In latest years, two has been quantity for AMD. More particularly—the second era of its CPU architectures. What the corporate begins within the first gen, it pushes ahead in some substantial method within the subsequent spherical. We noticed this in the course of the firm’s comeback on desktop, after which its surge ahead on laptops. Now Team Red’s doing the identical with its innovative 3D V-Cache choices.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD’s first 3D V-Cache processor, launched final summer season. Layered with further L3 cache, it was a gaming monster, however restricted to the only 8-core providing. When AMD’s own Ryzen 7000 series chips and Intel’s spectacular 13th-generation Raptor Lake parts launched final fall, the 5800X3D nonetheless held its personal towards them in video games, however lagged considerably in workstation duties that lean closely on extra cores.

Now AMD has launched 3D V-Cache variations of its fashionable Ryzen 7000 CPUs, increasing to 3 completely different SKUs: the 8-core $449 Ryzen 7 7800X3D (launching April 6), 12-core $599 Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and the flagship $699 Ryzen 9 7950X3D we’re testing at the moment. (The Ryzen 9 7900X3D and 7950X3D chips launch on February 28.) And since their announcement, everybody’s needed to know: Is the 16-core, 32-thread 7950X3D the gaming monster we had been anticipating? The reply is sure…however a professional sure.

You can learn extra technical particulars about these CPUs in our write-up about their initial reveal (plus watch our interview with AMD at CES about them), however we’re right here to spill the small print of our hands-on time with the flagship half. The deep dives are in our YouTube movies, which cowl the total gamut of our benchmarks—together with net browser and Microsoft Office efficiency—however for the most important takeaways, learn on.

This chip is unquestionably good in video games

If the 7950X3D is your first publicity to a processor with AMD’s 3D V-Cache, you would possibly look at a benchmark like Cinebench R23 and suppose it’s not so good as Intel’s flagship Core i9-13900Okay and Core i9-13900KS. But whereas Cinebench R23 is among the commonplace exams used to find out CPU efficiency, it doesn’t inform the entire story.

Just this one benchmark isn’t sufficient details about this chip. It wouldn’t be about any processor, however with different elements we’ve reviewed, you’ll have generally seen the massive bars in Cinebench (and different exams that isolate CPU efficiency) line up with the gaming outcomes. That’s not the case right here. In truth, even the person recreation benchmarks don’t point out a normal development, both. Not in isolation—you really want to see all of the gaming check leads to mixture.

For instance, take Watch Dogs Legion. On Ultra at 1080p, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D presents a 28 p.c uplift in efficiency in comparison with the usual 7950X. The soar up in World War Z is equally spectacular at 29 p.c. This lead holds towards the 13900KS and 13900Okay, too. In Watch Dogs Legion, the 7950X3D posted a 23 p.c improve over the quicker 13900KS and 25 p.c over the usual 13900Okay. Meanwhile, in World War Z, it’s virtually a 27 p.c soar in comparison with the 13900KS and 26 p.c versus the 13900Okay.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

But on the flip aspect, in Metro Exodus, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D drags relative to the 13900Okay, with a drop of virtually 15 p.c in efficiency. And in Cyberpunk 2077, it simply holds its personal towards the 13900Okay and KS, however nonetheless trails the vanilla non-3D Ryzen 9 7590X half by about 4 p.c.

Does this imply the 7950X3D is a failure? Heck no, take a look at the frames it places out. Even in Metro Exodus, you get 142fps on Extreme at 1080p. Fiddle with settings just a little and you may simply get above 144fps in the event you’re driving the next refresh-rate monitor.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Overall, in 7 of the 14 video games we benchmarked, you’ll get a lift of 8 p.c or extra in efficiency in comparison with the 7950X, and virtually 10 p.c or extra in comparison with the 13900Okay. But it additionally loses in six video games to the 13900Okay—with a couple of of them very clear losses. So you’ll must take inventory of what sort of video games you play (and at which resolutions), in addition to your required body charges when evaluating if this chip is best for you.

