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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Ryan Smith - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Fixed. Thanks!Manabu - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Why is the Ryzen 3700X is missing from so many charts through the article, including the final 2019 performance vs price chart? And it's already about time to have tested the 3600 too.Ian Cutress - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Gavin tested the chips for the 3900X/3700X review. I've done this review with updated OS. Plus I've been moving house, and everything is still in boxes.Adonisds - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Is the 4.7 GHz boost fake news?Total Meltdowner - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
AMD is like Trump here, telling the truth.III-V - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Unlike Trump though, the truth doesn't even matter here. Performance is all that matters, not a completely irrelevant numberIan Cutress - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
There's a page that covers it.Irata - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Just checked two other reviews (so far)- Hexus reached 4,665.54 Mhz
and bit-tech stated "With a 4.7GHz boost, which we actually saw regularly, it wasn't surprising to see the Ryzen 9 3950X top the Cinebench single-threaded test,"
Total Meltdowner - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Baller CPUneogodless - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Is the Intel 9980XE pricing correct in the 2019 CPU Performance chart? It appears on Intel's web site to be $1979-1999, and the cheapest I found it online was on sale at Amazon for $1949.