Conclusion
AMD has finally revealed its next-generation Zen 4 3D V-Cache CPU, starting with the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D AMD is launching this CPU with an MSRP of $699.99. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D takes the familiar 16-core/32-thread Ryzen 9 7950X and adds a tremendous 128MB of L3 cache on a single-CCD for the sole purpose of improving gaming performance. This is a CPU that allows gamers to have the best gaming performance possible, but also not sacrifice cores and threads for productivity work as well.
In our gaming review today we have put the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D through its paces in a gaming-focused review. We tested performance at 4K, 1440p, and 1080p in 11 games with and without Ray Tracing to give gamers the best look possible at how it will affect performance. We combined it with a very fast NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition video card to give the CPU the best chance we could at showing off its performance advantages. This very comprehensive gaming review should have given you a big picture of performance across the board for gaming so that you can make a very smart purchasing decision for yourself.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D Gaming Performance Summary
The gaming performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D is mixed. It is mixed between the Intel Core i9-13900K remaining very competitive, and it is mixed between providing a performance advantage over the Ryzen 9 7950X in games. It is also mixed in the sense that for gaming it primarily affects low-resolution performance with high-end high-performance GPUs. It has less of an effect on performance for 4K gaming, 1440p gaming, or with anything less than a GeForce RTX 4090. Perhaps its 1080p RTX 4090 performance is an indication of how it will perform in next-generation GPUs in games, or beyond, but in the here and now that is where it sits.
What stood out to us was how fast and consistent the Intel Core i9-13900K remains in gaming. In most of the gaming performance shown today, whether it was 1080p or 4K, the Intel Core i9-13900K offered competitive performance to the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. Its performance characteristic was more consistent through the games and resolutions. It also did not require some of the hoops you have to jump through with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D to get it working in an optimized manner with games. In a way, the user experience with the 13900K is simpler, fewer issues can arise and you don’t have to wonder if your game is running on the right cores or not. This same sentiment can be extended to the Ryzen 9 7950X.
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D will improve performance over the Ryzen 9 7590X in some specific, limited circumstances. We did find it was faster mostly at 1080p with a GeForce RTX 4090. The returns on improvement decrease at 1440p, and mostly at 4K. This was with a GeForce RTX 4090 as well, the fastest GPU you can get today. Anything less is going to be even closer in results.
A lot of the results ended up being very close, to begin with, within 1-4% of each on average. There were some games that were outliers, where there were 8% or 10%+ differences, but it was very select and in the minority. Chernobylite Enhanced Edition was one game that stood out, as well as F1 2022 and Fary Cry 6. Out of 11 games though, that is not the majority. You won’t lose gaming performance with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D versus the Ryzen 9 7950X for the most part, and in some games that are CPU limited, or lower resolutions, you might gain some performance. There were a couple of exceptions though, Crysis Remastered was definitely not partitioning cores correctly, and there was trouble with Metro Exodus Enhanced.
To get the most benefit out of the Ryzen 9 7950X3D for gaming, you are going to need the fastest GPU possible, such as the GeForce RTX 4090 and future generation high-end GPUs. You are also going to need to play at lower resolutions, or use games that lean toward being CPU limited by nature. If you have anything less than an RTX 4090 right now, you are going to be GPU limited, and then the benefits of the 7950X3D CPU are not realized. If you play games at 4K, the benefits are also not realized, as you are GPU limited, even on the RTX 4090 for the most part.
If you game at 1080p, the 7950X3D will have the most impact on gaming performance. If you game at 1440p the 7950X3D will have some impact, and it will depend on the GPU you are running (the more high-end the greater impact), and your game settings and game. Finally, if you are gaming at 4K the 7950X3D will have no impact, even on an RTX 4090, for gaming performance versus the 7950X.
Is Ryzen 9 7950X3D 3D V-Cache a Mistake?
The Ryzen 9 7950X is already very good at gaming performance. AMD vastly improved gaming performance with the Zen 4 architecture over the Zen 3 architecture. We have seen the Ryzen 9 7950X introduce better performance over Ryzen 9 5950X. We are not seeing the Ryzen 9 7950X3D perform the magic that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D did for the Zen 3 architecture. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D was making up for a weaker architecture in gaming, but with Zen 4 there is less to make up for. Zen 4 already has higher level cache amounts across the board and a better architecture with DDR5 that can overcome a lot of the Zen 3 shortcomings.
