fake AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D listings at an unbelievable $199, so this type of fakery isn't even new to this particular SKU. In this case, the unrealistically pitched price should have meant few takers before the listings were removed.

In September, we covered a similar tale involving fake AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D chips. Even though this is an older chip, that story is worth revisiting for the deep dive into the fakery provided by OC expert Der8auer (video embedded).

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a highly desirable CPU, especially for gamers, thanks to its cost/performance ratio. To buy a genuine sample, it is probably best to keep an eye on our deals posts, which highlight deals from reputable outlets. We even have a post dedicated to the 9800X3D hunters out there.

Several months have passed since a Ryzen Threadripper 9000 (codenamed Shimada Peak) tip hit the rumor mill. However, a new one has emerged, featuring key specs on upcoming variants. Everest on X discovered a shipping manifest featuring 64-core and 32-core SKUs with a 350W TDP.

The Threadripper 9000 series is the successor to the existing Threadripper 7000 (codenamed Storm Peak) series. Up to now, we've seen mentions of the SKUs with 16, 32, 64, and 96 cores, the same as Storm Peak. We suspect that there should be a 24-core variant, too.

Assuming AMD's recipe hasn't changed with Shimada Peak, we're likely looking at eight cores per CCD and a single I/O die. Therefore, the 16-core and 96-core variants that previously leaked would sport two CCDs and 12 CCDs, respectively. The 32-core SKU should have four CCDs, whereas the 64-core model may incorporate eight CCDs. The L3 configuration is unlikely to change, so 32MB per CCD. The 16-, 32-, 64-, and 96-core chips should have 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, and 384MB of L3 cache onboard, respectively.

Although the shipping manifest lists the SP6 socket (LGA 4844), it's improbable that Threadripper 9000 would use it. AMD introduced the SP6 socket for the EPYC 8004 (codenamed Siena) series, which targets the server space. Despite their physical similarity, the SP6 and sTR5 sockets don't share the same electrical layout. As a result, Threadripper 9000 should be drop-in compatible with sTR5 motherboards with the TRX50 (HEDT) or WRX90 (workstation) chipsets, depending on whether AMD goes with vanilla or the Pro versions. PCIe 5.0 connectivity will stick with Shimada Peak. Of course, the motherboard will require a firmware update to accommodate the new chips.

The 350W TDP for the 64-core and 32-core models backs up previous rumors claiming the exact power specifications. If true, AMD the Threadripper 9000 series will have the same TDP (or the same maximum TDP at the very least) as AMD's outgoing Ryzen 7000 Threadripper chips. The main upgrade Threadripper 9000 will bring is the introduction of AMD's Zen 5 architecture, boosting per-core performance over the previous generation.

AMD hasn't revealed any information about the Threadripper 9000 series. However, word around town is the new Zen 5-powered monsters could launch later this year.

TSMC's Fab 21 in Arizona is gradually ramping up production, and recently it began to manufacture some of AMD's Ryzen 9000-series processors for client PCs as well as some ingredients of Apple's S9 system-in-package (SiP) for smart watches, reports Tim Culpan, a well-connected journalist, citing his own sources. 

If the information is accurate, then TSMC's Fab 21 in the U.S. is now producing at least three chips: Apple's A16 Bionic system-on-chip for iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus smartphones, at least one IC in the Apple S9 SiP for smart watches (we presume this is the actual application processor with two 64-bit cores and a quad-core neural engine), and one of AMD's Ryzen 9000-series CPU. All of the said processors are made using TSMC's 4nm-class N4 and N4P technologies. 

Tim Culpan reports that TSMC makes "Grand Rapids" CPU for AMD and this is certainly not a codename that we have heard of before. It is entirely possible that AMD uses a previously unknown silicon — perhaps featuring specific capabilities and aimed at select applications — to test TSMC's Fab 21 in Arizona. However, it makes more sense to test a new fab with a familiar silicon. Moreover, considering that Culpan sources are from Taiwan and a lot of communications happen verbally, it is possible that some of the sources made a slip of the tongue and called Granite Ridge as Grand Rapids. Granite Ridge is of course a familiar silicon for AMD. 

TSMC's Fab 21 phase 1 is projected to officially start operations in the first half of 2025 and Culpan reports that by now all the tools in the Phase 1A have been installed and are being used to make chips. At this point, production capacity of the facility is 10,000 wafer starts per month. However, Phase 1B is 'facing tooling bottlenecks,' according to Culpan. This does not necessarily mean delays as some tools may be installed earlier and the others later. However, this clearly affects capacity as Phase 1B reportedly has a capacity of 14,000 WSPM. 

As it turns out, Fab 21 is still understaffed, according to Culpan. This week, TSMC internally invited Taiwan staff to apply for a few hundred roles in Arizona, including fab operations and equipment installation, Culpan reports citing his sources. While the company aims to prioritize local hiring, this move reflects the challenges of staffing the new facility. Despite local hires now outnumbering foreign (Taiwanese) staff in Arizona, pulling hundreds from headquarters highlights the ongoing difficulties.

