zen 4 AMD's Reviewers Guide for the Ryzen 9 7950X3D Leaks: 6% faster in gaming than Core i9-13900K and 16% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X (Updated)

[BiG StroOnZ]

Summary

HD-Tecnologia have leaked new data from the confidential AMD Ryzen 7000X3D review guide, showcasing the gaming performance of AMD's 3D V-Cache technology on their flagship 16-core Zen 4 processor design. The leak includes data that shows the flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D model tested against the Core i9-13900K with both Radeon RX 7900 XTX and NVIDIA RTX 4090 GPUs. For those that can't wait until next week's reviews, this gives a glimpse of what to expect, at least based on the games tested by AMD.

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes

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AMD put the Ryzen 9 7950X3D up against Intel's Core i9 13900K, both systems were equipped with 32 GB of DDR5-6000 memory, liquid cooling and used identical 980 PRO 1TB SSDs for storage. Both systems were also using Windows 11. Tests were done with both AMD's own Radeon RX 7900 XTX and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.

 

In all, we consider AMD's choice of games to test a strange lineup, with many of the games below being older titles (Warhammer: Dawn of War III released in 2017), and some of the games are so easy to run on PC that AMD's quoted average framerates are over 250 FPS in most cases. Simply put, AMD should have put more demanding PC games in this comparison, games where large performance gains would be worthwhile to gamers.  

 

The upcoming Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor, outperforms Intel's i9-13900K by 5.6% in 22 games when paired with the Radeon RX 7900 XT. The differences in performance range from 26.9% in Horizon Zero Down to Intel's superiority in games like Far Cry 6.

 

When paired with an RTX 4090, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is 6% faster than the i9-13900K and up to 16% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X.

 

The review guide also reveals synthetic benchmark data for the CPU. It appears to confirm Ryzen wins in 7zip and DolphinBench.

 

However, in multicore performance, Intel comes out on top in almost all tests, including popular ones like Cinebench R23 and Geekbench 5.4.

 

Again, we are disappointed that we are not seeing benchmarks for more CPU-heavy games within this benchmark comparison. Data for games like Microsoft Flight Simulator, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide and other more modern CPU-heavy games would have been welcome. 

 

My thoughts

This is about what I expected of the 3D V-Cache parts from Zen 4. I also think something to keep in mind is these results are from testing done directly by AMD, therefore, they are probably going to be the best case scenario. There are obviously some promising results in certain games, however, on average, the results aren't spectacular. I think this also goes to show how fast of a CPU the 13900k is, considering this flagship halo tier CPU coming from AMD only bests it by 5.6% on average. I know some people were expecting more, and maybe we will see that come embargo lift from some other independent reviewers. For now though, these results aren't too amazing. I'm wondering what independent reviewers are going to say if their results are similar. Don't get me wrong, results of up to 27% faster than the 13900k or 41% faster than the standard 7950X are nothing to scoff at. However, these results don't seem to be frequent, at least in this particular testing suite. Nonetheless, official launch is next week, so I will wait until then before making any immediate conclusions.

 

Sources

https://www.hd-tecnologia.com/segun-amd-el-ryzen-9-7950x3d-es-6-mas-rapido-que-el-i9-13900k-y-16-mas-rapido-que-el-ryzen-9-7950x-en-juegos/

https://overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/leaked_amd_review_guide_reveals_amd_s_ryzen_9_7950x3d_s_gaming_performance/1

https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-ryzen-9-7950x3d-is-6-faster-in-gaming-than-core-i9-13900k-according-to-leaked-amd-review-guide

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/amd-ryzen-9-7950x3d-is-6-faster-in-gaming-than-core-i9-13900k.html

https://www.techpowerup.com/305181/amds-reviewers-guide-for-the-ryzen-9-7950x3d-leaks

 

Update

 

Official Benchmarks and Reviews for the 7950X3D are live ~

 

Summary

Today, AMD lifts the embargo on their Ryzen 7000X3D series. AMD delivers its second-generation 3D V-Cache processors and we start out by testing the Ryzen 9 "Zen 4" 7950X3D CPU.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes

 

TweakTown

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Getting right into our results, we tested three games we had available with built-in benchmarks alongside both Timespy and Speed Way from UL - the games included Cyberpunk 2077, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Far Cry 5. Cyberpunk showed a nice 26-frame boost over the OG 7950X and was the best AMD offering in our chart. Compared to the 13900KS, we have a near-dead heat with both CPUs getting similar FPS.