Therefore while 3D V-Cache helps in some specific cases, in some specific games, the overall impact isn’t as big. When you add on top of that the complexity of the CCD 3D V-Cache partitioning and issues that can arise if cores are not being properly diverted for gaming, the situation for the 7950X3D is more complex than it needs to be.
We are not too keen on the more complex steps that must be taken by gamers to make sure Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D work properly in games to utilize the CCD with the 3D V-Cache. We were told early on that Windows should handle directing threads, and it will just work. It is something AMD did not talk a lot about. The Windows thread scheduling concern that everyone feared about this single-CCD 3D V-Cache technology fact might be realized.
It seems the concern about Windows being able to schedule threads properly between CCDs has merit after all. AMD had to put in the extra work software-wise, to make this happen. Even with these implementations problems and issues can still arise and it is still possible that some games might have issues and simply not work properly running on the correct CCD.
These were simply not problems gamers had to worry about with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, it was as simple as a BIOS update and go. With Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D more care has to be taken by the gamer, you have to do your due diligence to make sure you set it up correctly and hope it is working properly in every game. You aren’t guaranteed that it will always work in every game. We did have an issue in one game at the very least, with stuttering and another where it might not be partitioning correctly at all. If there is even one instance of this, there could be others we don’t know about. The reliance on XBOX Game Bar’s KGL game list is another downer, and the entire process seems overly complicated.
AMD could have saved itself a lot of work and game issues for gamers by simply giving both CCDs the 3D V-Cache and taking a slight frequency hit. We think this would be better so that we avoid issues like potentially having games not utilizing the correct CCD with cache and having to mess with XBOX Game Bar software versions, KGL profiles, services and processes running, and potential core parking issues with games. We think gamers and productivity users would have preferred cache on both CCDs with a slight frequency hit to avoid all of these issues. In our opinion, both CCDs should have had the 3D V-Cache, and a slight frequency hit should have been accepted.
Final Points
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D is a unique CPU, and we commend AMD for the hard work and engineering that went into it. It was not an easy task to get 3D V-Cache working in a multi-partitioned CCD environment. Unfortunately, AMD had to put a lot of extra work into software to make it work correctly in Windows and games, and this could lead to mixed gaming performance advantages.
As it stands, at the time of writing, we don’t currently see the benefit of the Ryzen 9 7950X3D over the Ryzen 9 7950X if you are a gamer or multi-tasker looking for both productivity and gaming performance. You can get the same gameplay experience out of the Ryzen 9 7950X, and save $100 in today’s pricing. In fact, the Intel Core i9-13900K becomes a real option for gaming performance, as it was a standout among our tests and remains competitive with the 7950X3D, it is a 32-thread CPU just like the 7950X3D. It is also at competitive pricing right now.
The intent of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D is a CPU to bridge the gap between wanting to game with the best performance and having 16-cores/32-threads for productivity. Literally, this CPU is a “have your cake and eat it too” CPU. While it certainly fulfills this goal perfectly, we did not experience any advantages in using the Ryzen 9 7950X3D over the Ryzen 9 7950X for gaming. With a GeForce RTX 4090, we experienced no gameplay advantage at 4K, or with Ray Tracing. If you game at a high resolution or have a less powerful graphics card than the most expensive one possible, the advantages are not there. If you are building for the future, it could have merit in the next generation of video cards and games to come. It is possible it will age like “fine wine”, something AMD products can often claim.
At the end of the day, the Ryzen 9 7950X is a perfect gaming-capable CPU that can do everything the Ryzen 9 7950X3D can do for gaming right now, and it is the better value for gaming and productivity if you are a multi-tasker at around $599 as of this writing. If you want to build with longevity in mind, and plan to keep your system and CPU for years to come, then the Ryzen 9 7950X3D should last for future generations where its value may grow the most over time.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →Thank you Brent for the wonderful article. Kinda glad I stuck with my 7700X for my office machine. It's a very nice CPU for what I use it for. Going with the 7800X3D wouldn't be that much of a bump at all it would seem.
