The Ryzen 9 7950X is the new performance king and the jack of all trades, apart from maybe power consumption and pricing, of course. The Zen 4 flagship can do everything exceptionally well.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Review: The New Performance King
- Thread starter Steve
- Start date
maroon1
Posts: 184 +207
For gaming only, this CPU is overpriced.. Almost no difference over Ryzen 5 7600X
Only reason to buy if you want to do heavy productivity
Power consumption is way higher than 5950X. No improvement in efficiency over Desktop Zen 3
Only reason to buy if you want to do heavy productivity
Power consumption is way higher than 5950X. No improvement in efficiency over Desktop Zen 3
Great for productivity, but for gaming the 3D chips is what people will want to wait for. The 5800x3D still looks amazing.
dangh
Posts: 1,246 +2,033
I think that's pretty clear, this money is for productivity only, and 7700X is the best option for a gaming machine, if someone wants to get into a new generation.
Exactly same were true with 3950 and 5950. Games do not use so many concurrent threads to utilise what this CPU have to offer.
Solid review.
I think it would be interesting to show temps and clock speeds running these CPUs in ECO Mode (65W and 105W TDP).
I think it would be interesting to show temps and clock speeds running these CPUs in ECO Mode (65W and 105W TDP).
takaozo
Posts: 944 +1,479
Once games list R5 5600x as minimum recommended CPU I will think about changing it.
Stock, true. Put it in eco mode, even 65w, and it's still faster than a 5950x at 2/3 the power draw.
Stock = as fast as possible
Eco = much more efficient and still faster than last gen
True. Anandtech have more details on this. But it's disappointing that AMD have chosen to chase the performance headlines to squeeze the performance to the max at the cost of going well beyond efficient power levels. IMO anyway.
Looking at the gaming benchmarks it looks like most game engines only scale to 6 cores and any improvements on higher tiered CPU's is down to clock speed and cache improvements. I'm definitely tempted to get a 5800X3D as just wait a few more years before a full system replacement, I'm still on a B350 motherboard as well.
Ohnooze
Posts: 613 +1,185
So I'm no PC guru and maybe I'm off here but from a gaming standpoint these benchmarks are only relevant at 1080p I guess? Would seem to me that at higher resolutions there would be almost zero difference between this CPU and more mid ranged CPUs?
wiyosaya
Posts: 9,760 +9,644
Great review.
IMO, its good to see that AMD decided to price this CPU lower than the last generation. Perhaps this will put pressure on Intel to do something similar, and move, IMO, prices in the "right" direction generation to generation. $2K for Intel's HEDT procs was just insane, IMO.
It will be interesting to see AMDs TR series for this generation, even though I expect they will be far out of my price range. The 7950X is about as pricey as I will go.
I can't say that I'm too concerned about power usage - but that's because I have a couple of Seasonics, one at 1200W and the other at 1000W that I have never fully used and I will reuse for new builds.
IMO, its good to see that AMD decided to price this CPU lower than the last generation. Perhaps this will put pressure on Intel to do something similar, and move, IMO, prices in the "right" direction generation to generation. $2K for Intel's HEDT procs was just insane, IMO.
It will be interesting to see AMDs TR series for this generation, even though I expect they will be far out of my price range. The 7950X is about as pricey as I will go.
I can't say that I'm too concerned about power usage - but that's because I have a couple of Seasonics, one at 1200W and the other at 1000W that I have never fully used and I will reuse for new builds.
Theinsanegamer
Posts: 5,438 +10,206
Nope. rez doesnt matter, a 16 core CPU is a waste for gaming.
Also, if a CPU is notably faster to the point of uselessness, it simply means that chip is going to be useful many years into the future, more so then the cheaper chips. See also - sandy bridge core i7s. As they age those absurdly fast CPUs will have the overprovisioning to continue being useful.
Irata
Posts: 2,288 +4,002
Thanks for the nice review. You describe the 7950X very nicely
‚ As a professional-grade product, the 7950X is sensational, but as a gaming CPU it's overkill and a bit pointless‘
How do you expect this to happen ? It‘s essentially Alder Lake with a few more e-cores, more cache and higher clock speeds.
I really don‘t see the 13900 coming anywhere near the 7950x in terms of productivity.