While AMD mainly focused on its forthcoming high-end advances at CES 2025 this year, a new product for the budget market was quietly added to its website. The AMD Ryzen 5 9600 has been confirmed as a slightly down-tuned sibling of the 9600X, with MSRP and release date yet unknown.

AMD's Ryzen 9000 Series, codenamed "Granite Ridge" launched in July/August 2024 after some slight packaging delays. The Zen 5 family offers expected generational improvements, with the 9600X winning 4.5 out of 5 stars in our review at launch. Now the 9600, sans X, arrives to offer a cheaper option for those wanting the cheapest Zen 5 experience yet.

The Ryzen 5 9600 will be a 6-core / 12-thread CPU with 32MB of L3 cache and a 65W TDP. If this sounds familiar, it's because these specs match the 9600X exactly. The difference comes in clock speeds: the 9600 offers a 3.8 GHz base clock and turbos up to 5.2 GHz. The X variant sits at 3.9 GHz / 5.4 GHz, just a hair faster before overclocking (as is typical for Ryzen, the 9600 non-X still allows overclocking).

The Ryzen 5 9600 offers something else new to the 9000-series: an included Wraith Stealth cooler. With none of AMD's other consumer processors including stock coolers since the 8000G processors released in January 2024, the return of the Wraith Stealth is a welcome sight for the budget-minded buyer looking to save ~$20.

With the arrival of B840 and B850 midrange Zen 5 motherboards at CES, it seems the 9600 will be nicely positioned to get PCIe Gen5 into the hands of the budget/midrange AMD buyer. As Zen 5 motherboards get cheaper, budget AMD buyers may no longer need to stay on older hardware to join Team Red.

It is unclear when the 9600 will arrive on the scene or how much it will run consumers. Not much has been shared about the chip at CES 2025, but based on the general price decreases across the current AMD generation, the Ryzen 5 9600 will likely launch at an MSRP of around $220 or less, based on the $230 launch price tag of the last-gen 7600.

We'll be sure to update with any further information we can pull from AMD at CES. In the meantime, be sure to follow the rest of our CES 2025 coverage, including our exclusive look at the family photos of AMD's newest offerings, delidded.

AMD launched a slew of new CPU products at CES, all of which were covered extensively by Tom's Hardware. Here's your first look at all the CPUs intact and delidded, showcasing the beautiful internals and allowing us to appreciate the meticulous engineering behind each chip.

Fire Range

Fire Range, which falls under AMD's umbrella of Ryzen 9000HX processors, employs desktop-grade silicon geared at workstations, with V-Cache-equipped variants for gamers as well. The CPU boasts two Zen 5-based CCDs (Core Complex Dies) with an IOD (I/O Die) beneath, mirroring desktop Ryzen 9000 processors.

Strix Halo

Next is the Ryzen AI Max 300 series, dubbed "Strix Halo." This massive APU carries a unique design philosophy, featuring two CCD-esque chiplets alongside a massive I/O Die that houses an up-to-40 Compute Unit iGPU (Integrated GPU) and the NPU.

Krackan Point and Hawk Point Refresh

The Ryzen AI 300 (Krackan Point) and Ryzen 200 (Hawk Point Refresh) models are new to AMD's APU portfolio and set to power affordable yet capable laptops. Krackan Point is a dialed-down version of Strix with upwards of eight Zen 5 cores and up to eight Compute Units based on RDNA 3.5. Hawk Point Refresh follows along, coupling Zen 4 with RDNA 3. Both are monolithic, making it a bit difficult to distinguish one from the other. However, based on visual cues, the wider chip is likely Krackan, while the smaller chip is likely Hawk Point Refresh.

Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D

Following in the footsteps of the world's fastest gaming processor, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, AMD's new Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D are optimized for games and creator workloads. Boasting a total of 16 cores, AMD touts its Ryzen 9 9950X3D as 20% faster in gaming and 10% faster in productivity than Intel's Core Ultra 9 285K. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 9950X3D share similar internals with two CCDs; one featuring the extra SRAM, adjoined with an IOD beneath.

Going from top to bottom, Fire Range is slated for launch in H1 2025, with Strix Halo debuting across Q1 and Q2 this year, followed by Krackan Point in Q1 2025, and Hawk Point Refresh in Q2 2025. Lastly, the 16-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D and 12-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D are planned for March 2025.

AMD's CES 2025 livestream was a jam-packed 45-minute show with a slew of product announcements on the company's latest tech. However, one key omission is drawing criticism: AMD didn't mention its next-gen RDNA 4 GPUs at all, even though the company teased the new architecture to the press before the event. After the event, we met with AMD executives David McAfee and Frank Azor in a small group meeting, and the pair immediately addressed the elephant in the room, chalking the omission up to a strict time limit that would have impeded their ability to share enough information. Other factors also impacted their decision, like Nvidia's looming announcements tonight at CES, but AMD now plans to reveal more details later this quarter.

"Some of the news that was hotly anticipated, RDNA 4, was absent from the press conference today," McAfee began. "So we wanted to just clear the air on why it was not part of it, what our product plans are, and what to expect from AMD throughout the quarter as we get a little bit closer to launching that product and the Navi 4 / RDNA 4 family of graphics products."

