Earlier this month, AMD launched the primary two desktop CPUs utilizing their newest Zen 5 microarchitecture: the Ryzen 7 9700X and the Ryzen 5 9600X. As a part of the brand new Ryzen 9000 household, it gave us their newest Zen 5 cores to the desktop market, as AMD truly launched Zen 5 by way of their cellular platform final month, the Ryzen AI 300 collection (which we reviewed).
Today, AMD is launching the remaining two Ryzen 9000 SKUs first introduced at Computex 2024, finishing the present Ryzen 9000 product stack. Both chips hail from the premium Ryzen 9 collection, which incorporates the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X, which has 16 Zen 5 cores and may increase as excessive as 5.7 GHz, whereas the Ryzen 9 9900X has 12 Zen 5 cores and affords increase clock speeds of as much as 5.6 GHz.
Although they took barely longer than anticipated to launch, as there was a delay from the preliminary launch date of July 31st, the complete quartet of Ryzen 9000 X collection processors armed with the newest Zen 5 cores can be found. All of the Ryzen 9000 collection processors use the identical AM5 socket because the earlier Ryzen 7000 (Zen 4) collection, which suggests customers can use present X670E and X670 motherboards with the brand new chips. Unfortunately, as we highlighted in our Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X evaluate, the X870E/X870 motherboards, which had been meant to launch alongside the Ryzen 9000 collection, will not be obtainable till someday in September.
We’ve seen how the entry-level Ryzen 5 9600X and the mid-range Ryzen 7 9700X carry out towards the competitors, however it is time to see how far and quick the flagship Ryzen 9 pairing competes. The Ryzen 9 9950X (16C/32T) and the Ryzen 9 9900X (12C/24T) each have the next TDP (170 W/120 W respectively) than the Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 (65 W), however there are extra cores, and Ryzen 9 is clocked quicker at each base and turbo frequencies. With this in thoughts, it is time to see how AMD’s Zen 5 flagship Ryzen 9 collection for desktops performs with extra firepower, with our evaluate of the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900 processors.
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X:
From a product launch perspective, AMD sometimes launches its Ryzen portfolio as follows: we get the desktop processors first, then the cellular chips, and normally, the workstation and server components come a bit later. For the launch of its newest Zen 5 microarchitecture, AMD threw a curveball as an alternative. Last month, AMD opted to first convey their cellular Ryzen AI 300 collection to market, combining the complete Zen 5 cores and compact Zen 5c cores. We did evaluate the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 cellular SoC, which gave us our first glimpse of how Zen 5 performs.
Fast-forward simply over per week, and AMD dropped two of the 4 Zen 5-based desktop chips they introduced at Computex 2024. AMD launched the Ryzen 7 9700X, an 8C/16T chip concentrating on the mid-range, and the Ryzen 5 9600X, a 6C/12T variant representing the entry-level; we additionally reviewed each of those. It additionally gave us our first take a look at how Zen 5 compares with the earlier Zen Four structure and Intel’s present 14th Gen Core collection household.
Die shot of a Ryzen 9 (Zen 5) processor with 2 x CCDs
We have revealed a variety of evaluations and articles previous to immediately, together with an in-depth take a look at the Zen 5 microarchitecture itself:
Focusing on the Ryzen 9 9950X and the Ryzen 9 9900X, apart from core depend, core clock speeds, and value, the principle distinction between the Ryzen 9 pairing and the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X is the variety of energetic Core Complex Dies (CCDs) on every chip, which AMD has codenamed Eldora. For the Ryzen 9000 collection, every CCD can assist as much as eight Zen 5 cores, with every CCD as customary (not X3D) coming with a 32 MB pool of L3 cache. Similarly, L2 cache is held at 1MB per CPU core for the desktop chips. AMD’s newest Zen 5 core is constructed on TSMC’s 4nm N4P node, which is a modest step…
