As AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs are on the horizon, benchmarks have revealed the performance of the new Ryzen 9 7950X3D flagship processor. In tests conducted with popular benchmark suites, Blender and Geekbench 5, the chip made its debut on Friday. While the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X3D boasts an impressive 144MB of L2+L3 cache, its performance in these tests left much to be desired when compared to its counterpart without the extra L3 cache.
Item | Price | Cores/ Threads | Base/ Boost Clock (GHz) | Cache (L2/ L3) | TDP/ Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ryzen 9 7950X3D | $699 | 16/ 32 | 4.2/ 5.7 | 144MB (16+128) | 120W/ 162W |
Ryzen 9 7950X | $599/ $589 | 16/ 32 | 4.5/ 5.7 | 80MB (16+64) | 170W/ 230W |
The animation and visual effects software Blender makes use of both single- and multi-threaded performance, as well as application-specific enhancements. The 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X with 80MB of L2+L3 cache outpaced the Ryzen 9 7950X3D with 144MB of L2+L3 cache by 5.4% in the Blender benchmark. On the other hand, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D was discovered to be much faster than Apple's 12-core M2 Max but only moderately faster than Intel's Core i9-13900K (8P+16E, 32-threads).
The table below comprises a card-wise bifurcation against the Blender scores received by each:
Ryzen 9 7950X3D | Ryzen 9 7950X | Core i9-13900K | Apple M2 Max | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
General Specifications | 16C/ 32T, 4.20 GHz - 5.70 GHz, 144MB L2+L3 | 16C/ 32T, 4.20 GHz - 5.70 GHz, 80MB L2+L3 | 8P+16E/32T, 3.0 GHz - 5.80 GHz, 68MB L2+L3 cache | 8P + 4E, up to 3.67 GHz |
Blender Score | 558.59 | 590.28 | 557.17 | 254.06 |
The animation and visual effects software Blender makes use of both single- and multi-threaded performance, as well as application-specific enhancements. The 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X with 80MB of L2+L3 cache outpaced the Ryzen 9 7950X3D with 144MB of L2+L3 cache by 5.4% in the Blender benchmark. On the other hand, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D was discovered to be much faster than Apple's 12-core M2 Max but only moderately faster than Intel's Core i9-13900K (8P+16E, 32-threads). The forthcoming Ryzen 9 7950X3D boasts 16 high-performance cores that can handle up to 32 threads at once and function at up to 5.70 GHz. It also has simultaneous multi-threading capabilities. It is not unexpected, given its great processing power, that it outperformed Apple's 12-core M2 Max (3.67 GHz) and was determined to be just slightly faster than Intel's top-of-the-line CPU, which can likewise manage up to 32 threads concurrently. It's important to keep in mind, though, that the Core i9-13900 energy-efficient K's cores are restricted to a peak clock speed of 4.30 GHz. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D was reported to be slightly slower than the Ryzen 9 7950X without the additional cache in both single-threaded and multi-threaded tasks in the Geekbench 5 benchmark, a synthetic test that assesses single-threaded and multi-threaded performance across various workloads. It's critical to remember that Geekbench 5 isn't the ideal benchmark for CPUs and GPUs for a wide range of reasons, but it still gives you a decent indication of how various components of gear perform when exposed to related tasks.
| Ryzen 9 7950X3D | Ryzen 9 7950X | Core i9-13900K | Apple M2 Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|
General Specifications | 16C/ 32T, 4.20 GHz - 5.70 GHz, 144MB L2+L3 | 16C/ 32T, 4.20 GHz - 5.70 GHz, 80MB L2+L3 | 8P+16E/ 32T, 3.0 GHz - 5.80 GHz, 68MB L2+L3 cache | 8P + 4E, up to 3.67 GHz |
Single-Core | Integer | 1,783 | 1,838 | 2,016 | 1,882 |
Single-Core | Float | 2,265 | 2,302 | 2,464 | 2,216 |
Single-Core | Crypto | 6,375 | 7,219 | 5,860 | 3,283 |
Single-Core | Score | 2,157 | 2,246 | 2,343 | 2,052 |
Multi-Core | Integer | 21,473 | 25,087 | 28,379 | 13,353 |
Multi-Core | Float | 24,372 | 27,790 | 31,320 | 16,819 |
Multi-Core | Crypto | 11,445 | 12,632 | 22,280 | 25,911 |
Multi-Core | Score | 21,841 | 25,275 | 28,956 | 15,021 |
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Although the tested AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D sample on the Asus ROG Crosshair X670E Hero motherboard performed at around 5480 MHz most of the time with a balanced power plan, it was still found to be slightly slower than the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X on the same motherboard, which operated at slightly higher frequencies with the same power plan. This could be the reason why the CPU without 3D V-Cache performed better in the Geekbench 5 benchmark.
Overall, while the Ryzen 9 7950X3D's main advantage over its counterpart is its significantly larger L3 cache, this doesn't necessarily translate to superior performance in programs where clock speeds matter more than cache sizes. Thus, while it's reasonable to assume that in applications that depend primarily on single-thread performance and memory bandwidth, the Zen 4-based processors with 3D V-Cache will demonstrate significant advantages over their counterparts without the extra L3 cache, it's best to wait for comprehensive reviews of the new processors compared to the regular Ryzen 7000-series units before drawing any conclusions.