"Just to set the record straight to begin with, the lack of RDNA 4 in this press conference has nothing to do with product development or any of that. The chips are in the lab, and they are performing well. It's hitting all the targets in terms of performance and power. You'll see many of our board partners showing off their designs, so they'll all be out there talking about products that they have coming from the RDNA 4 family products during CES."

McAfee explained that the keynote was only 45 minutes long, and with a slew of other products to announce, the company simply couldn't dedicate enough time in the presentation to the new GPUs to correctly frame the product. Ultimately, they would have only had about five minutes to introduce the new GPUs.

"Graphics products and graphics launches are complicated, and there's a lot that has to be explained to really do it justice. We wanted to make sure, as we launch RDNA 4, that we do it justice and we cover the hardware improvements, the technology, the software, the FSR4, and the driver enhancements. All of that needs to be covered to really satisfy what gaming enthusiasts care about most," McAfee said.

"We made a lot of decisions in RDNA 4 that are different from prior generations. We know that most gamers buy graphics cards that are well, well south of $1,000, and we built the RDNA 4 architecture really from the ground up to make sure that we're delivering features and the performance and capabilities that gamers in the largest volume segments of the market care about most."

This aligns with AMD's recent admission that it's deprioritizing chasing high-end halo GPUs with RDNA 4. It has done that in the past as well, with Polaris and before that, the HD 5000 and 4000 series. Instead, it will focus on the mid-range segment of the market. McAfee said that enthusiasts can expect a dramatic generational jump in ray tracing performance with RDNA 4, as well as expanded machine learning and AI compute capabilities that power complementary features like FSR.

Now the company plans to release a separate tranche of information later this quarter that will go into more detail on RDNA 4. We have the names, we know the architecture is changing, but beyond that we don't have any official specs. We may see some preliminary performance numbers leak during the coming days as well, and AMD noted that no one currently has the latest RDNA 4 drivers to test with, so any performance data isn't going to show how the final cards will perform. Given it's a new architecture and the GPUs won't arrive until later this quarter, it's a safe bet that driver optimizations and tuning are ongoing.

"There were certain things we put in the press release that we didn't put into the press conference," Azor added. "Like the Z2 processors, for example, and we tried to include RDNA 4, we really did. We built the content." But numerous factors scuttled those plans. One of those factors was Nvidia's pending announcements tonight at CES 2025.

"There's no way, with everything else we had to do at this show, that you would have left happy if we had included RDNA 4 in the keynote. And not just because of time [limits], but the pricing perspective, performance review, FSR4 capabilities, architecture, and the incumbent [Nvidia] is going to launch something later tonight." Azor said. "Why not wait and see what they're going to do? Whatever we do to respond would just benefit the market. So it's good for gamers."

"This was a no-win scenario," Azor continued. "We debated all these different options and whether or not our customers, the gamers, the market, were going to walk away from today and say, 'Wow, that was amazing, I was blown away by it' if we included it in there for five or eight minutes. Why? Why do that? Let's give it its proper time. Let's put together a recipe that's going to win — positioning, performance, pricing, and the time that it deserves, and show people that we actually do care about gaming."

Azor also noted that the company didn't want to feed a narrative that it doesn't care about RDNA 4 because it only spent five minutes on the topic. McAfee's and Azor's statements explain the rationale behind the case of the missing RDNA 4 GPUs, but it probably won't fully staunch the debate among enthusiasts. For now, we'll have to simply wait for more details on the RDNA 4 GPUs.

AMD’s RDNA 4 GPUs have seen a few leaks and rumors over the past year, and now AMD has pulled back the curtain a little bit to reveal its next generation Radeon RX 9000-series graphics cards. As expected, AMD will be focusing on the performance-mainstream market, eschewing the extreme end of the performance and pricing ladder — and perhaps skipping the budget segment. Release dates, specifications, and pricing are still under wraps, but at least two of the model names are now official, with two more now effectively confirmed. These will compete with the best graphics cards.

We expect to see early samples of AMD’s upcoming GPUs at CES 2025 this week, but it remains to be seen just how many details will be shared. This is by no means an official launch of the GPUs, and AMD says it’s only “previewing” RDNA 4 at CES 2025. The launch date at present simply says Q1 2025, and that’s for the first two graphics cards in the lineup. We anticipate other models will become available later in the year, perhaps before June but nothing official has been stated at present. Here’s what we know.

The RDNA 4 architecture name was a given, barring a major change in branding and direction. AMD will move to a 4nm TSMC process node — we don’t know if that’s N4, N4P, or some other variant — which should bring some decent density and efficiency improvements. This will also be the third generation of AMD’s Ray Accelerators, and the second generation of the AI Accelerators and Radiance Display Engine. About the only truly surprising aspect of RDNA 4 is that it took AMD this long to seriously invest in AI cores for its consumer GPUs — the CDNA architectures have had tensor processing units for several years now.

The fundamental changes haven’t been shared, only somewhat nebulous statements. RDNA 4 will have “optimized” compute units (CUs), “supercharged” AI compute, “improved” ray tracing, and “better” media encoding quality. Those are all good things to see in a new GPU architecture, but until we have additional details, and more importantly, until we’ve been able to put everything to the test, these are merely statements and claims.

