AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D Productivity Benchmarks — The TLDR:
The first slides are simplified without the overclocking configs, while the remainder contains the full roster of tested configurations. We boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. These slides show the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each category, but be sure to look at the individual benchmark results below.
The 3D V-Cache tech delivers explosive performance gains in gaming, but it also results in slightly lower performance in productivity applications due to power and thermal constraints — on paper, we’re looking at a 68W peak power reduction (42% less) for the 7900X3D compared to its vanilla 7900X counterpart, so we know the Ryzen 9 7900X3D will be somewhat slower.
As such, it's no surprise that the Ryzen 9 7900X is 7% faster than the 7900X3D in this cumulative measure of threaded applications and 7% faster in single-threaded work.
Once again, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D outshines the 7900X3D. The 7950X3D is 27% faster in threaded work and 4% faster in single-threaded applications. That makes it hard to justify not plunking down 15% more cash for the 7950X3D to get the big payoff in threaded applications and multitasking.
The Core i9-13900K also shines in comparison. The 13900K is 21% faster than the standard Ryzen 9 7900X3D configuration in single-threaded work and 32% faster in threaded applications. Overclocking the 13900K and the 7900X3D brings those deltas to 18% and 30% in single- and multi-threaded work, respectively. Do keep in mind that the 7900X3D consumes far less power and will generate much less heat than the 13900K, but that comes at the expense of performance.
The Core i7-13700K is also a viable alternative in applications — it is 6% faster in multi-threaded and 12% faster in single-threaded work than the 7900X3D at stock settings.
The 8-core 5800X3D isn’t the best comparison to the 12-core 7900X3D, but it highlights just how much AMD has improved the performance of its X3D chips by bringing the tech to higher core count chips with a newer core architecture — the 7900X3D is 23% faster in single-threaded and 78% faster in multi-threaded work than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
We didn't find as much success undervolting with the 7900X3D as with the 7950X3D. While undervolting the 7950X3D actually delivered faster performance than its stock settings in single-threaded work, it resulted in lower performance in single-threaded work with the 7900X3D. We retested and re-optimized the configuration several times, but to no avail. Notably, PBO and undervolting capabilities vary by chip, so your mileage may vary, and we have seen this tendency with previous-gen Ryzen processors in the past. Meanwhile, we did see the expected improvements in many multi-threaded workloads.
| Tom's Hardware | Multi-Thread | Single-Thread |
| $569 — Ryzen 9 7950X | 100% | 87.9% |
| $699 — Core i9-13900KS | 99.5% | 100% |
| $589 — Core i9-13900K | 98.6% | 98.0% |
| $699 — Ryzen 9 7950X3D | 94.7% | 83.8% |
| $409 — Core i7-13700K | 79.1% | 90.8% |
| $599 - Ryzen 9 7900X3D | 74.2% | 80.9% |
| $358 — Ryzen 7 5800X3D | 41.5% | 65.9% |
Rendering Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D
The Ryzen 9 7900X3D is significantly slower in heavily-threaded workloads than the vanilla 7900X, an unavoidable byproduct of its lower power thresholds. The 7900X3D lags its similarly-priced competitor, the $589 Core i9-13900K, by large margins, and often struggles to even tie the $409 Core i7-13700K, showing that it can't keep pace in productivity applications with significantly less expensive chips.
Engaging PBO and undervolting the 78900X3D helps in the threaded benchmarks but results in lower performance in single-threaded work. However, it doesn't improve the 7900X3D's footing against the other chips, which often extend their lead even further when overclocked.
Encoding Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D
Most encoders tend to be either heavily threaded or almost exclusively single-threaded — it takes an agile chip to master both disciplines. Handbrake, SVT-HEVC, and SVT-AV1 serve as our threaded encoders, while LAME, FLAC, and WebP are indicative of how the chips handle lightly-threaded engines.
The Ryzen 9 7900X3D trails in the lightly-threaded applications — the other modern chips have much higher peak boost clock rates. The 7900X3D also isn't as fast as competing chips in the threaded benchmarks, either.
Adobe, Web Browsing, Office, and Productivity on AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D
The Ryzen 9 7900X3D doesn't deliver enough performance to justify its price tag in this category of benchmarks, you'll find similar or better performance from much lower-priced alternatives.
Compilation, Compression, AI Chess Engines, AVX-512 Performance on AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D
This selection of tests runs the gamut from the exceedingly branchy code in the LLVM compilation workload to the massively parallel molecular dynamics simulation code in NAMD to encryption and compression/decompression performance.
The demanding Y-cruncher benchmark computes Pi with the AVX instruction set and has optimizations for both Intel and AMD’s architectures. The Ryzen 9 7900X3D again fails to impress in these heavy workloads — aside from encryption workloads, you're much better looking to lower-priced alternatives for these types of applications.
- MORE: Best CPU for gaming
- MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
- MORE: Intel vs AMD
- MORE: How to Overclock a CPU