 

Tomb Raider saw a 19 FPS increase with the 3D offering compared to the OG. 282 FPS at 1080p followed by 210 FPS at 1440p and 128 FPS at 4K. If we go back to the KS comparison, the 7950X3D gains some ground here, grabbing a narrow 6 FPS lead. Far Cry 5 showed a substantial boost to gaming performance, the 3D 7950X grabbing 221 FPS at 1080p, a jump of 43 FPS compared to the original 7950X.

With that all behind us, AMD's 7950X3D is a rather interesting SKU that does see benefits in gaming over the standard 7950X offering. That said, application performance is nearly nonexistent with this CPU as the low clocks and lack of boost over 5GHz in real-world testing take away all of the performance we saw with the original 7950X.

 

Furthermore, when we tested clock speed variation in a gaming workload, Timespy, in this case, half the CPU was sitting idle at its base clock speed. This enforces the idea that this SKU isn't entirely needed in the product stack, as an offering like the 7800X3D will be nearly $250 cheaper while offering the same level of performance. Still, if you want the best of the best when it comes to outright gaming, it's the best AMD offers, but it may be worth waiting to see what the 7800X3D can do.

 

At the time of writing, the Ryzen 9 "Zen 4" 7950X3D is certainly the best gaming CPU in AMD's Zen 4 AM5 portfolio, but we don't really know what the 7800X3D is going to look like, so we would hold off purchasing for now

 

TechPowerUp

Quote

Next up, gaming performance. Here we the 7950X3D is a clear winner compared to the Ryzen 7000 CPUs without 3DV-Cache. In some games the differences are shocking, especially at lower resolution, like Battlefield V (+34%), Far Cry 6 (+27%), Elden Ring (+24%), Cyberpunk (+23%). On average we see a 14% FPS uplift at 1080p for the 7950X3D vs the 7950X, which is comparable to what 5800X3D gave us vs the 5700X (+16%). It seems that the game detection failed in some titles like Spider-Man and God of War, which post higher numbers when we override the AMD software and use the "prefer cache" BIOS setting. If you encounter such a case, it's really easy to fix though. Press Win+G to open Microsoft Game Bar overlay, click on settings and tick the "remember this is a game" checkbox. Done! No fiddling with executable names or the registry. Still, I suspect that a vast majority of people will not be aware of this solution, or even the fact that the game detection might not work on all games, that's why AMD must ensure they track down these cases and fix them quickly. Thanks to their software-based approach, pushing out fixes should be trivial and can be done in a matter of days, while Intel needs to go down a much more complicated route. I'm not sure if they ever updated anything in Thread Director yet, there certainly isn't any public record of it.

Gaming performance compared to Intel's Core i9-13900K is slightly higher at 1080p, but at 1440p and 4K, the Intel CPU wins, by a small margin. Here again, the 13900K's higher operating frequency is what makes the difference. Of course, if the game scales well with more cache, like the titles I mentioned before, there's simply no stopping the 7950X3D. At 4K, where the bottleneck is with the GPU, the differences are fairly small, and just 5% separates a big range of processors, including the 5800X3D, which is still a fantastic solution for gamers, especially if they already have an AM4 platform setup.'

You will certainly see reviews today where the 7950X3D is considerably faster on average than in our review. If we only tested Far Cry, Elden Ring and Cyberpunk the delta would be +18% vs 13900K, and if we had Age of Empires, Mount and Blade II Bannerlord and Spider-Man only, the difference would be -19% vs 13900K. Test scene selection is also very relevant, AMD's own reviewer's guide lists the 13900K as faster than 7950X3D in Cyberpunk 2077, I see the opposite, same in Far Cry 6. Maybe they're using the integrated benchmark, I use actual gameplay in all tests. At the end of the day what matters to you is the games that you play.