One interesting question is whether or not AMD will continue to utilize the GPU chiplet approach that it introduced with RDNA 3. There was no discussion of that as yet, and it seems like it could go either way. With RDNA 3, AMD had two larger GPUs, Navi 31 and Navi 32, that used a GCD (Graphics Compute Die) matched with anywhere from three to six MCDs (Memory Cache Dies). The lower tier Navi 33 opted to stick with a monolithic design and an older process node.

RDNA 4 appears to only have two GPUs planned, currently rumored but not confirmed to be called Navi 44 and Navi 48. These should take over for the RX 7600 through RX 7900 XT, based on AMD’s slides, but we don’t have CU counts, memory configurations, or other details at present. We can only hope that AMD will leave the 8GB graphics card era in the past, and if it also uses GDDR7 memory we could even see 3GB chips — meaning 50% more memory capacity for any given interface width, so 12GB on a 128-bit, 18GB on 192-bit, and 24GB on 256-bit. But again, there’s no official information on the memory, cache, or use of chiplets at present.

What AMD did officially disclose is the product branding and we would guess four different GPU names. AMD will sort of skip the Radeon 8000-series, leaving that for integrated solutions on mobile devices using the RDNA 3.5 architecture. There won’t be any 8000-series desktop GPUs. Instead, AMD will use Radeon 9000-series branding, aligning its desktop lineup with the 9000-series Ryzen CPUs. It will also shift to using the tens digit to indicate relative performance levels, to match up with Nvidia’s GPU models.

At the top, AMD will have a Radeon RX 9070 XT that should take over from the RX 7900 XT and compete with the RTX 4070 Ti/Ti Super and perhaps the RTX 5070 Ti as well — we’ll need to wait and see official specs to determine where the parts actually match up. Below that will be the vanilla Radeon RX 9070, taking over from the 7900 GRE and 7800 XT and gunning for the RTX 5070 presumably. These are the two confirmed GPUs, with a Q1 2025 release date but no other hard information right now.

AMD also showed the Radeon RX 9060 branding, and presumably we will get at least an RX 9060 XT and an RX 9060. As indicated in the slide, these will take over from the existing RX 7600/7600 XT and the RX 7700 XT. They’ll also compete with Nvidia’s existing RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti cards, and their eventual RTX 5060-class replacements.

As part of the enhanced AI aspects, AMD also announced its upcoming FSR 4 upscaling technology, which will use the new and improved RDNA 4 AI Accelerators to provide machine-learning-based upscaling. That should make it similar to Nvidia's DLSS and Intel's XeSS, and it appears FSR 4 will be relatively easy to add to existing FSR 3.1 enabled games. Obviously, we'll need the new GPUs before we can test it.

AMD also mentioned some AI-based tools like text summary and image generation will be integrated into its Adrenalin AI suite of software. Whether this will be part of the core GPU drivers package or a separate application isn't entirely clear, but it looks to be similar in principle to some of what Nvidia has done with the Nvidia App.

Who will end up with the best graphics cards when the dust settles? It’s far too early to say, but we’ll be testing the hardware as soon as we’re able. It’s going to be an exciting year for graphics cards by all appearances.

AMD announced its Ryzen 9000HX series of laptop chips here at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, including its flagship model that it bills as the world’s best mobile processor for gaming and content creation. The flagship ‘Fire Range’ Ryzen 9 9955HX3D chip comes armed with the Zen 5 architecture paired with the company’s game-boosting 3D V-Cache technology, and AMD also announced two new non-X3D chips that come with standard designs, with all three models being comprised of the same silicon that the company uses for its potent Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors. AMD says all three chips will come to market in the first half of 2025, but didn’t share any notable design wins or benchmarks. These processors will compete directly with Intel’s desktop-replacement Core Ultra 200HX series laptop chips.

The Ryzen 9000HX series desktop processors are geared as desktop and workstation replacements, so they come with the same chiplet-based design and silicon as found in the desktop chips instead of the monolithic die the company uses for the rest of its laptop chips. The desktop CPU design, ported from the socketed chip to a smaller BGA-mounted package, provides far more computational horsepower than standard laptop chips, but this results in higher power consumption, and thus lower battery life. AMD rates all three of its new chips with a 54W TDP, which is markedly lower than the prior-gen’s 75W+ peak. All three chips use the same central I/O die as the desktop CPUs, so they will also have the basic RDNA 2 iGPU with 2 CUs that don’t provide enough performance for gaming. That doesn’t matter, though, as 9000HX series laptops will come with discrete gaming GPUs.

The flagship Ryzen 9955HX3D is forged from the same silicon as the desktop Ryzen 9 9950X3D processor that AMD also announced today. These chips wield the Zen 5 architecture with 16 cores and 32 threads coupled with an additional 96MB L3 cache chiplet that is stacked underneath one of the two chiplets that contain the CPU cores. This extra slab of cache provides explosive performance gains in most games, but it doesn’t accelerate all titles equally. The 9955HX3D’s CPU cores can boost up to 5.4 GHz, the same as the prior gen Ryzen 9 7945HX3D model.

