Gaming Continued
We are going to include 1080p, 1440p, and 4K performance to see the overall big picture of performance. That said, you’ll want to focus on the 1080p results primarily to gain a sense of the level of framerate each CPU is able to provide to the GPU, it is the best predictor of potential performance. In addition, we think you’ll see some interesting scaling starting to happen in the 1440p area as well in some games between the CPUs, so look for that.
For testing, we are using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition video card with driver version 560.70. All games are being run in their “Ultra” game settings, at native resolution, and with no ray tracing. Each graph is first sorted by 1080p performance, and then second by 1440p performance. In this way, you’ll see which is the fastest CPU with a 1080p resolution. For games with a built-in benchmark, the benchmark is used, in games that do not have a benchmark we do a manual run-through.
Cyberpunk 2077
In Cyberpunk 2077 the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D has the clear performance advantage at 222 FPS at 1080p. It takes the lead over the Intel Core i9-14900K by 4%. We do see a slight difference of 1% between the Extreme and Performance profiles on the Intel Core i9-14900K. Looking at the new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X we find it performs exactly the same as the previous generation Ryzen 9 7950X in Cyberpunk 2077. We experienced the same performance at 1080p and 1440p here, with no change in performance. We are not sure if this is a performance issue, or if this is just how it is. As we note below, we sent our HWiNFO64 log data to AMD to troubleshoot any performance issues.
However, there is certainly a clear difference with the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X compared to the Ryzen 9 9900X. Here we see the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is 8% ahead of the Ryzen 9 9900X at 1080p. In fact, the Ryzen 9 9900X performed abnormally slower in this game, and trailed the Ryzen 9 7900X as well. This one did give us pause, and we spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot any performance issues. The Ryzen 9 9900X performed well in other games, so not sure what is causing this here. We did end up sending our HFiNFO64 logs to AMD for the 9950X and 9900X to give them further information on potential performance issues.
Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 is one game that we have found that shows differences well in the architecture. Notably, the Intel Core i9-14900K is in a league of its own in this game, with the absolute fastest performance that trounces everything else for some reason, even at 4K, which is odd, but there you go.
Otherwise, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D comes in top for the AMD CPUs, with the best performance at 192 FPS at 1080p. We do see that it is bottlenecked at 1080p, as it has the same 1440p performance, and this is the case for all the AMD CPUs actually. The new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is a healthy 15% performance uplift compared to the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X from the previous generation. This is the kind of performance uplift we had wished to see on more games, but have not. However, in Dying Light 2, there it is.
Comparing the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X to the Ryzen 9 9900X the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is 11% faster, showing a nice advantage for the 9950X in this game. At this performance level, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is only 5.4% behind the Ryzen 9 7950X3D.
Starfield
In Starfield the fastest CPU is clearly the Intel Core i9-14900K with either profile enabled at 140 FPS at 1080p, and higher 1440p results as well compared to the Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 9 9900X. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D also does well at 134 FPS, but it is 4% behind the Intel Core i9-14900K at 1080p.
The new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is performing exactly the same as the previous generation Ryzen 9 7950X at 1080p and 1440p. We see no difference with the new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X in Starfield, it has the same performance and scaling as the previous generation CPU. This puts it 8% behind the 7950X3D and 12% behind the 14900K in this game. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is faster than the Ryzen 9 9900X though, by 12%. The Ryzen 9 9900X did rather poorly in this game, similar to the Ryzen 9 7900X, with the same performance or slightly under.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is showing a pretty decent performance difference very much in favor of the Ryzen 9 7950X3D at 220 FPS at 1080p. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is able to outperform the Intel Core i9-14900K by a percentage point. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is only 2% faster than the previous generation Ryzen 9 7950X, however, so it doesn’t offer a big difference. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X ends up being 8% behind the Intel Core i9-14900K. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X are pretty much the same performance.
Discussion (14 replies)
Join Discussion →@Brent_Justice
Thank you again for a good review worth reading.
But....
Did you realize that picture at the top of the article looks like a bandaid?
Damn you - now I can't unsee this.
Would be better if it were a 90 yr old stripper with a boob job.
ps - I finally found a good use for AI
Damn it totally does...and I kinda want those for the Datacenter for the inevitable nicks and scratches people get handling computers. CPU themed bandaids.
Great review!
Could you delve a little further on this? I find myself not really familiar with what this is, and why one would disable it.
It sounds like it might be an important security feature?
Also....
Memory appears to behave rather interestingly with this release.
If you guys get around to it at some point I'd love to see your breakdown on memory settings and performance.
The settings you used seem like they would be the best easily achievable RAM settings for this platform, and a good choice for the initial review, but I am curious about other settings as well.
How do they - for instance - compare to DDR5-6400 with fabric at 2133 in a 1:1:1 configuration? Is this stable?
And how does the performance of this compare to - say - DDR5-8000 in a non 1:1:1 configuration? Is it better to go for that perfect 1:1:1 or to shoot for higher clock speed?
Also, I understand CL is less important than it once was, but how important are timings?
I think this could make for an interesting follow-up test.
Wendell over at level1techs also has some really interesting remarks in his Zen5 reviews (both on the main channel and the level1techs Linux channel) about how he thinks the current Windows 11 scheduler might be wonky with Zen5 and is holing it back. Unlike with other CPU's he is seeing much better performance under Linux with this architecture. I'll be looking forward to further investigation into this.
Also,
One more thought,
Your review does not have this data, but in other reviews I've seen, the 9950x - while it does well in average frame rate, it has been very impressive in 1% and 0.1% lows compared to other CPU's even beating the 14900k in many benchmarks.
I find this to be very interesting and I can't help but wonder why. What about this CPU specifically makes it so good at minimum frame rates?
I suspect some of it may have to do with Intel's E-cores getting in the way, and Intel's much higher memory bandwidth allowing the CPU to run away with it in some cases, pulling up the average, but keeping the minimums where they are. Not sure though
I've been a long time believer that 1% and 0.1% lows are of much greater importance than average frame-rates. That's what I determine my "playability" on. I want minimums/lows to be 60fps or greater. IN reality this tends to result in averages at or about 90fps, but some CPU/GPU's have a smaller difference between averages and lows than others.
I'm glad I'm at the age where I can truly forget things because I need to forget this. @Dan_D , I think you mentioned something like this in another thread recently.
Yes I did.
Nice my CPU holds up for gaming at least.
Yea that's a solid CPU and I wouldn't go with a 9000 series just yet.
I don't think she'd take no for an answer.
I should probably go to the gym more often.
Ummm.... what?
The 90 year old with a boob job.
Ahhhh ook
Hi guys ! I have a 9950x. BTW, I used to me a moderator for 17 years on Anandtech forums. The main site is dead as of today, so I may be here a lot more.
Sorry to hear about the final shutdown of Anandtech. I used to read the site a lot from founding in the late 90's until 2014 when Anand left and sold the site, and I felt that the quality of the content started to go downhill.
I still miss Anandtechs excellent SSD reviews (from ~2010-2014). They were some of the best.
The more the merrier. Good to have more people in these forums! :)