AMD Ryzen 9 9950X

AMD's top Zen 5 CPU looks very similar to its predecessor on paper

- NICK EVANSON

IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW anything about Zen 5, you’d think the new Ryzen 9 9950X is a step sideways from its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7950X. They have the same number of cores and threads (16 and 32, respectively) and the same total amount of L3 cache (64MB). The 5.6GHz boost clock is the same for both, and the new chip even has a lower base clock (4.3 versus 4.5GHz). And yet, the Ryzen 9 9950X is definitely the better processor. The question is, by how much?

The answer is somewhere in the guts of the two CCDs (Core Complex Dies) that nestle next to the IOD (Input/Output Die) underneath the heatspreader. Indeed, the fact that the new 9950X has the same boost clock as the old 7950X means that any performance gains are going to be purely architectural.

Let’s start with what the Ryzen 9 9950X is best at, and that’s productivity, content creation, rendering, video editing, and so on. It’s not just good at it, it’s the best CPU for these tasks, period. Only a megaexpensive AMD Threadripper or Intel Xeon would likely achieve better results.