The prior-gen model was limited to one series of expensive laptops from Asus, the ROG Strix Scar lineup, and they suffered from poor availability. AMD said the new HX3D chip is coming to laptops soon but hasn’t specified if these will be available in a wider selection of notebooks.

AMD also has two other standard HX models that come without 3D V-Cache technology. These Fire Range models replace the previous-gen Dragon Range chips, but AMD has winnowed down the standard HX product stack to only two models, whereas the prior generation had six models that stretched all the way down to a six-core 12-thread model. In contrast, the new HX series comes with either 12 or 16 cores. It’s possible that AMD could release more HX models in the future; we’ll dig for more details.

As you can see above, the Ryzen 9 9955HX and Ryzen 9 9850HX have the same boost clocks and cache capacities as their predecessors, but come with a 55W TDP, a marked decrease from the prior-gen’s peak of 75W+.

AMD hasn’t shared benchmarks for these processors yet, but we’ll track down more details when we meet with the company this week. AMD says the Ryzen 9000HX series chips will be available in the first half of this year.

AMD announced its two flagship Ryzen 9000-series X3D processors here at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, with the 16-core 32-thread Ryzen 9 9950X3D leading the way with the potent Zen 5 architecture paired with AMD’s dominating game-boosting X3D technology to provide 128MB of L3 cache, all of which AMD says makes it the world’s best CPU for gaming and creator workloads. AMD says this chip easily beats Intel’s competing Arrow Lake flagship in gaming by 20% and delivers within 1% the gaming performance of the current world’s fastest gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. That comes at the cost of a 50W generational increase in TDP, though, but that extra power budget will also help the chip score higher in our CPU benchmark hierarchy. AMD also has a new Ryzen 9 9900X3D coming to market that slots in with 12 cores and 24 threads paired with 128MB of L3 cache.

AMD’s existing Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the uncontested best CPU for gaming, so much so that it is nearly impossible to find at retail, but AMD’s new Zen 5-powered X3D processors broaden their appeal, and hopefully availability, to a broader audience that includes those looking for a better blend of performance in productivity workloads due to the heftier allotment of CPU cores. Both chips will be available in March 2025, but AMD hasn’t announced pricing yet.

We’ll cover the gaming and creativity benchmarks, then review the competitive positioning against Intel’s Core Ultra 200S Arrow Lake processors.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gaming Performance

Both new X3D chips have 3D-stacked SRAM under one of their two dies, which boosts performance in games (more details below). This 3D V-Cache tech doesn’t accelerate all titles equally, so be aware of the tradeoffs. As always, you should wait for independent benchmarks, but AMD’s results are every bit as impressive as we expect.

AMD says the Ryzen 9 9950X3D beats Intel’s flagship Arrow Lake Core Ultra 9 285K by a whopping 20% measured across 40 games (we provide the test notes at the end of the article). AMD does use overclocked DDR5-6000 memory here for its chip, while it only uses stock DDR5-6400 for the 285K, giving it an advantage. Regardless, this is yet another blow for Intel’s troubled chips. At launch, Intel’s Core Ultra 200S ‘Arrow Lake’ chips failed to impress in gaming, and according to our testing, the company’s recent fixes to address the lackluster gaming performance have done little to change their overall positioning.

AMD says the Ryzen 9 9950X3D lands delivers essentially the same level of gaming performance as the gaming champion Ryzen 7 9800X3D (within 1%), just as we saw with the prior-gen Ryzen 7000 lineup. Compared to the prior-gen Ryzen 9 7950X3D, the 9950X3D delivers an 8% improvement in gaming, a nice generational step forward.

AMD didn’t provide benchmarks for the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which frankly doesn’t bode well, but we’ll have the full performance breakdown when the chips launch. AMD also only shared 13 of the gaming benchmarks, but says it derived its overall measurement from 40 games. The other titles aren’t listed.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Productivity and Creator Performance

AMD stacks a 3D V-Cache chiplet on one of the two dies to improve gaming performance, but that ultimately results in lower performance in standard productivity work than you’ll get with AMD’s standard Ryzen 9000 non-X3D chips. However, these heftier 9000X3D models come with more cores to deliver higher performance in those heavier use-cases.

Again, AMD claims to beat Intel’s flagship 285K handily, with a 10% lead in content creation apps, though we do see that the wins are heavily weighted towards multi-threaded applications and feature a few outliers that improve the average ranking quite a bit (7zip, Photoshop). It’s possible this might be a much closer competition in a broader set of applications. AMD also says it derived its overall metrics from 20 benchmarks, but only shared results for nine of them and didn’t list the other applications used.

AMD also says the 9950X3D is 13% faster in creator apps over the prior gen 7950X3D, yet another nice generational gain. Again, there are no benchmarks for the 9900X3D, which isn’t surprising given that the prior-gen comparable, the Ryzen 7 7900X3D, wasn’t very impressive.

AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D Pricing and Specifications

As with the prior-gen 7950X3D and 7900X3D, both new 9000X3D chips use two compute dies, with one die sporting a 3D-stacked V-Cache chiplet that boosts L3 cache capacity to 128MB but ultimately results in lower boost clocks. Meanwhile, the other, standard chiplet boosts to higher frequencies to deliver higher performance in both single- and multi-threaded tasks.  

