AMD Ryzen 9 3950X review - Introduction

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 
More, Better, Faster, Stronger

It is a very busy month processors wise. Both Intel and AMD have been hard at work offering you their finest in raw processing performance. The review today hardly will need an introduction, the monolith in the consumer space, and not even HEDT, is here - the sixteen-core processor in the Ryzen 3000 family, the Ryzen 9 3950X. It is (very) fast, feisty, agile and albeit a lot of money, affordable. Join us un a review of the Ryzen 9 3950X processor. To date we reviewed all series 3000 processors from AMD, however, one review has been missing, that 16-cores and 32-threads part. AMD has been on a roll with the ZEN2 architecture, and there's no stopping them much to the worry of their competitors. A chiplet design, X570 Chipsets. We will be performing a review on the flagship Ryzen 3000 series processor. From top to bottom they have been able to compete with Intel. With its ZEN2 architecture developed under the codename 'Matisse' AMD has been introducing a line of processors starting at hexacore processors in the entry-level to mainstream segment. Followed by eight and twelve cores for the mainstream to high-end, and up to 16-core Ryzen processors for the enthusiast and more demanding end-user. It is jawbreaking when you think about what AMD has accomplished in, what has it been, two years' time? Sure, the initial ZEN Ryzen processors had a bit of a rocky launch with the inter-core latency discussion, 1080p gaming performance as well as memory support. But the tide turned with each month that passed, and over time more and more people would actually consider an AMD processor-based PC for their next purchase. That shift in the paradigm is big when you think about Intel's monopolized position in the desktop processor market. When AMD launched the 12nm update of Zen, called Zen+, the memory compatibility issues were mostly all gone, of course, and with a move to 7nm Ryzen 3000, the 3rd generation Ryzen products, AMD is about to rattle the cages once again with a massively strong and competitive processor lineup. 

A task manager screenshot that makes any grown man giggle like a little girl

Ryzen Series 3000

Ryzen series 3000, developed under the codename 'Matisse', is fabricated based on a 7nm node with a chiplet design (multiple chips in a package). Ryzen has been a successful run for AMD ever since the first generation Ryzen was launched. Intel might still be having the advantage of faster per core frequencies, but their processors have had it rough with an immense amount of security vulnerabilities and, defacto, that has been having an effect not just on their reputation but, with all the security patches, also performance. AMD has been far less affected. Continuing the story, over time, AMD got up-to-snuff with proper memory support, and while Intel was and still is faster in super-high-end game performance due to their high Turbo clocks, a lot of you waited and sat things out as 7nm would be the fabrication node where all hope and differences are to be found. Well, Ryzen 3000 is offering twice the density at half the power, at roughly 1.25x the performance. Gamers, in particular, should be well-served as the combination of increased IPC at 15% as well as increased Turbo frequencies should bring game performance up-to-snuff with the competition.

This article uses a base narrative for all Ryzen 3000 processors, in this review we test the 16-core and 32-threads Ryzen 9 3950X.

• Ryzen 9 3950X (16c/32t) priced at 749 USD

We’ll go into detail on the next pages. The Ryzen 3000 series 5, 7 and 9 processors are six up-to sixteen-core processors, competitively priced combined with a proper performance increase over the last generation products. Of course, there's also Threadripper 3000 for the heavy workload end-users, from which you'll learn more soon enough.  We have lots to talk about and to look at, let’s start up the review.