AMD's Ryzen 9 5900 Blurs The Line Between Performance And Value

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By Zhiye Liu
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Unattainable Zen 3 monster

AMD Ryzen 5000 Processor
AMD Ryzen 5000 Processor (Image credit: AMD)

Hardware detective Tum_Apisak has spotted AMD's Ryzen 9 5900 in a new benchmark. The 12-core processor appears to be a complete monster, but it's a shame that the chip is exclusive to OEMs.

Coming out of TSMC's 7nm furnace, the Ryzen 9 5900 is just like any other Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processor. Wielding the mighty Zen 3 cores, the Ryzen 9 5900 is essentially the power-optimized version of the Ryzen 9 5900X. The Ryzen 9 5900 retains the same 12-core, 24-thread design with 64MB of L3 cache as its counterpart. Unlike the Ryzen 9 5900X's 105W TDP, the non-X model is restricted to 65W.

With a stricter power limit, the Ryzen 9 5900 obviously arrives with lower operating clock speeds. The processor has a 3 GHz base clock, which is 700 MHz lower than the Ryzen 9 5900X. The boost clock, on the other hand, didn't suffer a huge reduction. The Ryzen 9 5900 easily boosts to 4.7 GHz, only 100 MHz lower than the Ryzen 9 5900X.

It's normal to wonder how the Ryzen 9 5900 performs in comparison to the Ryzen 9 5900X given the lower TDP. Being an OEM-exclusive processor, it's hard to find benchmarks of the Ryzen 9 5900 until Tum_Apisak managed to unearth one for us. UserBenchmark doesn't have the best street cred, but it's what's available so we'll have to settle for that benchmark for now.

Ryzen 9 5900X vs. Ryzen 9 5900 (Image credit: UserBenchmark)

It's important to highlight that the Ryzen 9 5900X's results are based on over 30,000 user submissions, while the Ryzen 9 5900 results is from a single user. For now, approach the results with an open mind.

The Ryzen 9 5900X reportedly delivers 5% higher single-threaded performance than the Ryzen 9 5900. As for multi-threaded performance, the Ryzen 9 5900X seemingly outperformed the Ryzen 9 5900 by a margin of 7%. However, the Ryzen 9 5900X didn't win all the rounds of the fight. The Ryzen 9 5900 appears to have a 7% lower memory latency as opposed to the Ryzen 9 5900X.

With all things considered, the Ryzen 9 5900 is a very attractive processor, and it's a mystery while AMD won't offer it to the retail market. The Ryzen 9 5900X has a 61.5% higher TDP, and it's less than 10% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900. Of course, we'd have to put the Ryzen 9 5900 through its paces to see whether the performance delta from UserBenchmark is valid.

Officially, the Ryzen 9 5900 is only available to OEMs, but that's what AMD also said with its Ryzen 4000 (Renoir) APUs, and we found them all over the place. It's only a matter of time before the Ryzen 9 5900 hits the grey market if it hasn't already.

Zhiye Liu
Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

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16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hannibal
    Sound like normal difference between high power usage and low power usage amd cpus, like 3700x and 3800x where real speed is quite same in spite of power usage.
    Reply
  • Rdslw
    I would take that if I could over 5900X, as I personally like to compromise over unprecedented power, and this is propably the best performer in the lower power bracket.
    Reply
  • ginthegit
    Rdslw said:
    I would take that if I could over 5900X, as I personally like to compromise over unprecedented power, and this is propably the best performer in the lower power bracket.

    Totally agree with you, but we live in a world where some just want to Press every CPU to the limit or just have the best for Bragging rights.

    My newest computer is a 7 year old laptop, and I have not had much reason to upgrade. However, newer games don't play very well on it. But I don't play games much now anyways. The golden age of non-same type and style games is past, and the new ones grow boring fast.

