The Ryzen 9 9950X is the powerhouse of AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series processors. It stands at the top, and AMD even showcased it outperforming the Intel Core i9 14900K. We also had a chance to test the 9950X in-house for our Ryzen 9 9950X review, and its performance was exceptional.
Many focused on pitting Team Red and Blue against each other, as has always been the case. However, a recent estimated performance test saw the 9950X outperforming the M3 Pro, Apple’s best processor to date, meaning devices powered by the 9950X should have better performance than Macs featuring the M3 Pro CPU comparatively.
Ryzen 9 9950X vs M3 Pro estimated performance
According to a post from David Huang on X, the Ryzen 9 9950X outperforms the M3 Pro by a good margin running in the Debian 12 environment. You can read more about the benchmark in the original blog post, which has complete details of the tests, environments, and testing history.
These tests are done under specific circumstances, and if you change a couple of elements, the list could look different. For example, a game would have varying performance when paired with an Intel processor designed for that, while an AMD CPU would have a lower performance, comparatively. Even still, it demonstrates the power of the 9950X versus M3 measurably.
Furthermore, the other way around is also possible. This is just to explain that different processors can shine in specific use cases, and it is highly likely that the M3 Pro could outperform the 9950X in some Apple-specific workloads. On top of that, the competition is going to be even better when the next generation of Intel processors launches, as early Geekbench results show the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K beating the Ryzen 9 9950X in single-core and multi-core performance.