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D slots in at the top of the Zen 5 stack with 16 cores, 32 threads, 144 MB of total cache, and a peak boost clock rate of 5.7 GHz. This chip has a 170W TDP, a 50W increase over the prior-gen model.  AMD’s prior-gen chips had the 3D-stacked chiplet on top of the compute die, which essentially trapped heat and severely constrained the operating temps/voltages, and thus TDP. The new models have the die on the bottom of the chip, unlocking higher thermal headroom. We can see AMD extracting that additional headroom with the higher 170/230W TDP.  In contrast, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D sports 12 cores, 24 threads,140 MB of total cache, and a 5.5 GHz boost. This chip has the same 120/162W TDP as its predecessor.

AMD hasn’t given us a solid release date yet or pricing, but these chips will be in market in March 2025. Here’s hoping they are easier to find at retail than the ever-popular and ever-elusive Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

AMD is rumored to be working on a successor to its Dragon Range (Ryzen 7045HX) processor lineup, codenamed Fire Range. Wu Haijun, chairman of Hasee, a Chinese PC manufacturer, has reportedly confirmed that these upcoming CPUs will be branded per AMD's old naming scheme and further asserted the development of an X3D variant on mobile, namely the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D (via Golden Pig Upgrade Pack). In addition, the discussion also touched on Intel's Arrow Lake-HX processors, but the sentiment was not strictly positive.

AMD and Intel offer select processors employing desktop-grade silicon branded with the HX suffix at the high end. With Ryzen 7000, AMD introduced the Dragon Range series, featuring upwards of two CCDs and one IOD, distinct from other mobile counterparts, which are monolithic. These processors are designated for workstations or desktop replacements but suffer from poor battery life due to the multi-chiplet design. Likewise, Intel's HX-series processors are no different, with the latest iteration, Core Ultra 200HX or Arrow Lake HX, expected to debut at CES.

At a recent pre-launch product briefing, Wu Haijun, president and founder of Hasee Computer Company, shared essential details about AMD and Intel's forthcoming HX processors. Reportedly, AMD is porting its X3D or 3D V-Cache technology to mobile with Fire Range X3D.

However, Wu Haijun named the Ryzen 9 9955HX3D, an upcoming mobile CPU from AMD, after the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D. He didn't confirm whether Hasee products would feature this processor on their laptops. Interestingly, while AMD's Zen 5 mobile CPUs have adopted the new Ryzen AI 300 branding, the firm is reviving its old naming scheme for Fire Range.

On the other hand, Arrow Lake-HX was also a part of the discussion at the meeting. Per the report, Intel's 255HX and 275HX, alleged to be 20 and 24 core offerings, respectively, are not that impressive in performance. The exact definition of the word "performance" in this context is unclear, however, it is a known fact that Arrow Lake does not deliver many improvements; if any, over Raptor Lake when we consider raw performance.

Efficiency, on the contrary, is another topic. Arrow Lake-HX should theoretically outperform Raptor Lake-HX if both chips operate within a strict 45W power limit. Still, we'll leave Intel to fill out the extra details at its CES keynote.

G.Skill has introduced a pair of new DDR5 memory timing variants featuring the lowest set of primary timings the DRAM manufacturer has released since DDR5 first debuted. G.Skill's Trident Z5 Neo RGB, M5 RGB Neo, and Z5 Royal Neo series can now be purchased in a DDR5-6000 CL26-36-36-96 configuration in 32GB and 64GB kits and a CL28-36-36-96 config in 48GB and 96GB kits.

The CL26-36-36-96 configuration is the tightest configuration G.Skill currently makes. According to G.Skill, the 64GB (2x32GB) model is the world's first 64GB kit to ship with timings this tight on DDR5. G.Skill showcased the kit working with full stability in MemtestPro 4.0 on a Ryzen 9 9900X and on an Asus Crosshair X870E Hero.

G.Skill also shared the same test showcasing its higher capacity 96GB CL-28-36-36-96 configuration with the same CPU and RAM, which performed an error-free run of MemtestPro 4.0.

These kits are aimed at gamers and power users who want the best timings at the 6000MT/s DDR5 memory frequency. G.Skill states these new kits are built for "select" X870E motherboards and Ryzen 9000 manually series CPUs, which have a "sweet spot" of 6000MHz, and the fabric clock, memory clock, and memory controller clock can run at ideal frequency ratios. However, nothing prevents Intel users from using these kits as long as they are willing to enter their overclocked memory profile. These kits only have EXPO memory support and don't feature an Intel XMP profile (as far as we know).

There is also nothing stopping Ryzen 7000 owners on 800 or 600 series chipset motherboards from using these memory kits. However, users will have to be more mindful of system stability and ensure the kit works without problems with their system.

Pricing has not been disclosed, but it is easy to guess these new kits will probably be some of the most expensive DDR5-6000 kits on the market due to their tight timings alone. Timings can significantly alter DDR5 pricing, with DDR5-6000 CL 28 2x16GB kits costing $120 to $130. By contrast, CL30 kits with the same configuration can be had for under $80.

