AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Processor First Look Review

The Best of Both Worlds: Part 2

The new flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D desktop processor has nearly arrived, and with it a merging of the best of both worlds from AMD – or so we hope. It really is two processors in one, combining the best of the gaming and content creation worlds, and as such software must cooperate for users to see the full benefit – at least on the gaming side of things. AMD has taken steps to ensure that this happens as easily as possible, but it is still a more complex product than single-CCD X3D parts.

With the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, just like last generation’s Ryzen 9 7950X3D, we are talking about a 16-core, dual-CCD part wherein only one 8-core CCD is outfitted with 3D V-Cache, while the other is a standard 8-core processor die. This time, however, we have the latest iteration of 3D V-Cache, so in a way just half of this new CPU matches the configuration of the celebrated Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Taking the best gaming processor on the planet and adding a second CCD with eight cores of AMD’s latest CPU architecture can’t possibly be a bad thing, right? This way you have all of the cores when you need them, and just the X3D-enabled cores when you’re gaming. Getting to that point, however, requires some special care in the setup of your operating system and drivers. Once all steps have been taken, however, the required core parking happens automatically, allowing games to interface with the 9950X3D as a single-CCD X3D part.

Announced way back at CES, there will be two new X3D parts available beginning tomorrow (March 12, 2025): the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which has a list price of $699 USD, and the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which has a list price of $599 USD.

Performance Testing

AMD sent over an entire system’s worth of components for our testing (minus PSU and case), which you can see in the featured image for this review. Components used to test this Ryzen 9 9950X3D and their configuration are listed below:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER, flashed to the latest BIOS (at time of testing), version F5b. This BIOS provides AMD AGESA 1.2.0.3a Patch A, and is optimized for use with AMD Chipset Driver 7.01.08.129 or later (we used 7.02.13.148 from 02/25/25).
• Memory: G.Skill’s excellent Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5-6000 CL28 kit was provided, and while I have PTSD about 1.40V kits on AMD systems I went ahead and configured it to EXPO specs and it just worked.
• Storage: AMD provided a 1TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe SSD
• Graphics Card: We used our own NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition sample, which was running the Game Ready Driver 566.36.
• Power Supply: Our be quiet!-provided Dark Power Pro 13 1300W sample was used.
• Operating System: We clean installed the latest Microsoft ISO for Windows 11 24H2, which was then updated with every available item – along with a laundry list of other setup options and checks to be performed before the first benchmark run.

Beginning with some pure CPU benchmarks, here is a look at Blender results, run using the latest version of the Blender Benchmark launcher and version 4.3.0 of Blender:

Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K – which was strictly limited to Intel’s actual defaults (250W PL1/PL2, 347A Icc max) – can’t keep up with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which shows nearly perfect scaling over its 8-core X3D cousin on the chart.

Next up is the vitally important Cinebench – though I didn’t run R23 for this review, just the newer 2024 version:

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D doesn’t give up its lead from the Blender tests, but it’s close. Intel has a strong showing in Cinebench, even if it is limited to “only” 250 watts in our test configuration. However, when we shift focus to the single core results, we actually have a win for Intel! Single-threaded performance is actually a strong point for the Core Ultra 9 285K, and isn’t affected by the conservative default settings.

Now let’s see how this trio of CPUs fare in 3DMark. For these tests we paired each CPU with a GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition card, running Game Ready Driver 566.36.

Steel Nomad shows virtually no scaling (though Intel was consistently ahead by a few points), with Time Spy showing the first hint of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s dominance in older 3DMark workloads. By the time we get to Fire Strike it’s a wipeout, with ridiculous GPU scores in the 85,000 range when using the R7 9800X3D, averaging to the 85,174 number on the chart. The performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D here gives me that cold, cold feeling of a dual-CCD X3D part that isn’t 100% perfectly configured in the OS.

As a sanity check, and to see how these processors fare in a real game engine, here is Cyberpunk 2077 (v2.21), run at 1920×1080 with the “High” preset and no image scaling:

With the RTX 4090 FE we see much better performance from the R9 9950X3D in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080/High, though it is still a few FPS behind the R7 9800X3D. The Intel part is well short of the mark here. It seems that the AMD provisioning is correctly implemented, and perhaps 3DMark just isn’t optimized for this new R9 9950X3D part (or I did something wrong with 3DMark – though I can’t figure out what).

I ran Cyberpunk at these settings again, this time monitoring clock frequencies. As you can see from the chart below, the X3D cores do seem to be getting priority:

Finally, here’s a look at game results an actual enthusiast might see running Cyberpunk on this high-end hardware, with settings turned up to 2560×1440 and the “Ultra” preset:

In this instance the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is effectively tied with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in this more “GPU-bound” scenario. This is only one game, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that we can generally match R7 9800X3D performance at resolutions and settings that someone spending $699 on a processor might actually use.

A lot more game testing needs to be done, and with special care to ensure that every little setting is perfect, lest we somehow inadvertently run gaming workloads on the non-X3D cores. It’s always complicated with these dual-CCD X3D parts.

Final Thoughts

These dual-CCD X3D launches fill me with equal parts excitement and dread, and generally leave me feeling that my OS configuration hygiene is lacking. I have a routine that works for every other CPU family I ever test, providing consistent, repeatable results. But with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, as with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D before it, one must jump through quite a few hoops to get things working perfectly – and even then there can be software that isn’t correctly identified as a game, and thus does not initiate parking on the non-X3D cores. These multi-CCD X3D parts aren’t for novice users – and don’t even think about avoiding that recommended clean install of Windows.

The above gallery includes slides from AMD’s media presentation about these new processors, and if things like the AMD Provisioning Packages Service, 3D V-Cache Performance Optimizer, and Application Compatibility Database are configured and updated automatically so that your game is sure to work without any additional user configuration, then great.

Regardless of the work a user might be expected to do, when everything is set up correctly and the game is picked up properly, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D can provide a close approximation of the world’s best gaming CPU; but this part is more of an all-rounder than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The 9950X3D doubles the 9800X3D’s core count and can rip through multi-core workloads with ease. It is well behaved from both a power and thermal standpoint, offers a great gaming experience, and is a better CPU for content creators than anything from Intel right now.

Once again AMD has topped with their CPU lineup with a part that offers a tempting mix of both gaming and raw compute performance, but, until Windows is finally updated to correctly use these dual-CCD X3D parts without any additional setup, users will need to be diligent in their initial configuration to get the most out of them.