AMD’s Kingpin R9 7950X
The Ryzen 9 7950X is the flagship CPU from the Zen4 lineup. This CPU features 16 cores and 32 threads. You can experience an out-of-the-box base frequency of 4.5GHz where the boost clock goes up to 5.7GHz (F-max of 5.85GHz). The TDP is around 170W (230W PPT). In the cache department, the CPU ships with 80MB of L2 (16MB) + L3 (64MB) cache. This CPU is priced at $699. AMD left no stone unturned with the massive single-core performance gains, however, the benchmarks show a major issue with these CPUs.
The Performance
Paired with a GIGABYTE X670E AUROS XTREME using the F1 Bios version (On that in a bit), the CPU was tested in Cinebench R23. The memory latency clocks in around 89.6ns. It is not sure of AMD’s EXPO was enabled or not. The CPU scores 2205 points in single core testing where the multi core score is at 29469 points. Ouch! These results are drastically different from one another. One on hand, we have a massive single core uplift as compared to Zen3, however, the multi core performance remains nearly identical to the R9 5950X. To put that into perspective, the i9-13900K scores just 3% more in the single core test which complies with AMD’s promises. In short, 7950X is neck to neck against the top dogs from Raptor Lake. However, the multi-core performance lacks behind Raptor Lake by quite the margin. The 7950X hardly beats out the 12900KS. Why? It may be due to the extremely hot temperatures reported on the Ryzen 7000 CPUs. Besides, Harukaze mentions that the CPU used an air cooling solution to combat the thermals.
The Multi Core Issue
AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X saw no core/thread count increments as compared to last-Gen. Intel, on the other hand is now ahead of AMD in this department, possibly giving them the upper hand. The BIOS version used is ‘F1‘ which as per many is old and may hinder the performance. However, to know for sure, we’ll just have to wait until Zen4 retails on the 27th of September.
A Last Minute Revive
Henry GAU on Twitter replied to Harukaze’s post saying that the R9 7950X can score much more with a proper cooling solution. AIO water cooling featuring the ROG RYUJIN 360 was used in another test which bumped the score by 20% to 36256 points in multi-core testing. If we compare the ‘updated’ score, it is now much closer to the i9-13900K and losing possibly due to the lower core/thead count. All in all, this is still a massive improvement from Zen3.