We don't know how the 7800X3D will be yet. Considering it only has 1 CCD to worry about, it could be much more efficient, with less latency, and just the bees knees ?♂️ My prediction will be it will be very power efficient. I do worry about the frequency difference, however, for productivity.
Seems like if you're already on a 5800X3D it's not much, if at all, an upgrade. At least for gaming at 1440 or 4K.
Thanks @Brent_Justice for the great review and now I can't wait until the one for the 7800X3D.
I forgot to bring this up in the review, so I'll add it here:
This CPU may potentially not be a good CPU for multi-tasking while gaming, for example, streamers or content creators recording gameplay and streaming at the same time. Since it parks cores while gaming, this could potentially reduce the multi-tasking ability while gaming. Streaming and recording performance could be affected. The entire point of a 16-core CPU could be compromised under such circumstances. My addendum to this is that I have not tested this scenario, and I have no proof that this is true. It is a theory and subject worth discussing.
Really looking at this cpu/motherboard/ram upgrade requirement to come from a previous gen... this gen just feels like a skip for me. My 5900x is trucking along just fine and not feeling like a bottleneck at 1440p at all.
The power usage is the most impressive part but other than that it is a bit of a meh. Why spend the cash to help AMD and MS beta test this scheduler stuff in win10/11? Much like with e-cores of 12th gen Intel last year.
Power usage is impressive, but are we really impressed? It's turning off cores, and running at lower frequencies, and is capped at a lower temp of 89c, and has a lowered TDP, should a lower power profile really surprise or impress under those circumstances? If it could maintain the same clock as 7950X, and keep all cores running at the same time, and still have less power, I'd be more impressed by that.
Minimum FPS always determines playability. In games that benefit from the added cache, the 5800X3D showed much of its benefit in min FPS. We can't draw a conclusion on Zen4 X3D without mins.
I wonder how much MS paid AMD to gimp their CPU by making it rely on XBox Game Bar. Inexcusable.
I think this will depend significantly on what 'streaming' means. The combination of layout tools, audio tools, endpoints, GPU hardware and GPU acceleration used, all would factor in.
For the 'pros', having only eight cores enabled while streaming is probably not going to be an issue. They'll have a workflow set up that leverages hardware processing before (audio equipment with DSPs for major processing steps, to limit VST use in OBS, for example), and after (using an external/secondary box for recording and streaming live). For these folks quality, ease of use (though not necessarily setup and troubleshooting), and reliability are paramount.
If there's a limitation to be found, I expect it to be found first by those trying to do all of this on the same box, 'in the box'. I'd balance that with the knowledge that a 7600X is plenty fast for 'gaming', so a 7950X3D with one CCD disabled or the future 7800X3D will both probably have enough grunt to spare, especially if GPU encoding is leveraged properly.
Since AMD is able to keep performance up while reducing power usage - well, that's impressive. They did so while adding cache and increasing complexity.
Granted there's a pretty clear line drawn from decreased clockspeeds and voltages to lower power usage, and it looks like the 3D V-cache CCD is being binned for lower leakage, which should result in better efficiency at lower clockspeeds. So not inexplicable, but going in the right direction.
No need for conspiracy theories - AMD has been open about working with Microsoft to implement appropriate scheduling behavior for games on their dual-CCD parts that have one 3D V-cache-bearing die. From the benchmarks we've seen, while not perfect at launch (what is?), the solution is certainly working as intended, when it's working as intended.
Also note that AMD needs a software-based solution, since their scheduler isn't implemented in hardware (like Intel's P+E core solution), and that Intel still needed to work with OS developers to ensure that the P+E core arrangement was also supported.
For a personal example, while trying to run the FSPR Handbrake benchmark, I found that my 12700K running on Windows 10 last year would not properly schedule the Handbrake encode. This resulted in performance over an order of magnitude slower than expected, and I begrudgingly upgraded to Windows 11. I believe that this functionality has been backported to Windows 10 since, but as I've made 11 work for my needs, I haven't gone back and tested it.
