Far from unrivalled: Ryzen 9 5950X
With the Ryzen 9 3950X, AMD turned the market for consumer CPUs on its head at the end of 2019: 16 cores were a novelty. The successor Ryzen 9 5950X doesn't offer more cores, but more performance - especially single-threaded performance, storming Intel's last bastion.
The Ryzen 9 5950X is a beast. As a hobby CAD designer and editor, the specs make my mouth water: 16 cores, 32 threads and a boost clock of up to 4.9 GHz. But that's not all: unlike its predecessor, the processor is also ideal for gaming and can keep up with the fastest gaming chip to date, the Intel i9-10900K.
The processor in detail
If you are interested in the Zen 3 architecture in detail, click on the article below. I have summarised everything important there.
Here are the features of the chip compared to the competition and its predecessor in detail:
| Processor | Microarchitecture / manufacturing process | Cores / Threads | Base / boost clock (GHz) | TDP (Watt) | L3 cache (MB) | PCIe Lanes | Memory Support | Price (as of 05.10.2020) | Price per thread (as of 05.10.2020) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 5950X | Zen 3 / 7 nm+ | 16 / 32 | 3,4 / 4,9 | 105 | 64 | 24 Gen4 | Dual-channel DDR4-3200 | 819 | 25,60 |
| Ryzen 9 3950X | Zen 2 / 7 nm | 16 / 32 | 3,5 / 4,7 | 105 | 64 | 24 Gen4 | Dual-channel DDR4-3200 | 735 | 22,95 |
| Core i9-10900K | Comet Lake / 14nm++ | 10 / 20 | 3,7 / 5,3 | 125 | 20 | 16 Gen3 | Dual-channel DDR4-2933 | 520 | 26 |
Regarding the competition: The Ryzen 9 5950X is basically unrivalled. Intel has nothing comparable to offer in its current line-up: Intel's flagship, the Intel i9-10900K, only has 10 cores and 20 threads.
Compared to its predecessor, the 5950X has a 200 MHz higher boost clock. At 3.4 GHz, the base clock is 100 MHz lower than the 3950X. That doesn't sound like much at first, but thanks to the innovations of the Zen 3 architecture, there is still a leap in performance with the same consumption. In terms of IPC - the instructions per clock - AMD states an increase of 19 per cent.
Test setup and method
I used the following components for the review:
I activate XMP in the BIOS. Otherwise I leave everything on default - except under the subtitle "Overclocking". I use AGESA V2 1.1.0.0 for the BIOS - the chipset driver is version 2.10.13.408. Windows 10 is running version 2004.
The testing method is based on our graphics card reviews. Here is an overview of the various benchmarks:
- Cinebench R20
- CPU-Z Benchmark
- Blender
- Handbrake
- 7-Zip
- Photoshop
- PCMark 10
- Fire Strike / Fire Strike Ultra
- Time Spy / Time Spy Extreme
- Games: "Assassin's Creed Odyssey", "Civilisation VI: Gathering Storm", "Deus Ex: Mankind Divided", "Far Cry 5", "Gears 5", "Red Dead Redemption 2", "Strange Brigade" and "Shadow of the Tomb Raider"
I run all benchmarks three times and take the best result in each case.
Overclocking and Cinebench R20
As always with CPU reviews, I am aware that the overclocking potential with the Noctua air cooler is limited. I could probably achieve higher clock frequencies with an AIO. However, since most people still cool their CPUs with air, the test with air cooling is more meaningful for most people. I'm also not a professional overclocker. If you have an AIO or custom water cooling, you'll get better temperatures anyway. Nevertheless, the overclocking potential of the Ryzen 9 5950X is greater than I'm used to from AMD. Up to 4.5 GHz on all cores is easily possible.
As a reference, I run the Cinebench R20 benchmark. With stock settings, the Ryzen 9 5950X achieves a multi-core score of 9808. The processor gets up to 65° Celsius and runs at 3.8 GHz on all cores. This is extremely cool: the competitor from Intel i9-10900K gets 8° Celsius hotter on stock and the predecessor 3950X also gets hotter at 75°. In terms of performance, the 5950X makes a huge leap, especially in the single core: 633 points are 123 points more than its predecessor, which corresponds to a performance increase of around 24 per cent. In Multi Core, it is still 12 per cent more.
With a voltage of 1.37 volts, I manage to overclock all cores of the 5950X to 4.5 GHz. The system runs stably. I did manage to boot Windows at 4.6 GHz, but the system kept crashing. With this clock frequency on all 16 cores, I achieve a multi-core score of 11,220 in Cinebench, 14 per cent more than in stock mode. The CPU gets 92° Celsius warm in the process.
CPU-Z
In the CPU-Z benchmark, the performance increase of the 5950X compared to the 3950X is similar to that of Cinebench. The fact that the AMD CPU pulverises the competition from Intel in multi-core is due to the increase of six cores. However, the difference in the single core is also considerable. The 3950X was still 72 points behind the i9-10900K, while the 5950X is now 102 points ahead of the Intel processor.
