AMD has yet to officially announce the launch dates for its upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D processors. However, they’re just around the corner based on the company’s Q1 release window and rumors point towards March 12 availability. That means reviews are soon on the way and one hardware reviewer seems to have pulled the trigger early as benchmark tests have been leaked online.

Last week, we saw some early benchmarks for this pair of Ryzen 9 chips that helped us gauge how they perform versus the current line-up – and now we have a follow-up. As expected, multi-core performance is the biggest uplift here.

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AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

5 /5

Editor’s Rating

How We Review

Specifications

• Cores: 8
• Threads: 16
• Boost clock speed: 5.2GHz
• Base clock speed: 4.7GHz
• L3 cache: 96MB
• TDP: 120W
• Platform: AM5

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Ryzen 9 9950X3D tested in Cinebench single and multi-core benchmark

The flagship model has been shown off in various new benchmarks, but we’re most interested in how it performs in Cinebench, one of our standard synthetic benchmarks when we test CPUs. For example, when we reviewed the 9800X3D, factory settings scored 2,026 and 22,568 in single and multi-core tests respectively. In the table below, we’ll instead reference single-core and multi-core online leaderboards for a better overall average.

Predictably, the flagship boasts incredible multi-core performance thanks to its 16-core / 32-thread design – double that of the 9800X3D. This makes the Ryzen 9 processors exceptional for productivity workloads, while the Ryzen 7 chip is more hyper-focused on excellent gaming performance. Single-core performance is similar across the board, while Intel’s current flagship Core Ultra 9 285K pulls ahead ever so slightly in both disciplines.

AMD Ryzen X3D is still your best bet for gaming

Despite Intel’s flagship remaining slightly ahead in these latest benchmarks, it’s by a negligible amount. On top of that, Intel still doesn’t have an answer to X3D – AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology that has been a boon for gaming performance. These chips pack in a massive amount of L3 Cache. The 9950X3D has 128MB of it (32MB more than the 9800X3D).

This makes a difference for gaming and has demonstrated a notable boost – some titles more than others. Based on our in-house 9800X3D benchmarks, the latest 9000 series X3D chips pull ahead of the competition for gaming, particularly in CPU-bound titles such as Counter-Strike 2.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.