An unreleased 16-core offering from AMD based on Zen 5 has surfaced on Geekbench. The CPU was equipped on the Asus ROG Strix G16, presumably the upcoming 2025 edition. Hardware leaker Olrak suggests that this leaked processor is part of AMD's flagship Fire Range lineup for high-end gaming laptops.

Since we don't have much to back this information up apart from an OPN code, it's best to approach this leak skeptically. The leaked processor, reportedly boasting 16 cores, was tested as an Engineering Sample under the OPN Code "100-000001028-42_Y". This code should help us identify this processor should it surface in upcoming leaks. Nonetheless, there isn't much we can conclude about the performance, as the CPU was tested in Geekbench AI.

Typically, mobile processors from AMD and Intel, such as Strix Point and Lunar Lake, are variants of the same architecture used on their desktop chips, optimized for the smaller form factor and tighter power budget. At the very high end, a few "HX" models from either brand employ desktop silicon. Dragon Range (Ryzen 7045HX) last generation was the epitome of a desktop replacement, departing from AMD's typical monolithic approach with mobile chips. Still, it lagged in battery life, and that's expected due to the CPU's MCM design.

The Geekbench test lists the alleged Fire Range CPU with 16 cores and 32 threads based on Zen 5, clocked at a base frequency of 2.5 GHz. Provided AMD doesn't alter its naming scheme, this SKU should be the Ryzen 9 9955HX, but we could be wrong. The Asus ROG Strix G16, codenamed "G614FH," is outfitted with this unreleased Fire Range CPU featuring 32GB of DDR5 memory, which should be plentiful for games and productivity workloads. It'll be interesting to see how this processor holds up against Intel's Arrow Lake-HX chips.

Last month, we covered a leak that examined AMD's mobile portfolio for 2025. Assuming the leak is correct, Fire Range CPUs should feature pin-to-pin compatibility with the FL1 socket, simplifying integration with existing designs. The leak also claims that AMD will introduce X3D variants of its Fire Range processors, similar to the last generation.

Fire Range should support faster DDR5-5600 memory (SODIMM), per the tipster, netting a slight bump in performance in tandem with the newer architecture. Expect more details from AMD at its CES keynote next month.

Hardware leaker momomo_us shared five Gigabyte motherboards designed for the mainstream market on X, three models under the gamer-focused Aorus brand, and two more directly under Gigabyte. As the icing on the cake, the sleuth discovered the pricing for a couple.

The models we saw on X include the B850 Aorus Elite WIFI7 (in black and white), the B850I Aorus Pro, the B850 Eagle WIFI6E, and the B850 Gaming WIFI5. All these motherboards have WiFi connectivity, some with WiFi 5 and some with WiFi 7, but we don’t have the rest of the specifications. The motherboard listings are from an overseas Amazon store, so consider the value-added tax (VAT). The launch date is slated for January 6.

The B850 Gaming WiFi 6 is the most affordable of the lot, with a $240 price tag. Meanwhile, the B850 Eagle WiFi 6E motherboard is listed for $255. The B850 Aorus Elite WiFi 7 and B850 Aorus Elite WiFi 7 Ice motherboards retail for $308.

AMD split the launch of its 800-series motherboards when it released the Ryzen 9000 series processors, with only the top-end X870 and X870E mobos available upon launch. The company is reportedly launching the B840 and B850 motherboards in early 2025, and given all the leaks we’re starting to see concerning the B850, this rumor seems to be true.

In addition to these mainstream Gigabyte motherboards, Asus is reportedly preparing to launch eight models powered by the B850 chipset and three motherboards sporting the B840 chipset designed for system integrators and commercial users. These motherboards will launch alongside budget Intel motherboards, all of which fall under the 800-series nomenclature. The expected arrival of these budget and mainstream motherboards will coincide with the launch of more affordable Ryzen 9000 and Intel Core 200S processors at CES 2025.

If you don’t want to splurge too much on a new motherboard to go with a new AMD Ryzen 9000 processor, you need to rely on an older B650 motherboard and update its BIOS to accept the newer chips. With these new B850 and B840 motherboards, you could now build a mid-range CPU featuring the latest tech from AMD, allowing you to get the most out of your Ryzen 9000 processor. So, even if you go all out and buy a Ryzen 9800X3D (assuming you could find one), you don’t have to spend too much on a high-end X870 or X870E motherboard, especially if you’re not going to use its features.

Amidst the chaos of October, Minisforum launched the MS-A1 AM5 mini-PC with both barebones and a Ryzen 7 8700G configuration— but earlier this morning, Minisforum also added a new variant with Ryzen 9 9950X.

Compared to other mini PCs, which usually don't come in alternative barebones forms, MS-A1 may be the most price-accessible, customizable mini-PC on the market, especially keeping that AM5 socket and OCuLink eGPU support in mind. Every configuration of the device comes in the same 189.5 x 186 x 48 mm form factor (longest side 7.4 inches).

Now, before making any recommendations, it's worth noting that with current market conditions in mind, you're mostly just paying for convenience if you opt for the Ryzen 9 9950X or Ryzen 7 8700G models since you can acquire separate CPU, memory, and RAM for less money if you opt for the barebones kit instead.