7-Zip
In the integrated benchmark of 7-Zip - I choose the standard "Dictonary size" of 32 MB - the difference to the predecessor is smaller: the 5950X manages just over 2000 instructions per second (MIPS) more, which corresponds to 1.5 per cent. AMD leaves the competition from Intel far behind with this result, but this is due to the six more cores.
Blender bmw27
The performance increase in Blender compared to its predecessor is also manageable. AMD's new top model renders the benchmark scene one second faster than its predecessor. Compared to the Intel, the 5950X is 27 per cent faster.
Handbrake
The difference between the 5950X and 3950X in the Handbrake test is also only one second. The 5950X encodes the 88-second, 645 MB 4K trailer of "The Dark Knight Rises" around two per cent faster with Handbrake's "Fast 1080p30" presets. Compared to the 10900K, however, it is around 14 per cent faster.
Photoshop
Different workloads are performed in the Photoshop benchmark from Puget Systems. You can find more detailed information here. At the end, the benchmark calculates a score based on a reference workstation. This achieves 1000 points. The small difference to the reference workstation can be explained by the RAM: The workstation has 64 GB of RAM installed and the testbench only has 16, so you should ignore the result of the reference workstation. Much more important are the results of the individual processors on our testbench.
In the benchmark, the 5950X performs around 14 per cent better than the 3950X and around 23 per cent better than the 10900K.
PCMark 10
The 5950X is eight per cent better than its predecessor in the PCMark 10 benchmark. This tests various office scenarios such as the loading time of apps, efficiency in spreadsheets, browsing or photo and video editing. It calculates a score from this. Compared to the 10900K, the test CPU is four per cent ahead.
Fire Strike, Fire Strike Ultra, Time Spy and Time Spy Ultra
The synthetic game benchmarks provide a first look at the performance in games. I have omitted the overall score, which is calculated from the results of the graphics card and CPU. This is because the GPU score is very inconsistent. I had differences of over 1000 points here.
In three benchmarks, the new AMD top model leaves the competition from Intel far behind. In Time Spy, however, Team Red remains behind Team Blue. Over the four benchmarks, however, the 5950X is around 24 per cent ahead of the 10900K. Compared to its predecessor, the 5950X still performs around 18 per cent better.
The games
In addition to the average FPS, I also provide the frame time in percentiles for the games, namely 99 and 99.9. The measured values of the percentiles are classic frame times measured in milliseconds. In other words, the time intervals from picture to picture or frame to frame. The purpose of the percentile values is to ignore isolated outliers. 99 percentile means that 99 per cent of all measured values are faster than the specified measured value. If a value in the graphic is 95 FPS, 99 per cent are running at a higher frame rate than 95 FPS. Exactly one per cent, on the other hand, runs slower than 95 FPS. The same applies to the 99.9 percentile. For better comparability, the result is converted from frametimes in milliseconds to the traditional FPS value.
As you can see, the Ryzen 9 5950X performs similarly to the 10900K in almost every game and resolution. The exception is "Strange Brigade". The game generally runs worse with AMD processors than with Intel processors. I therefore exclude it from the presentation of the average FPS. However, the game shows that Intel is still favoured by certain games.
In 1080p resolution, the difference between AMD and Intel is just one FPS. The 10900K is therefore not even one per cent more powerful than the 5950X in games. In 1440p, the difference is two FPS, which corresponds to around two per cent. At 2160p resolution, the two are on a par.
Compared to its predecessor, AMD can improve significantly: It's 18 per cent in 1080p, 13 per cent in 144p and 10 per cent in 2160p.
Conclusion: More performance, especially in games
With the 5950X, AMD closes the last gap to Intel. Since the introduction of the Zen architecture and thus the Ryzen processors, AMD has been ahead in terms of performance on multiple cores. Only with single-core processors have AMD users been left behind. The Zen 3 and Ryzen 5000 put an end to this: AMD's single-core performance is better than that of Intel and AMD has now also caught up in gaming - with a CPU that is not primarily designed for gaming. AMD is putting a lot of pressure on Intel's last bastion, gaming.
Compared to its predecessor, the 3950X, the difference is particularly significant in games. In applications, the difference between the generations is between just over one and 24 per cent.
The 5950X is definitely of interest to anyone who works with applications that favour many cores. Unlike its predecessor, however, the processor also appeals to gamers. This means that the 5950X bridges the gap between consumer and workstation processors even more than the 3950X. So who is the 5950X for? For people who want the best of both worlds, lots of cores and good single-core performance.
At 819 francs, the processor costs 10 francs less than its predecessor when it was released. If you consider the increase in performance, that's a great price. Intel didn't have a comparable product when the 3950X was released, and the 5950X is far from unrivalled. <p
Kevin Hofer
Senior Editor
kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.chFrom big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.