Speaking of the 13400 - you know that all 13th gen Core CPU below the 13600K are just rebadged Alder Like processors, right ? As in - actually Alder Lake, not Raptor Lake.
‚ As a professional-grade product, the 7950X is sensational, but as a gaming CPU it's overkill and a bit pointless‘
How do you expect this to happen ? It‘s essentially Alder Lake with a few more e-cores, more cache and higher clock speeds.
I really don‘t see the 13900 coming anywhere near the 7950x in terms of productivity.
Speaking of the 13400 - you know that all 13th gen Core CPU below the 13600K are just rebadged Alder Like processors, right ? As in - actually Alder Lake, not Raptor Lake.
That has always been the case. If one was buying the 12-16 models on Zen 3 and only gaming. And not gaming and streaming at the same time that was a waste of money.
And an efficiency gain was not to be expected here since they increase TDP and Clocks whatever gains they had from 5nm was used up by those two items. If you want you can run the 170TDP models at 105 or 65 watts with ECO mode in the bios.
Excuse me, I should have prefaced gaming and the 7600x specifically.
Also, contrary to what you say, the 13400 gets 4 e cores, a 200mhz boost along with more cache vs 12400. Thats quite the re-badge…
Definitely, I mean, with the prices of Zen 3 processors or 12600K it just doesn't make any sense to spend big $ on Zen 4 gen processors, DDR5, $299 + motherboards for gaming. All of that nets you what, 10-15% more frames in CPU bound situations? Your best bet is stick with DDR4 and a good $150 range MB and the plethora of great gaming CPUs under $300 and spend the money on the GPU. This is a big leap for productivity, but a very minor leap for gaming in general as you'll be GPU bound in resolutions above 1080p in most new games. The vast majority of gamers don't need and don't care about 200+ fps.
Last edited:
CapNemo72
Posts: 34 +64
I would like to see that too.
For the time being, I am not purchasing new hardware. It is "wait & see".
CapNemo72
Posts: 34 +64
In some way true. But, AMD CPU is still using less power than the comparable Intel CPU.
If Intel can, why AMD could not go for higher power?
CapNemo72
Posts: 34 +64
I have an old Threaripper 1950x (180W TDP), so higher than both 3950x and 7950x:
And I am cooling that with air cpu cooler (Arctic 33 TR). When I use it at 100%, it almost never goes over 80C. This was 35 bucks cooler. The price jumped to 50. If you have money for 7950x, you probably have money for a good cooler.
A very good 360 AIO water cooler goes for 130 bucks. Not that expensive ( relative to the CPU in case).
Intel is already using more power, do you think their next one will use less?
Please, compare actually usage not their official tdp as they calculate those differently.
Only good old measure at the power cable is relative and truthful.
MarcusNumb
Posts: 154 +299
Nice review, gj Techspot
I will skip this whole generation cause it does not make sense to me, for gaming focus. Anw, the 7950x is a beast for productivity and it can totally justify all the extra costs (custom cooling, expensive MOBO, new PSU, monthly electric bills, etc).
I'm starting to believe that the old CPU and GPU generations are actually the best for gamers, looking at the trend of pushing TDP higher and higher. For gamers who build a new system or even upgrade, there are plenty of good deals.
I will skip this whole generation cause it does not make sense to me, for gaming focus. Anw, the 7950x is a beast for productivity and it can totally justify all the extra costs (custom cooling, expensive MOBO, new PSU, monthly electric bills, etc).
I'm starting to believe that the old CPU and GPU generations are actually the best for gamers, looking at the trend of pushing TDP higher and higher. For gamers who build a new system or even upgrade, there are plenty of good deals.
BadThad
Posts: 1,360 +1,634
Indeed! I did my "future proofing" two years ago with my i9-10850 purchase. It's MORE than enough CPU for anything I do and enough cores for the future.
I've been chasing CPU upgrades for 30 years. It's not like it used to be. Most modern CPU's in the past few years are more than enough for the majority of people. Honestly, I regret not holding on to my trusty 4770K for a few more years. The upgrade to the 10850 is barely noticeable for what I do other than distributed computing where the cores/speed do make a difference.
Stingy McDuck
Posts: 300 +268
Raytracing is changing that in some games. Spiderman goes crazy with CPU requeriments.
Similar threads
- Locked
