The Ryzen 7 5800X3D was really a special CPU for AMD, which is compatible with the high-end AM4 platform with a gaming performance that destroys other Ryzen 5000 processors thanks to the 3D V-Cache design. Now its first two successors have arrived to try and capture the same magic, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and 7900X3D – with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D set to debut in April.
All three are supposed to be highly skilled, and they all start at 13900K. of Intel? And with a more powerful socket, faster DDR5 RAM and a better manufacturing process, is the higher L3 cache as variable for the Ryzen 7000 as it is for the Ryzen 5000? To find out, we’ve been testing the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which offers 16 Zen 4 cores and 3D V-Cache for £699 / $699 – the same RRP as the original 7950X.
Before we get into content creation and gaming benchmarks, it’s worth explaining what makes the 7950X3D hardware so attractive. Ryzen CPUs have used chiplet design since their inception, with low- to mid-range components using a single chiplet (“CCD” in AMD’s nomenclature) for up to eight cores and high-end components with length using two chiplets, and so on. 7950X3D. The main difference here is that the 7950X3D sports an asymmetric design, with one of its chiplets receiving a 3D V-Cache upgrade in exchange for a slight penalty in terms of maximum frequency, while the other chiplet retains the smaller cache size and frequency of the 7950X it is based on.
This asymmetric design can be ugly, and it has its own disadvantages, but there are some useful advantages here as well. For one, a CPU with a 3D V-Cache chiplet is cheaper to produce than one with two, reducing costs. Another advantage is that programs that benefit from a large cache, such as games, can run primarily on those cores, while programs that do not benefit can use the higher frequencies available on non-V-Cache objects.
To ensure that games and apps are put into the right settings, AMD has added importance to the chipset’s software. If dual-CCD 7000X3D CPU is detected when you install new chipset drivers, you get background services, background settings, new entry in device manager and more besides. (Conversely, if you install the same type of chipset driver without installing the X3D CPU, then change one in, all this additional functionality will not work; you will need to install the chipset drivers again. Ask How do I know this!)
It’s pretty clever stuff, with AMD using the Windows Game Bar to detect when a game is running, and ‘parking’ the frequency, numbers 16-31 in the case of the 7950X3D, to ensure that Windows prefers to use V-Cache cosmetics for sports. This means you can use the Game Bar mask to tell Windows that any application is a game to run on high cache, and there is also a registry entry that prevents this behavior for specific games. Well, I mentioned specific games, but only one game is currently called – League of Legends. Finally, you can change this behavior in the BIOS by selecting automatic, cache or frequency options as preferred for everything – a function that we tested on page six to really check the size of the 3D V-Cache advantage .
You can see how the three Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs are ranked among their peers in the table below. As a reminder, each of these Zen 4 models benefit from a range of improvements over their Zen 3 counterparts, with a 13 percent increase to instructions-per-clock (IPC) and additional internal improvements, such as an improved execution engine and the best. branch prediction. There is also support for DDR5 and PCIe 5.0, with 5nm CCDs and 6nm I/O die, with a new AM5 socket that unlocks more power and performance – although with the need for a new motherboard, new RAM and possibly a new cooler.
| CPU system | Increase | The root | L3 cache | TDP | RRP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 7950X3D | Zen 4 16C/32T | 5.7GHz | 4.2GHz | 128MB | 120W | $699/£699 |
| Ryzen 9 7950X | Zen 4 16C/32T | 5.7GHz | 4.5GHz | 64MB | 170W | $699/£739 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X3D | Zen 4 12C/24T | 5.6GHz | 4.4GHz | 128MB | 120W | $599/£599 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X | Zen 4 12C/24T | 5.6GHz | 4.7GHz | 64MB | 170W | $549/£579 |
| Price 97900 | Zen 4 12C/24T | 5.4GHz | 3.7GHz | 64MB | 65W | $429/£519 |
| Ryzen 7 7800X3D | Zen 4 8C/16T | 5.0GHz | 4.2GHz | 96MB | 120W | $449/TBA |
| Ryzen 7 7700X | Zen 4 8C/16T | 5.4GHz | 4.5GHz | 32MB | 105 W | $399/£419 |
| Price 77700 | Zen 4 8C/16T | 5.3GHz | 3.8GHz | 32MB | 65W | $329/£349 |
| Ryzen 5 7600X | Zen 4 6C/12T | 5.3GHz | 4.7GHz | 32MB | 105 W | $299/£319 |
| Price 57600 | Zen 4 6C/12T | 5.1GHz | 3.8GHz | 32MB | 65W | $229/£249 |
For our test, we use the same basic setup as shown in the Ryzen 7600 review, only with the latest AMD processor drivers installed. This means ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard, G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM and Asus’ RTX 3090 Strix OC for our graphics card. Cooling is provided by a 240mm Alphacool Eisbaer Aurora AiO, which is happily compatible with the new AM5 socket.
