The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: 16 Cores on 7nm with PCIe 4.0
by Dr. Ian Cutress on November 14, 2019 9:00 AM ESTTest Bed and Setup
As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |
| AMD Ryzen 3000 | AMD Ryzen 9 3950X AMD Ryzen 9 3900X |
| Motherboard | ASRock X570 Taichi 2.50 (AGESA 1004B) |
| CPU Cooler | Kraken X62 |
| DRAM | Corsair Vengeance RGB 4x8 GB DDR4-3200 |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests) |
| PSU | Corsair AX860i |
| SSD | Crucial MX500 2TB |
| OS | Windows 10 1909 |
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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Holliday75 - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
I'm right there with you. I've made a good chunk of change in AMD stock the last 5-6 years, but not as much as I should have. Played it way to conservative. Hindsight sucks.imaheadcase - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Buying stock based on a CPU is the worst thing you could of did. I hear that a lot, its almost as if people think Intel and AMD just make CPUs as only business.Spunjji - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
It's a much larger part of AMD's business than Intel's, and it marks the difference between them being profitable and not profitable - so while you're theoretically sort-of right, in practice, not so much.itproflorida - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Not here to defend Intel but a 9700K OC'd to 5Ghz will give a 9900KS a run for its money in gaming, its still outscores the 9900K, KS in a many games and likewise the 3900 and 3950.Notmyusualid - Friday, November 15, 2019 - link
Turning off Hyper-Threading, and soaking up the extra cache nicely takes care of that...UglyFrank - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
It makes me wonder where Intel could be if they weren't on their 5th year of 14nm or their 4th year of 'skylake'.Well done to AMD, maybe I'll buy a big Navi GPU next year if they can get that right too, although I have more faith in Nvidia than I have in Intel.
Targon - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Intel made the mistake of linking the architecture to the fab process. If Intel didn't do that, then would we have seen actual architecture improvements from Intel on the 14nm process? AMD has been in the position where Zen to Zen+ to Zen2 could theoretically have been done on any process node, though power draw, clock speeds, and size would have been different and potentially an issue.Kishoreshack - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
CuriousWhy it didn't get gold award from Anandtech
ian Cutress any explanation?
lukx - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
New Threadripper will get gold :)Ian Cutress - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
I only give out recommended or nothing. I'm not a fan of platinum/gold/silver awards. Recommended is the highest award from me.