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AMD has positioned the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 as a workstation processor, claiming the CPU comes with the same gaming performance as the base Ryzen 9 9950X3D. And it does. Based on our 17-game geomean, in fact, the dual-cache version is faster, though only by 0.8% on average, with 1.3% better 1% lows. That’s a small enough margin to call the gaming performance identical.
As we do with all CPU reviews, our game tests were run at 1080p with a mixture of High and Ultra settings, and ray tracing disabled, short of DOOM: The Dark Ages and F1 2024. We run all gaming benchmarks with an RTX 5090 FE to avoid any GPU limitations and isolate CPU performance as much as possible. As the resolution climbs, scaling becomes less dramatic in most games.
There’s immediately a clear split in our test pool between X3D chips and non-X3D models, which isn’t surprising. On the X3D front, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 keeps pace with the other Zen 5 X3D offerings, short of the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which struggles in games compared to its counterparts. It’s marginally slower than the base Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and just 2.7% behind AMD’s recent Ryzen 7 9850X3D.
Compared to Intel’s fastest gaming CPU, the Core i9-14900K, AMD is 23% ahead with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. And against the newly-released Core Ultra 7 270K Plus, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 inches toward a 24% lead. Both CPUs are far cheaper than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, but they’re the best options from Team Blue on the gaming front right now.
On pricing, every CPU in our test pool is hundreds of dollars cheaper than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. There just aren’t any other consumer-level CPUs near $900, short of AMD’s own Threadripper 9000 range that scales into the thousands of dollars (and struggles with games due to inter-CCD latency). The value proposition here is poor, and I don’t think AMD would disagree with that. You buy the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 because it’s the best, not on the basis of compute-per-dollar, especially in gaming performance. The gaming performance here is a nice upside, not the main reason to buy this chip.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 falls to the bottom of our value geomean, with most chips nearing half a frame per dollar while the 9950X3D2 can’t even manage a quarter.
Despite an increase in TDP, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is only slightly less efficient than the base Ryzen 9 9950X3D in games, keeping pace with the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus. The Ryzen 7 X3D chips are still the most efficient offerings in a gaming setting. Despite solid efficiency, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 still consumed the most power on average out of the CPUs in our test pool, coming in at 135.4W. As a consequence, it ran the hottest out of our test pool, with an average temperature in games of 67 degrees Celsius.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Benchmarks
Baldur’s Gate 3 sees a big boost in performance from 3D V-Cache, and the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is able to hang with the fastest gaming CPUs in this title near the top of the charts. It’s just 0.7% ahead of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 1.7% behind the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. Unlike what we saw in our geomean, however, AMD’s latest CPU beats the base Ryzen 7 9800X3D by 4.7%.
The non-X3D competition isn’t even in the conversation here, with gaps of around 44% in the best-case scenario.
Crimson Desert Benchmarks
Crimson Desert is the newest game in our test suite, and it benefits from 3D V-Cache, though to a far lesser extent than Baldur’s Gate 3. The 9950X3D2 is in lockstep with our Zen 5 X3D chips here, short of the 12-core Ryzen 9 model, and it manages to beat the last-gen Ryzen 9 7950X3D by about 3%. At the high-end of CPUs here, however, we become completely bound by the GPU.
Counter-Strike 2 Benchmarks
Counter-Strike 2 is more sensitive to frequency than most other modern titles, so it’s no surprise to see the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 take a backseat to its single-cache counterpart here. Still, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is delivering the X3D boost, with the chip outpacing the base Ryzen 9 9950X by 8.3%.
Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks
Cyberpunk 2077 shows what we expect to see, with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 and 9950X3D in lockstep with each other, and Zen 5 Ryzen 7 models with 3D V-Cache pulling slightly ahead. Compared to Intel’s fastest gaming chips, AMD is 21% ahead here, as well as outclassing the base Ryzen 9 9950X by nearly 31%.
Doom: The Dark Ages Benchmarks
Doom: The Dark Ages is the only benchmark in our suite that uses the Vulkan API, and it features always-on ray tracing (as well as path tracing, which is disabled for our tests). With such high-end CPUs, we’re heavily GPU-bound here, even with the RTX 5090 at 1080p.
F1 2024 Benchmarks
F1 2024 is where we see the first real regression in gaming performance when going from the single-cache Ryzen 9 9950X3D to the dual-cache version. It’s a marginal 1.8% drop, but it’s still worth highlighting nonetheless. The base Ryzen 9 9950X3D performs particularly well in this title, even managing to outclass the Ryzen 7 9850X3D.
Far Cry 6 Benchmarks
Far Cry 6 is another game that favors 3D V-Cache CPUs, and the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is able to hang right alongside the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Compared to Intel, AMD is offering around a 31.6% uplift, which is a margin we’re used to seeing when it comes to X3D CPUs.
Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks
Flight Simulator 24 Benchmarks
Although the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 doesn’t claim any lead over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D in most games, it leads by 23.8% in Flight Simulator 2024, keeping up with the Ryzen 7 models. The base Ryzen 9 9950X3D experienced core parking issues in this game, even after we triple-checked that the correct packages were installed. It was utilizing the non-X3D CCD, even on a fresh Windows image, which helps explain the big uplift we’re seeing here.
Hitman 3 Benchmarks
Hitman 3 brings us back to the familiar performance profile the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 has established. It’s just a few frames behind the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, and it outclasses the Intel competition by around 22%.
Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks
In Hogwarts Legacy, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 claims a marginal lead over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, and it manages to beat the Ryzen 7 9800X3D by 2.5% while falling short of the newer Ryzen 7 9850X3D. AMD’s X3D chips still top the charts here, but Intel is a bit closer with the 270K Plus due to iBOT and its optimizations for Hogwarts Legacy.
Marvel Rivals Benchmarks
Marvel Rivals is based on Unreal Engine 5, which is mostly bound by the GPU, particularly with higher-end processors. We can see that clearly here, with all non-X3D parts falling into one bucket, and all X3D parts (short of the Zen 4 options) falling into another.
Minecraft Benchmarks
Our Minecraft benchmark is less about demanding gameplay scenarios and more about memory access through your RAM and the cache hierarchy in your CPU. We use the maximum 96 render chunk distance to stress this system. AMD chips perform better here overall, possibly due to using a larger shared L3.
Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 claims a small lead of 1.9% over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D in Spider-Man 2, nearly matching the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The higher-end non-X3D models in our pool see a bottleneck around 210 FPS, but Zen 5 X3D chips are able to push past that barrier for higher performance.
Starfield Benchmarks
The Last of Us Part One Benchmarks
- MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
- MORE: AMD vs. Intel
- MORE: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review
