AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X land but can’t dethrone the 7800X3D

Following the launch last week of its first two Zen 5 CPUs, the 9700X and 9600X, AMD has today launched the two top tier chips in its new processor lineup, the Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X. These powerful new chips pack impressive overall performance, with incredibly low running temperatures, but aren’t the best choice for most gamers right now.

While these new chips are worthy of a spot on our best gaming CPU guide in some ways, the short version is that it’ll be because you want great overall performance rather than the absolute best gaming performance and value right now. For that, you’ll want to be turning to another of AMD‘s CPUs.

The specs and price of the two new chips are shown in the table below, with the 9950X being a 16-core part just like the 7950X (and 7950X3D) that preceded it. Likewise, the 9900X is a 12-core chip just like the older 7900X. The two new chips – that fit into the same AM5 motherboards as current 7000 series CPUs – are being launched at a price of $649 for the 9900X and $499 for the 9700X, making them significantly more expensive than the current prices for AMD’s equivalent 7000 series CPUs.

So to their performance and, yes, the short version is that if you’re looking for peak gaming performance from a CPU right now, the 7800X3D is still our top choice as it’s either the fastest or trails only to the 7950X3D, according to tests of the new 9000 series chips by site’s such as club386 and Anandtech.

The margins for gaming performance are small, with an average of under 4% separating the older chips from the new ones across a range of gaming tests, and even then the wider differences are only when running at 1080p with frame rates of well over 200fps. At higher resolutions, the difference is often far less than 1%.

Meanwhile, when it comes to productivity, AMD’s new chips blow every existing AMD and Intel chip out the water, topping the charts in the vast majority of tests. This includes a new record score in Cinebench 2024 for a consumer-grade CPU, with club386 recording scores of 139 in the single thread test and 2,308 in the multi-thread test for the 9950X. In Anandtech’s Blender test runs the 9950X also topped the charts with the 9900X only trailing AMD’s own 7950X and 7950X3D.

Meanwhile, power consumption is decent for these two new chips, though it isn’t quite so stunningly low as the 9700X and 9600X models. While those two chips consumed under 190W at full load, the 9900X hit 278W and the 9950X ballooned to 329W. Those figures are lower than the likes of the 14900K (370W) and 7900X (339W) but are a lot higher than the 7950X3D (241W).

Instead, it’s the temperature of these chips that’s so astonishing. The 9900X hit just 74.4°C and the 9700X just 68.3°C under full load. That compares to 87.2°C for the 7950X and over 90°C for the 14900K, again according to club386’s figures.

This all adds up to the 9900X and 9700X being excellent choices if you’re after a CPU that’s just broadly very fast, rather than just fast at gaming. However, the price of these chips is high right now, with AMD’s older 7000 series CPUs having been steadily discounted since their launch and now offering much better value overall.

Instead, when it comes to gaming CPU options, it will likely be when X3D variants of these 9000 series CPUs land that we’ll really see a meaningful increase in gaming performance. For now, though, the gaming performance, general productivity performance, low power consumption, and great value of the 7800X3D (at the current price of $365) make it our go-to choice.

For more of a meaningful gaming performance upgrade, check out our best graphics card guide, which includes the GPUs that will truly unlock massive gains in your frame rate.