    I make my machines last, but I will eventually get a new one, probably a ryzen when the price comes down.
    Reply
  • average joe
    I wouldn't buy a Ryzen CPU right now unless i was locked into the AM4 motherboard. They are unavailable, overpriced and the am4 motherboards are over priced as well. The i9-10850k is under 400 dollars and available everywhere for msrp and the motherboards for it are cheap plus it has integrated video since you cant buy a video card worth the money. AMD and Nvidia need to be taught a lesson. They are literally screwing us right now.

    https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i9-10850k-core-i9-10th-gen/p/N82E16819118175?item=N82E16819118175&source=region&nm_mc=knc-googleadwords-pc&cm_mmc=knc-googleadwords-pc-_-pla-_-processors+-+desktops-_-N82E16819118175&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIg7ngwIrx7wIVQoJbCh1fRAGdEAQYASABEgJEKPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
    https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162011?quicklink=true
    or

    https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144397
    Reply
  • average joe
    I personally have a ryzen 3600 but would probably do a 5900x due to having the motherboard, and ram in place to move up someday. I dont feel 2 cores and some IPC are worth $450 for a 5800x but 4 cores and some ipc might be worth $550. this part would be probably $500 assuming its not $1200 or unavailable like the rest of the chips.
    Reply
  • average joe
    Nvidia made more video cards in 2015 than 2020. they have reduced production and raised prices for 5 years and created the artificial scarcity. but amd was worse there are countries in asia that are only getting 20 cards a week.
    Reply
  • WeBeGood
    RAM latency is inversely proportional to RAM speed. Lower memory latency is the result of slower, cheaper RAM. So the one 5900 had cheaper, slow transfer rate, slower memory clock and lower latency RAM as would be expected in an OEM.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    I assume that the non-X 5900 is OEM only, like the non-X 5800 that dell has had as an option for months.
    I still have no idea how close a 5800 is to a 5800X
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    hannibal said:
    Sound like normal difference between high power usage and low power usage amd cpus, like 3700x and 3800x where real speed is quite show in spite of power usage.
    No, at least from what's shown in the limited (currently 2) benchmark runs for the 5900, heavily-multithreaded performance appears to suffer quite a bit. The article was just looking at the wrong number for multithreaded performance.

    As for multi-threaded performance, the Ryzen 9 5900X seemingly outperformed the Ryzen 9 5900 by a margin of 7%.
    It's only a (now 8%) difference if you compare the 8-thread performance number, where only a portion of the CPU is being utilized and it's not running into power limits much. Userbenchmark goes out of its way to try to the hide performance advantages of higher core-count processors, though you can find that data if you scroll down to the 64-thread results in another section toward the bottom. They currently show the 5900X as performing 26% faster than the 5900 when all threads are loaded, which is right about in line with its 23% higher base clock. That's a fairly significant difference for the kinds of applications one would typically get a 12-core processor for.

    ginthegit said:
    The golden age of non-same type and style games is past, and the new ones grow boring fast.
    I would say there's still a decent variety of new game types coming out. For example, just in the last few years, we've seen the emergence of battle royale games, with a variety of different takes on the formula being experimented with. And the VR format changes gaming experiences quite a bit, even if it hasn't quite become mainstream yet. A lot of interesting things have been getting done in lower-budget titles from smaller developers over the last decade or so as well. Certainly, some big game series fall into a habit of rehashing the same formula over and over, but there's still of good amount of new concepts coming out as well.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    average joe said:
    I wouldn't buy a Ryzen CPU right now unless i was locked into the AM4 motherboard. They are unavailable, overpriced and the am4 motherboards are over priced as well. The i9-10850k is under 400 dollars and available everywhere for msrp and the motherboards for it are cheap plus it has integrated video since you cant buy a video card worth the money. AMD and Nvidia need to be taught a lesson. They are literally screwing us right now.

    https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i9-10850k-core-i9-10th-gen/p/N82E16819118175?item=N82E16819118175&source=region&nm_mc=knc-googleadwords-pc&cm_mmc=knc-googleadwords-pc-_-pla-_-processors+-+desktops-_-N82E16819118175&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIg7ngwIrx7wIVQoJbCh1fRAGdEAQYASABEgJEKPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
    https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162011?quicklink=true
    or

    https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144397

    And what does this have anything to do about this story about an OEM only 5900?
    Reply