For storage, we use three PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs to hold all our games – 4TB Kingston KC3000, 1TB PNY XLR8 CS3140 and 1TB Crucial P5 Plus. Our project was completed with a 1000W Corsair RM1000x power supply.
To stay compatible with previous benchmarks, we are using the pre-22H2 version of Windows 11, as this provides the best performance for Ryzen 7000 processors. We are also using the latest BIOS for our ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard at the time of testing, version 1.15.SMU215, with the latest version of the AMD chip drivers.
To test other platforms, we used the Asus ROG Crosshair 8 Hero for the Ryzen 5000 test, the Asus ROG Maximus Z590 Hero for the 11th-gen Intel test, the Asus ROG Z690 Maximus Hero for the 12th-gen test, and the Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master for the Test 13th-gen; all of these are longboards for different platforms. DDR4 motherboards used G.Skill 3600MT/s CL16 memory, the sweet spot for DDR4, while DDR5 motherboards used DDR5-6000 CL30 as seen.
Before we get into the benchmarks of games that include two to six pages, let’s set the scene with some quick content creation goals: Cinebench R20 3D definition and Handbrake video conversion.
Not surprisingly, given that Cinebench and Handbrake don’t benefit from the extra cache, we see slightly lower results here compared to the higher-end 7950X3D, with the 7950X being about 10 percent faster relative to Handbrake output is also about 7.5 percent faster in Cinebench’s multi-core test. In the single-core stakes, we’d expect a closer result as the 7950X3D could use its benchmark, and there’s actually only a one-percent loss for the 7950X in this test.
This also puts the 7950X3D behind the 13900K for most tasks, but the bigger Intel CPU is around 10 percent better in Handbrake and about 13 percent better in Cinebench – so not a huge margin. The 7950X3D is still significantly faster than any other competitor by a wide margin, too – 36 percent faster than the 5950X and 32 percent faster than the 12900K in Cinebench, for example.
| Download: CB R201T | Download: CB R20MT | HB h.264 | HB HEVC price | HEVC power consumption | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 7950X3D | 788 | 13807 | 95.73 fps | 40.70 fps | 232W |
| Ryzen 9 7950X | 798 | 14837 | 105.15 fps | 45.10 fps | 368W |
| Ryzen 9 7900X | 791 | 11324 | 79.38 fps | 33.77 fps | 288W |
| Ryzen 7 7700X | 768 | 7894 | 56.69 fps | 25.95 fps | 266W |
| Ryzen 5 7600X | 750 | 6063 | 44.35 fps | 20.28 fps | 236W |
| Price 57600 | 706 | 5632 | 41.09 fps | 18.72 fps | 196W |
| Ryzen 9 5950X | 637 | 10165 | 70.28 fps | 30.14 fps | 237W |
| Ryzen 7 5800X3D | 546 | 5746 | 42.71 fps | 19.10 fps | 221 W |
| Ryzen 7 5800X | 596 | 6118 | 44.18 fps | 19.50 fps | 229W |
| Ryzen 5 5600X | 601 | 4502 | 31.75 fps | 14.43 fps | 160W |
| Description of i913900K | 873 | 15570 | 104.67 fps | 41.20 fps | 473W |
| Core i5 13600K | 767 | 9267 | 62.37 fps | 26.44 fps | 254W |
| Description of i912900K | 760 | 10416 | 70.82 fps | 29.26 fps | 373W |
| Core i7 12700K | 729 | 8683 | 57.64 fps | 25.67 fps | 318W |
| Description of the i512600K | 716 | 6598 | 44.27 fps | 19.99 fps | 223W |
| Core i5 12400F | 652 | 4736 | 31.77 fps | 14.70 fps | 190W |
| Core i9 11900K | 588 | 5902 | 41.01 fps | 18.46 fps | 321W |
| Core i5 11600K | 541 | 4086 | 29.00 fps | 13.12 fps | 250W |
Power consumption is good here, with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D drawing less power from the wall (232W) than the 7950X in the same HEVC mode (368W), partly due to its reduced performance. It is also significantly better than the Intel Core i9 13900K (473W). We expect to see a small area in power consumption for non-AVX content, such as games, but for content creation power consumption is certainly reasonable in the current economic climate – and speaks to the quality of the new ‘ AMD devices in general. .
Now, let’s get into the fun stuff – the games. We’ve tested several titles, so choose your favorites from the links below or just click the next page button to continue.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D analysis
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