As for 'why the Xbox Game Bar', well, I guess we should ask, how else should they have done it? How should it be exposed to gamers?
The AMD Chipset driver is required - that seems to be a good place for it.
I go to AMD Adrenalin software for my AMD video card settings. AMD has Precision Boost Overdrive for CPUs. None of that requires any XBox bullshit from Windows.
I'm still keeping an eye on this one but I'm not as enthusiastic about it as I was before. Here's hoping some updates, wherever they need to be, help it reach more of its potential. Since most of my builds end up running close to 10 years a pop I was hoping this, or the 7900X3D would be the platform to build my next with. The 7800X3D is sounding promising but I just don't know. Meanwhile, prices to do something with a 13900K keep dropping.
There's not an urgent benefit for you to upgrade from your 5800X3D. At least according to current benches. A couple titles it's better, but for the most part at 1440 and 4k there isn't much of a difference.
Unless productivity apps are more important to you. In which case, yeah, a huge improvement.
It's all good. I was thinking of a completely new build to replace the 4930K rig with but the intent is that whatever comes next is built to perform as needed for the next 7-10 years.
Here's the house layout:
1. 5800X3D is the main rig in the living room.
2. 3700X is in the bedroom
3. 4930K is in the cave.
Basically whatever comes next will push 5800X3D to the cave and it'll go in the living room as the new main rig. GPU-wise, the jury is totally out until we hear more about what's next.
@Brent_Justice Thanks for the great review. I noticed on page 2 that your screenshot of the Xbox Game Bar overlay menu is from a camera. Yeah, I ran into the same issue as well. You can't take screenshots of the Game Bar. Pretty annoying. Gotta grab your phone or another camera and literally take a picture of your display's screen.
I agree 100%. I'm kinda disappointed only one CCD gets the 3D cache. The CPU I would most likely get for myself would be the 7900X3D, but that has the same issue as the 7950X3D, with the 3D cache only being on one CCD. I don't like asymmetrical designs. Intel can f*ck off with their big.LITTLE P-core/E-core bullsh1t. Like I think most enthusiasts, I'm excited to see how the 7800X3D turns out. Although Brent brought up a good point in his review, the 3D cache has far less impact compared to the regular 7950X than the 5800X3D did compared to the 5800X. We still need to see how the 7900X3D and 7800X3D turn out, but I think overall the 3D cache matters a lot less for Zen 4 than it did for Zen 3. I don't think the price jump over the non-3D CPUs is worth it, at least for the 7950X3D.
I usually keep Xbox Game Bar disabled, but I guess if I had one of these Zen 4 X3D CPUs I would have to re-enable it.
AMD software to make sure the OS and applications are using the right CCDs appropriately reminds me of AMD's Dual Core Optimizer software back when they came out with their first dual-core CPUs. I had to use that software on my Opteron 165 system. I remember back then also having to disable one of the cores for some games, cuz games at the time would get confused when they saw two cores (or two physical CPUs), which would result in worse performance, crashes, or odd behavior.
TechPowerUp said in their review: "It seems that the game detection failed in some titles like Spider-Man and God of War, which post higher numbers when we override the AMD software and use the 'prefer cache' BIOS setting. If you encounter such a case, it's really easy to fix though. Press Win+G to open Microsoft Game Bar overlay, click on settings and tick the 'remember this is a game' checkbox. Done! No fiddling with executable names or the registry. Still, I suspect that a vast majority of people will not be aware of this solution, or even the fact that the game detection might not work on all games, that's why AMD must ensure they track down these cases and fix them quickly."
So I assume you can do the same thing with a new game that is not in the KGL game list, and just add it yourself.
I heard rumors that Zen 5 is gonna be quite the difference in CPU architecture, while Zen 4 was still basically just an upgrade of the Zen 3 and 2 design. Maybe you should wait to check out the Zen 5s, if you want to build a system to last 10 years. I hope all Zen 5 CPU models get 3D cache, and on all CCDs. My current system is the first one that I kept using for almost a decade (gonna be 9 years old this coming Fall), usually I move to a new system after about 4 years. I didn't plan things that way though, it just kinda happened cuz I'm broke! LAWLZ