The gaming CPU benchmarks for AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D show it beating Intel’s Core i9-13900K while consuming almost half the power.
A year ago, AMD announced a new addition to the world of processors which completely changed how we looked at CPUs while gaming. It released AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 3D V-Cache. In it, AMD added an extra 64MB layer of cache on top of the existing L3 cache. This gave it a tremendous boost in some games.
So great were the results that Ryzen 7 5800X3D was able to beat all the top, far more expensive processors. Seeing that, we expected AMD to do the same in the AMD Ryzen 7000 series processors. But to our surprise, AMD announced not one, but three new processors with the same 3D V-Cache tech in them. The processors it announced were AMD Ryzen 7950X3D, 7900X3D & 7800X3D.
While the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and 7900X3D are releasing 28th February. AMD Ryzen 7800X3D releases more than a month later. AMD had meanwhile sent its samples of AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D to all the reviewers. However, the reviews were not allowed to be made public until 27th February. Now the reviews are finally out and they are really exciting.
Prerequisites Before AMD Ryzen 7950X3D Reviews
All AMD Ryzen 9 7000 CPUs come with two chiplets inside a single CPU. While AMD Ryzen 7950X3D has 8 + 8 Cores on two chiplets, Ryzen 7900X3D has 6 + 6 Cores on it. So, AMD had to decide on what chiplet to add the 3D V-Cache on. AMD finally decided that only one chiplet will have the 3D V-Cache. The second chiplet without the 3D V-Cache, on the other hand, will be clocked higher.
So that means, games will need to run on either one of the chiplet, not both. That means, something needs to tell the games which chiplet to use. That is why AMD released special chipset drivers for these processors. In it, AMD would decide which games / software will need to use the chiplet with cache and which will use the chiplet with higher frequency but without 3D V-Cache.
Additionally, AMD required the reviewers to one, make sure the Game Mode is enabled in OS settings, and Xbox Game Bar app be installed. Not to forget, latest version of BIOS with 3D V-Cache optimizations and settings is installed. Only then reviewers were suggested to review the processors. However, all the efforts seem worth it when we check all the reviews posted by top reviewers out there.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D Reviews
Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware made one of the best reviews for the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D. In it, they tested 3D V-Cache’s L3 latency compared to the non-cache chiplet (page 3). Then they checked clock and power usage of both the chiplets (page 4). Later came, all the other tests like overall power consumption, thermal, software and gaming benchmarks.
In gaming tests at 1080p (page 6), AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D was 12% faster than Intel Core i9-13900KS and Core i9-13900K. It also found that AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D was 26% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X and 16% faster than Zen 3 based Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Which is massive.
What’s noticeable was that not all the games benefited with the 7950X3D’s extra cache, those games which did, they performed extraordinarily.
In productivity and rendering tests, Ryzen 7950X3D was behind, but not too behind. Which was nice, but that’s not what this CPU was designed for.
The biggest thing AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D achieved, however, was doing all this with extraordinary power efficiency. While Tom’s Hardware didn’t give us the power usage for the games, in rendering benchmarks, it showed that Ryzen 9 7950X3D consumed half, yes, we repeat, half the power than the Intel Core i9-13900K CPU. This is something we feel is unheard of.
TechPowerUp
TechPowerUp was another one with a great review for AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D. It not only tested the processor with various software, but it also tested it with emulators too. But the great thing they did different from others, is that they tested everything, including games, by setting the processor to use either the cache chiplet or the non-cache one. Not to forget PBO results, that is, overclocked results are included too.
At 1080p, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D performed almost the same as Intel Core i9-13900K, both in average FPS and minimum FPS. There was a minor increase in performance when the chiplet with cache was preferred. Here too it was seen that it performed great in some games but badly in some others. However, big improvements were seen when using Ray Tracing in games. Except in Ray Tracing, similar benchmark results were found in 1440p and 4K gaming benchmarks too.
However, here too the biggest achievement of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D was seen was the power efficiency. TechPowerUp did power usage tests on both software and gaming workloads. The results were similar all around. AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D consumed less than half the watts of Intel Core i9-13900K.
igor’sLAB
igor’sLAB was another professional reviewer which reviewed AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D.
In gaming benchmarks at 1080p (page 4), AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D was 9% faster than Intel Core i9-13900K, 17% faster than Ryzen 7 5800X3D and 18% faster than Ryzen 9 7950X. This performance difference were seen at 1440p and 4K too, though with more parity.
What igor’sLAB did different from others was it checked frametime in various games. There too, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D was impressive and almost did it better than others.
Here too, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D showed great power efficiency in gaming. So much so that Igor says “it’s an outright humiliation” for both Intel and other AMD Ryzen 7000 processors.
Other Reviewers
There are many other reviewers which got hold on to the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor. AnandTech, Club386, KitGuru and Gamers Nexus (YouTube) to name some of them.
However, the most unique reviews were from Hardware Unboxed (YouTube) and TechPowerUp’s other review article where they simulated how yet to be released AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D would perform by disabling the non-cache core on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D. But take those reviews with some considerations like different core clock and such on AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. So we cannot say for sure until it’s actually released.
Conclusion
It must be mentioned that we only posted images of 1080p benchmarks. There’s a lot of debate about what’s the best resolution to test CPUs at. The almost unanimous conclusion in the benchmarking community is that games are more CPU bound at lower resolutions and hence they best for testing CPUs. The higher you go, the more GPU bound the game become, hence true difference between CPUs are not visible. So we thought 1080p is perfect.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D is a new gaming king. That’s for sure. Not only it’s the fastest gaming processor out there (depending on the game), it’s also one of the most power efficient processor ever created. All thanks to the 3D V-Cache which AMD has banked on. Sure, it doesn’t deliver on all the workloads, but in gaming it does, with great abilities.
However, one, there are hardly any reviews available for AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D which got released together. It has only 6 cores on the 3D V-Cache chiplet. So it’s expected to perform worse than Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Is it the reason why AMD has not sent it to everyone for sampling or is there any other reason, we don’t know.
What’s important thing to mention is that AMD is holding onto Ryzen 7 7800X3D by not releasing it with the above two CPUs. The reason is simple, games are only going to use a single 8 core chiplet like they do in the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. Meaning, Ryzen 7 7800X3D is expected to perform almost the same as Ryzen 9 7950X3D in gaming, at far cheaper prices. So all we can say is, wait for AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D to release if gaming is main and only use.