Bringing your Ryzen 9 9950X and matching RAM/storage for capacity could save you over $100, though you must be mindful of form factor restrictions. Fortunately, the mini-PC enclosure has its cooler built-in, so you don't need to worry about adding fans or buying an additional heatsink if you bring your CPU, though you may want to have a thermal paste kit on hand just in case.

*Note: The front M.2 slots seem to be smaller M.2-2230 rather than standard M.2-2280 slots. One may also be taken by opting for M.2 Wi-Fi/BT expansion, which is also supported.

The Minisforum MS-A1 is quite compelling as a barebones AM5 Mini PC kit. Its fully featured I/O, including USB 4 and OCuLink, should enable all the expansion end users need, significantly leveraging high-end desktop GPUs rather than compromised mobile GPUs. Those who want to maintain away-from-dock graphics performance can opt for a build or model with an APU like the Ryzen 8700G. In contrast, those who wish to prioritize multi-core performance could opt for a Ryzen 9 9950X config or go full custom with a gaming powerhouse like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Of course, those hoping to make the most of a mini-PC like this must pair it with an appropriate OCuLink eGPU docking station. To cut down on extraneous PSU cable routing, I recommend the Aoostar AG02 or AG01 docking stations, which include integrated PSUs capable of handling the best graphics cards within wattage limits.

On the note of wattage limits, this mini-PC is noted as only supporting 100W-120W in its documentation despite being able to use a Ryzen 9 9950X rated for a much higher TDP— we firmly recommend that anybody using higher-end CPUs with this mini-PC enable Eco Mode in the BIOS as quickly as possible, which should prevent power usage issues and not majorly impact performance, especially for a chip like Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Today's deal features the latest lineup of processors from AMD - the 9000-series and in particular the Ryzen 9 9900X. This CPU has had some hefty price reductions since its rather lackluster launch, and although it didn't cause much excitement back then, with these continual price drops the processor becomes an evermore attractive proposition for those already sporting an AM5 system or for people wanting to make the leap to the AM5 platform.

This fantastic price is offered at Newegg, where you can pick up the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X for just $332 - a seriously low price for a current-gen 12-core processor. This is the lowest price I've personally seen for this processor, making it a good deal if you're looking for a CPU for both gaming and lots of productivity work.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X uses AMD's latest Zen 5 architecture and features 12 cores and 24 threads. The base speed of the 9900X is 4.4 GHz, which can be boosted to 5.6 GHz. This processor also doesn't need a discrete GPU, as it comes with an iGPU for basic output and operations. However, we still recommend pairing the Ryzen 9 9900X with a discrete graphics card for serious gaming as the integrated GPU will not be able to power the latest games very well.

The Zen 5 chip offers 28 high-speed PCIe 5.0 lanes, of which 24 are usable. By default, the Ryzen 9 9900X supports memory up to DDR5-5600, and with two memory channels, you can have up to a whopping 192GB of DDR5 RAM.

Don't forget to take a look at our Newegg coupon codes for December 2024 and see if you can save on today's deal or other products at Newegg.

Ryzen Master has received a massive update featuring several functionality upgrades and changes to the AMD-focused monitoring and overclocking application. The most significant additions are Ryzen 9000 desktop CPU support and EXPO memory enablement through Ryzen Master.

EXPO profiles can now be manipulated within Ryzen Master, allowing users to turn on their memory overclocking profile within Windows. Best of all, the EXPO profiles can be turned on and off on the fly without restart, making it easy for anyone to enable EXPO on an AMD-based machine with EXPO capability.

EXPO is AMD's official counterpart to Intel's XMP profile; both are overclocking-focused. They provide a set of timings, voltage, and memory frequency that are verified to work with the memory kit they ship with, providing higher performance than the industry standard (JEDEC).

Speaking of EXPO, another update associated with EXPO is the inclusion of "additional memory tuning parameters" right in Ryzen Master. These extra parameters provide users with finer-grained controls of their memory kit that can be manipulated right in Windows without the need to enter the system UEFI/BIOS to make changes.

Ryzen 9000 series CPU support has (finally) been officially implemented into Ryzen Master with this latest update. AMD has also added "105W Eco Mode" support for Ryzen 9000 CPUs. This mode can be used on either 65W or 120W parts, giving 65W parts more headroom or improving the power efficiency of 120W parts.

The rest of AMD's patch notes reveal "new features introduced," "DF P state information is provided in the Home view," IRM control mode improvements that allow users to adjust all three PBO parameters in this mode, manual mode CPU clock speed granularity improvements with incremental changes of 5MHz, and an advertisement banner.

AMD has also discontinued support for AMD Ryzen and Threadripper 1000 and 2000 series processors, marking the first Ryzen Master update that does not support all Ryzen-branded processors since the brand's inception in 2017. As a result, AMD now provides two downloads for Ryzen Master, one aimed at Ryzen 3000 (Zen 2) processors and newer and a download of the last supported version of Ryzen Master capable of monitoring and overclocking Ryzen 2000 and 1000 series CPUs (Zen and Zen+).