 

If you run a mix of workloads, both gaming and demanding applications, then I would pick the 3DV-Cache version any day over the 7950X. If your core focus is gaming and you only run light applications and browsing, then the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is certainly overkill and you should wait for the 7800X3D in April. Intel's Raptor Lake lineup is still very strong, the 13900K offers outstanding performance in applications and games for $570, the $130 difference to 7950X3D could go towards a faster GPU. If you want a CPU that's "good enough" for 4K with a high-powered GPU, then Intel Core i5-13600K for $290 is hard to beat. If you already have a AM4 setup, then upgrading to the 5800X3D is a great alternative, because you only need a new CPU and can continue using motherboard and memory. It will be interesting to see what happens next, how 7800X3D can affect the AM5 value proposition, and whether upcoming A620 chipset motherboards can help bring the platform cost down.

 

My thoughts

I think this is a good showing for AMD, as it readily trades blows with the 13900K and 13900KS. There are also many games where it clearly takes the lead. I think the scheduler needs some work, and I think in that regard the 7800X3D will probably be better without too much issues regarding CCDs. 

 

Sources

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/10357/amd-ryzen-9-zen-4-7950x3d-cpu/index.html

https://videocardz.com/150677/amd-ryzen-9-7950x3d-desktop-cpu-review-roundup

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/amd-ryzen-9-7950x3d/

 

Video Reviews:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SorryBella]

3 minutes ago, BiG StroOnZ said:

considering this flagship halo tier CPU coming from AMD only bests it by 5.6% on average.

And higher MSRP. I hope the 7700X3D and 7600X3D can come with better pricing.

[Gougeface]

I mainly play csgo and valorant, and looks like a downgrade from the 7950x which has higher fps but maybe thats because it has a higher base freq.

[YoungBlade]

I like how Ashes is now a "gaming" benchmark that favors Intel's top chip.

 

Oh how the turn-tables...

[porina]

Reminds me of when 5800X3D came out. Technically it might be a win, but over a wide spread of games there were hits and misses, and an average win by small margin isn't decisive. Other factors may be more important in choosing a CPU.

[LAwLz]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

Reminds me of when 5800X3D came out. Technically it might be a win, but over a wide spread of games there were hits and misses, and an average win by small margin isn't decisive. Other factors may be more important in choosing a CPU.

I agree.

Factors like price. Buying a 700 dollar CPU to play games is not exactly a good way of spending money, unless you have more money than sense and just wants the best for bragging rights, and then plan on upgrading it next year when something for half the price beats it in benchmarks.

 

These products, both the 7950X3D and the i9-13900K, are awful products. Stupid and bad, and I would pretty much never recommend anyone buy them. They just exist for marketing purposes and should honestly be ignored.

[BiG StroOnZ]

11 minutes ago, SorryClaire said:

And higher MSRP. I hope the 7700X3D and 7600X3D can come with better pricing.

 

Exactly, the 7950X3D is launching for $699. While the 13900K retails for $569. Meaning the 13900k costs nearly 20% less. The 7800X3D will launch for $449 and according to rumors it will allegedly be faster than the 7900X3D and 7950X3D. However, as far as I'm aware, there is no 7600X3D in the pipeline.     

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Think the most interesting x3d would be the 7800x3d, all the cores have 3dvcache and not as expensive as the 7950x3d, besides a gamer doesnt need 16 cores especially when the other 8 cores dont even have the extra cache

 

Would be interested to see how far ppl are gonna push these new x3d chips with bclk

[OhYou_]

intel finished and bankrupt

[porina]

Some more random thoughts: the 13900KS also exists. Don't know how long it has been out, but I see it in stock at one of my preferred suppliers. It wont be for everyone, but for people after "the best" it remains a consideration. That also reminds me: ram speed. How did AMD do their testing? Generally they would run officially supported speeds, or at least have a data point for it if not. An actual system builder will find some fast XMP ram, especially if a buyer can afford a top end CPU, you probably want to pair it with high end ram too. This matters less for X3D CPUs since the large cache mitigates the need for fast ram somewhat. As Intel doesn't have that, so might see more scaling with ram.

