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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Ian Cutress - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
I moved it to $979 because that's the price of the upcoming 10980XE, which hasn't been released but has some extra frequency, so it should score 'at least' there.platinumjsi - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
The Geekbench multicore results look very low for the 9980XE, Hot Hardware and OC3D's reviews of that chip put it at around 43k and the Geekbench browser puts non overclockable workstations at around 55k.Was multicore enhancement off for Intel and PBO on for AMD?
blppt - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
If I had to guess, it looks like maybe they have turbo completely disabled on both the 9980XE and the 7980XE, meaning in the case of the 7980XE, it will never clock higher than 2.6ghz. Or maybe they included scores for the 32-bit test for those two by mistake?See my post below---I regularly get 52-53K in that benchmark, no overclocking and no high clock ram.
blppt - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Something is really wrong with your 7980XE setup---getting 30K in Geekbench 4???Granted I have the multi-core enhancement enabled in the BIOS, but I get 52-53K consistently, no overclocking. Using standard 2600 DDR4.
https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/14797740
Count Rushmore - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Hmm... seem like for rendering machine, Threadripper is the way to go. I thought I could build 'cheap' rendering machines with 3950... but that 2 memory channels seem inadequate. Looking fwd to 25th!Oliseo - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
I would say the dual memory channel makes it a "prosumer" choice rather than a professional.Amazing value though for someone just starting out their career. That level of performance at home without breaking the bank.
Not bad at all.
Count Rushmore - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
No doubt about the value... Would love to see more people getting into 3D renderingicoreaudience - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
When is anandtech going to use a modern compressor like Zstandard for the encoding test ?It's a great fit for multi-threading tests !
itproflorida - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Great so the 9700k is still the price, performance gaming king.eek2121 - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Ian, upgrade 1080. Your gaming benchmarks are very clearly GPU bound at this point.