AMD Ryzen 7950X Review

Introduction

It's time to take a closer look at the biggest and most powerful Ryzen 7000 Chip, the 7950X. Let's see if it is able to keep the same performance uplift compared to the previous generation and if AMD's latest flagship crushes the competition!

Ryzen 7000 Lineup and Pricing

On September 27, 2022, AMD's Ryzen 7000 lineup of mid to high-tier CPU launches. Similarly to the Ryzen 5000 launch in 2020, there will be 4 models available immediately:

• Ryzen 9 7950X
• Ryzen 9 7900X
• Ryzen 7 7700X
• Ryzen 5 7600x

Although launching 4x models at once can be seen as a tradition by now, this year's Ryzen Lineup will not feature a Ryzen 7 X800x, but a 7700X instead. As of now, there has been no announcement or confirmation of additional CPU's for the near future. However, as AMD has filled up its lineup with other models in the past, we believe it is just a matter of time until a 7800x/7300x/... will be unveiled.

 Pricing

Although we have expected it, the new Ryzen 7000 does not come with a price increase. Quite the reverse! While the Ryzen 7600x and 7900x are getting the same price tag as their Ryzen 5000 predecessors did, the 7950x got a $100 price reduction over the last generation's predecessor.

AM5 Socket

Although the price stayed the same (or lower) despite inflation, upgrading to a new Ryzen 7000 CPU is not as easy as it was before.
With Ryzen 7000, AMD introduced 4 new types of Chipsets: X670E, X670, B670E, and B670. All of which, are using their new AM5 Socket.

Since the first Ryzen CPU as well as most other CPUs before that, AMD has been using a PGA system for their chips. In contrast to Intel, the connecting pins between the CPU and the Motherboard have been sitting on the CPU side. 

With this year's Ryzen 7000 lineup, this will change. From now on, AMD's Ryzen CPUs will rely on the same approach Intel has been using for decades. 

This does come with quite some consequences though. One of Ryzen's most beloved features is its backward and forward compatibility. Not only did AMD keep up their promise of making their Motherboards and CPUs compatible for an unprecedented amount of time. The moment their customers wanted to enlarge this timeframe for the Ryzen 5000 Line, AMD followed their wishes.

With the introduction of a new socket, however, keeping this promise becomes an impossible task. 
Therefore, although the prices have not increased, an upgrade to a Ryzen 7000 CPU will not only include the CPU and a new Motherboard, but also a new Set of RAM as Ryzen 7000 is simultaneously updating its socket and RAM generation.

Zen 4

Zen 4 is the architecture powering AMD's new Ryzen 7000 Lineup. Similarly to Zen 3, the new iteration still features up to 2 CCDs, however, this year it is built on TSMC's 5nm process.

Hidden under the generational number increase is also a doubling of L2 Cache, Up-to 15% IPC increase, DDR 5 support, PCIe Gen. 5 Support, and 5Ghz boost by default.

On the higher end, Zen 4 is limited by a maximum of 24 cores, a version that may come out at a later date.

A useful addition to Zen 4's capabilities compared to previous versions is the mandatory addition of AMD's RDNA 2 graphical unit. Although it has been emphasized multiple times by AMD, and we would confirm it, it is NOT a Game-ready GPU. Featuring only 2 cores at 2200Mhz, this miniature of a GPU is meant to be used solely to run a monitor.
Thanks to the addition of an iGPU, debugging a system has been made much easier.

Benchmarks

Testing Equipment

In order to fully explore the Ryzen 7900x's capabilities, we compared it to the previous Ryzen lineup as well as Intel's 12th Gen Lineup.

The Ryzen 7000 Benchmark setup consists of a Gigabyte Aorus Master X670E in combination with 2x sticks of G.Skill TridentZ5 Neo DDR5 6000MhzCL30 16Gb.

The Intel 12th gen setup consists of an ASRock Z690 Taichi motherboard combined with the exact same ram used in the Ryzen 7000 Setup.

The Ryzen 5000 setup consists of an Asus X570 motherboard and 2x sticks of Thermaltake Thoughram 3600Mhz CL18.

Each setup has been used with an individual Samsung 980 Pro SSD, a be quiet! Dark Power Pro 12 power supply and an Asus TUF RTX 3090 TI GPU.

The result of each benchmark shown below is an average value gained upon 3 individual runs.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Cinebench R23 Single Thread

Considering how well AMD's Ryzen 7000 Lineup already performed in Cinebench Single-Core performance not including their flagship, it was astonishing to see there was still more performance to squeeze out.  With 2035 points, the 7590X took the first spot with a 16% increase compared to the previous generation and a 26% increase compared to Intel's Flagship 12900k.