 

Edit: poking around the sources I see the testing was with 6000 ram on both systems, so that is a reasonable speed ram for starters.

[TetraSky]

Intel next week : Releases the "13970K" to show they are committed to one upping AMD at every turn to keep the performance crown, no matter how much power it draws or how hot it runs.

[dizmo]

Really comes down to price then I guess. I haven't looked in a while, but if the total package cost is about the same then the AMD chip seems like a good choice. As long as they're ironed out their RAM teething issues, which seem to plague them for far longer then Intel. 

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I agree.

Factors like price. Buying a 700 dollar CPU to play games is not exactly a good way of spending money, unless you have more money than sense and just wants the best for bragging rights, and then plan on upgrading it next year when something for half the price beats it in benchmarks.

 

These products, both the 7950X3D and the i9-13900K, are awful products. Stupid and bad, and I would pretty much never recommend anyone buy them. They just exist for marketing purposes and should honestly be ignored.

What an odd stance to take. If someone can afford these, then they're getting the best of the best. Not everyone chases bang for the buck, nor do they have to. Lots of people have jobs where they bring in $12k+/month. If gaming is their hobby, it's not a stupid purchase. Even a completely balls out PC build, for example, is still 1/3 the price of a high end mountain bike and doesn't come with the necessary upkeep. 

[BiG StroOnZ]

Something Hassan Mujtaba from WCCFTech pointed out on Twitter was the following:

 

 

I just noticed this. Was there not a significant difference between the 7950X and 7950X3D that they simply decided to leave the figures out? As the standard 7950X can obviously run these games. 

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, BiG StroOnZ said:

Something Hassan Mujtaba from WCCFTech pointed out on Twitter was the following:

 

 

I just noticed this. Was there not a significant difference between the 7950X and 7950X3D that they simply decided to leave the figures out? As the standard 7950X can obviously run these games. 

I just assume they were not benched on the 7950x from that outlet. they also didnt bench FFXIV endwalker on the 7950x

Honestly, looks like a major win to me, it is the flagship, best value is never going to be there. 

[BiG StroOnZ]

1 hour ago, starsmine said:

I just assume they were not benched on the 7950x from that outlet. they also didnt bench FFXIV endwalker on the 7950x

Honestly, looks like a major win to me, it is the flagship, best value is never going to be there. 

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "that outlet" as these benchmarks were all conducted by AMD as far as I'm aware. I didn't notice FFXIV Endwalker either, good catch. Except they didn't put "na" there, they simply left it blank. That's kind of peculiar.

 

I mean the results aren't bad by any means and as a flagship it presents itself well. Obviously, pricing is not of the utmost concern when comparing halo tier products. This competes with the 13900KS on price and they probably trade blows. However, RedGamingTech made a YouTube video about these leaks and claimed that Reviewers Guides tend to be conservative sometimes with their findings. Perhaps independent reviewers might see better results. 

[Ripred]

I'd say if these numbers can be confirmed it's not bad for a just released result, lest we forget the temporary (still occasional hiccup)struggle Intel had with the new concept of P core and Ecores, these x3Ds are dual ccx one with cache the other without so it'll take a little maturing on the driver/ windows support side to really schedule properly, this new concept won't be as simple as best/fastest core anymore, its a what core works best in what game/program as in dose said software prefer speed or memory sensitivity, which I can imagine would be even more complicated than simply a priority/background tasks schedule for an Ecore, once that gets sorted I'll still wager these will impress 

[Doobeedoo]

I'm looking forward to see the 8 core. Eventually more esport titles and MMOs tested too.

[BiG StroOnZ]

More Benchmarks ~

 

Ryzen 9 7950X3D Beats Intel Flagship By 11% In Leaked Gaming Benchmarks:

 

 

 

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Assuming that those numbers are comparable, this would indicate that 7950X3D is on average 18% faster than 7950X and 12% faster than Core i9-13900K in these tests.

