The AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Review: 16 Cores on 7nm with PCIe 4.0
by Dr. Ian Cutress on November 14, 2019 9:00 AM ESTTest Bed and Setup
As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |
| AMD Ryzen 3000 | AMD Ryzen 9 3950X AMD Ryzen 9 3900X |
| Motherboard | ASRock X570 Taichi 2.50 (AGESA 1004B) |
| CPU Cooler | Kraken X62 |
| DRAM | Corsair Vengeance RGB 4x8 GB DDR4-3200 |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests) |
| PSU | Corsair AX860i |
| SSD | Crucial MX500 2TB |
| OS | Windows 10 1909 |
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
206 Comments
View All Comments
Slash3 - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Intel is subsidizing retailer discounts in an effort to smooth over the transition to the newer Cascade Lake-X chips. It's part of their $3B marketing and incentive campaign. Subsequent fulfillment from Intel is at the reduced (but unofficial) lower pricing.https://www.computerbase.de/2019-10/high-end-cpu-i...
Intel gets to clear remaining stock and retailers avoid taking a bath on previously purchased CPUs. Makes sense.
Spunjji - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
If retailers had to drop prices that much to clear stock and Intel weren't chipping in to compensate, we'd definitely be hearing about it.Phynaz - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Intel will be price protecting them.Ratman6161 - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Personal opinion from someone who is NOT in the HEDT market: People whose work/Livelihood comes from tasks that are noticeably better on an HEDT platform, probably don't care about the price or at least don't care as much as the rest of us do. All the math works out differently if you can actually take advantage of the things other than the CPU that HEDT offers. So I think there is still a pretty firm dividing line between x299 and thread ripper on one side and everything else in this test on the other.Just saying that price only becomes a deciding factor AFTER you decide which side of that line you are on.
AIV - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
3950X blurs the line between HEDT and Desktop market. New 16 core EPYC rome (e.g 7302P is less than 1000EUR) along threadripper makes the market segmentation even more blurry. Especially at ~16 cores there are many alternatives in multiple product families.phoenix_rizzen - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Yeah, you can now start mixing and matching CPUs based on your other needs (PCIe lanes, I/O support, memory channels, memory speeds, graphics, etc).Ryzen CPUs give you dual-channel memory and 24 (16+4+4) PCIe lanes.
Threadripper CPUs give you quad-channel memory and 88 (64+16+8) PCIe lanes.
EPYC CPUs give you octo-channel memory and 128 PCIe lanes.
Figure out how much memory and I/O you need, then choose the CPU with the number of cores you want.
From 2-core Athlons with integrated graphics to 64-core monsters, there's plenty of choices along the way. :)
8-core Ryzen 7
8-core EPYC
12-core Ryzen 9
12-core EPYC
16-core Ryzen 9
16-core Threadripper
16-core EPYC
24-core Threadripper
24-core EPYC
32-core Threadripper
32-core EPYC
lobz - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
It's still a bad deal for that price. That CPU is on a dead platform.Phynaz - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Kinda like Threadripper, eh?yeeeeman - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
This CPU basically renders Intel CPU until 1000$ useless. Only 9900KS brings something extra in gaming and general app usage. Threadripper will do the same for higher end 1000$+ market. This is the first time in many many years when AMD is better in pretty much all price categories, period.Total Meltdowner - Thursday, November 14, 2019 - link
Glad I bought AMD Stock 3 years ago. Wish I had invested more... sigh.