Cinebench R23 Multi Thread

Adding all threads to the workload showcased the absolute dominance of AMD's Flaship. At 38k points, the 12900k landed over 40% behind.

Handbrake h264-h265

Transcoding a 1Gb video file took a whole 187 seconds for the 7950x. Compared to Intel, that's an 36% increase, and compared to the older 5950X generation, it's a 39% increase.

Premiere Pro

Rendering out a 2-minute-long timeline with various effects was just as quick at 168 seconds, 10 seconds quicker than Intel's 12900k.

Time Spy

Looking closer at 3DMark Time Spy's CPU score, the 7590X did not manage to stay at the top anymore. With slightly over 16.000 points, it landed at the third spot behind the 12900, and 12700k. 

Corona Render

Rendering the usual Corona image revealed that it took a total of 36 seconds for the 7950X, 28% faster than the 12900K, and 35% faster than the 5950x.

Blender 

In Blender, the same dominance appeared again. Taking 60 seconds, the 7950x outperformed the 12900k by 35% while the 5950x was 31% behind.

3DMark CPU Profile

3DMark's CPU profile test confirmed what every benchmark before suggested. While AMD's Ryzen 7000 Lineup dominated the charts for 1-2-4-and 8 threads, as soon as 16 were activated, the 7950x's full potential opened up and the difference to a 12900k rose to 37%+.

Gaming Benchmarks

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

In SOTR, we saw the exact same thing as with most other Ryzen 7000 chips. With exactly 260fps average, the 7590x/7700x/7900x all stated 23% in front of the 12900k.

Far Cry 6

In Far Cry 6, the 7590X managed to stay in the upper segment with a 34% better average FPS counter compared to the 12900k.

Metro Exodus

In Metro Exodus, the 7950x scored the lowest of all Ryzen 7000 scores. At 200FPS Average, it still managed to stay 34% ahead of the 12900k.

F1 2020

Formula 1 repeated exactly the same behavior, with 418FPS, the 7950x scored the lowest Ryzen 7000 score, but still 34% in front of the 12900k.

Ryzen 7950x vs 5950x

Comparing the new top-tier CPU to the previous generation's one revealed the exact same results as any other Ryzen 7000 chip. With an average performance increase of 30%, you can expect every task, application or workload to perform 30% quicker.

Ryzen 5950x vs 12900k

Comparing AMD's top-tier CPU to Intel's top-tier i9 12900k revealed that Intel is in serious trouble right now. Although 3 scores ended up being slightly in Intel's favor, the vast majority of our benchmark results showed that AMD is between 6% and 41% ahead of what Intel has to offer at this time. 

Keeping this huge head-start in mind, it will be incredibly interesting to see if Intel can close this gap with their upcoming 13th gen lineup.

However, as of now, it is clear that there is no consumer-grade CPU available that offers more power than a 7950x. 

Summary

Absolutely incredible performance. There is no other way to put it. As of now, the Ryzen 9 7950X is the most powerful CPU we have ever worked with. 

Thanks to its 30% uplift compared to the previous generation and DDR5 support, the 7950X offers a lot to new buyers right now. If however, the uplift is sufficient to justify the purchase of a new Motherboard and Ram is still up to you and your specific workload.

Looking at the 7950X as an independent product and comparing it to everything else available as of now, it is by far the most powerful workhorse that takes away any argument for going with an alternative product. Thanks to its 16% average performance uplift compared to Intel's 12900k, we cannot think of any performance-related reason not to choose the 7950X.

Although the performance might be impressive, the price is too. At $699, it is surely not an affordable product, not even talking about the still expensive DDR5 Memory and incredibly expensive AM5 Socket motherboards.

But this is the price that performance comes for. And in order to look at the product realistically, we also need to admit that this level of performance is not required for the vast majority of people. 

Considering only the gaming use cases, there is absolutely no reason to choose a 7950x over a 7600x.

And considering only the working-related use cases, we can say that a 7900x will be sufficient, or probably even a bit too much, for 'most' use cases. And only in the very marginal, extremely high-performance demanding use cases, a 7950x will become a smart choice. However, in those use cases, the budget also tends to be bigger.

So keeping this in mind, we can say that we are absolutely stunned by what this little chip had to offer. However, we also believe that this is not a chip for the average consumer. The 7600x is much better suited for most use cases, while the 7900x is best suited for people who are performing heavy-duty workloads. The 7950x on the other hand is only for the type of people that are aware of how to truly utilize its full potential.