 

However, the margins were more pronounced in some games than others. For example, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D delivered up to 35% higher performance in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. 

 

In other games, such as Far Cry 5 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Ryzen 9 7950X3D was only 12% and 11% faster than the Core i9-13900K, respectively. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D's dominance in Metro Exodus dropped to 5%. The only victory for the Core i9-13900K was in Star Control, where the Raptor Lake barely edged out the Ryzen 9 7950X3D by a 2% margin.

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-leaked-gaming-benchmarks

https://videocardz.com/newz/alleged-amd-ryzen-9-7950x3d-gaming-benchmarks-with-geforce-rtx-3090-leak-out

[Arika]

On 2/25/2023 at 9:31 AM, OhYou_ said:

intel finished and bankrupt

Sad thing is i dont know if you're kidding because i have seen the same thing said unironically for the last few generations

[leadeater]

They are here!

 

 

[porina]

7950X3D vs 13900k gaming results

 

Techpowerup:

720p: +3.9%

1080p: +2.5%

1440p: +0.7%

4k: -0.1%

 

Toms Hardware:

1080: +13%

1440p: +7.7%

 

I didn't look at their exact test configuration which may explain any differences in scaling.

[igormp]

Phoronix also released their benchmarks, for anything non-gaming it's pretty  much useless (as was the 5800x3D), apart from CFD.

But if you work with CFD and are stuck with a dual channel platform, you're either a masochist or your job is F'ing you up.

 

https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen9-7950x3d-linux/

[starsmine]

12 minutes ago, igormp said:

Phoronix also released their benchmarks, for anything non-gaming it's pretty  much useless (as was the 5800x3D), apart from CFD.

But if you work with CFD and are stuck with a dual channel platform, you're either a masochist or your job is F'ing you up.

 

https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen9-7950x3d-linux/

I would hardly argue that case.
Even the review you linked 

Quote

Overall the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D performed very well on Linux for gaming and workloads where the large L3 cache via AMD 3D V-Cache really paid off

as what you posted is a MEAN, it means you have a bunch of workloads that are faster then the x3d and a bunch that are slower. (because clock speed) delta.
Also should be noted that the 7950x3d gets there at half the wattage, which for workstations or clusters can mater over time as you are generally loading them harder for longer. Its all about knowing your workloads

Toms has these graphs

[GoodBytes]

What I don't get, is that if you can afford these CPUs, you probably have a 4080 or 4090. And that means you are gaming at 4K (or plan to, if not yet). So then the performance advantage would, just not be there, or be minimal. No?

[igormp]

22 minutes ago, starsmine said:

I would hardly argue that case.
Even the review you linked 

I mean, I explicitly said:

46 minutes ago, igormp said:

for anything non-gaming

 

23 minutes ago, starsmine said:

as what you posted is a MEAN, it means you have a bunch of workloads that are faster then the x3d and a bunch that are slower.

Most had insignificant deltas, the significant ones were the CFD ones as I mentioned, which go into the exception in my previous post. I did look at all of the results, just posted the mean for an easier tldr.

25 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Also should be noted that the 7950x3d gets there at half the wattage, which for workstations or clusters can mater over time as you are generally loading them harder for longer.

Same can be achieved with ECO mode on regular 7950x, which would land it close to the x3d in that perf/w graph that you posted.

GamerNexus also tested this (click for timestamp):

 

Workstations aren't going to use such a puny mainstream desktop CPU, the lack of PCIe and channels make it worthless, unless your company is really budget-constrained.

 

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

What I don't get, is that if you can afford these CPUs, you probably have a 4080 or 4090. And that means you are gaming at 4K (or plan to, if not yet). So then the performance advantage would, just not be there, or be minimal. No?

Yes, but at 4k even a 5600 or 12th gen i3 would net really close performance to those high end CPUs, so it's mostly for hardcore gamers or people who like to take part into e-penis measurements (in case you're buying one of those CPUs just for gaming, ofc).