Further studying: The best CPUs for gaming

It holds up in heavy multi-threaded workloads, too

Many individuals come into benchmarks in search of shutouts—an entire sweep on the leaderboards for a processor to qualify nearly as good.

Like in video games, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D doesn’t ship an uncontested win in multi-threaded efficiency. You may very well be dissatisfied in the event you had been anticipating higher parity between the X and X3D elements in comparison with the Ryzen 5000 period. If you take a look at manufacturing benchmarks like Cinebench R23 and Handbrake, you’ll see the 7950X3D lag equally behind its X counterpart as with the 5800X3D and the 5800X. The delta isn’t monumental, however amongst flagship CPUs, even small variations stand out.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

This repeat of historical past doesn’t drop the Ryzen 9 7950X3D to trash tier, although. Arguably, the extra essential match-up is the 7950X3D towards the 13900Okay and the 13900Okay. Those two chips carrying way more mindshare, given their reputations for top-notch gaming and multi-threaded efficiency. 

In heavy workloads, the 7950X3D is extra capable of keep tempo with these two Team Blue choices. Not all the time—Cinebench R23 reveals a niche in efficiency of just a little over 10 p.c. And there’s a notable distinction in Handbrake, the place the 7950X3D is over 20 p.c slower. But in V-Ray’s ray-tracing benchmark and Blender’s rendering exams, the 7950X3D both edges out the 13900Okay and KS or pulls even.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

So as with gaming, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D’s utility in manufacturing work will rely on what packages you utilize most.

Intel nonetheless dominates for manufacturing work

Unfortunately for AMD, Adobe’s Creative Suite is a set of apps many individuals use, particularly these considering a giant, beefy CPU with many cores. And whereas few (if any) anticipated the Ryzen 9 7950X3D to ship numbers that its 7950X sibling didn’t, its decrease efficiency is tangible. In PugetBench’s Adobe Premiere Pro Standard Run benchmark, it’s a 30 p.c drop in efficiency in the event you swap from a 13900Okay or KS to the 7950X3D.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

In PugetBench’s Adobe Photoshop check, the distinction isn’t almost so eye-watering; you’re taking a look at drop of virtually 9 p.c. It shrinks even additional in Lightroom, with a roughly 3 p.c hole.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Given its advertising because the “ultimate processor for gaming,” AMD isn’t pushing this chip as a productiveness champion, however the 7950X3D goes to be a tough promote to heavy Premiere customers. A processor that chews by your each day workload equally in addition to it spits out tons of frames throughout off-hours appears much more interesting whenever you’re spending $1,000 to $1,300 together with a high-end AM5 motherboard. You get that with Intel, not AMD’s newest.

Die hopping is each easy and complex

On the opposite hand, lovers could have ample purpose to take the 7950X3D out for a spin—simply to see for themselves how the uneven stacking of L3 cache performs out in the true world. 

(Less-flush tech nerds could also be questioning who spends over $1K simply to tinker with new expertise. Yes, it’s completely a factor.)

Both the 7950X3D and the 7900X3D are twin die chips, with one die layered with further L3 cache and the second die tuned to run at increased frequencies. At their announcement, it was assumed that the stacked die would deal with gaming, whereas the opposite would deal with background duties and something that benefited from bursts of quicker clock pace.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

In observe, the system will default to working packages on the non-stacked die—except Windows (by way of the Xbox Game Bar) detects a recreation. Then that program and others get shunted over to the stacked die; the working system will park the second die’s cores. The second die stays seen to the OS the entire time. AMD says that in the event you want extra threads than obtainable on the stacked die, then Windows will deliver the non-stacked die again into service, albeit with some misplaced of clock pace on that die.

Want to run a non-gaming utility on the stacked cache die? You can manually mark it as a recreation utilizing the Xbox Game Bar. We really did that with Cinebench R23, so that you could roughly see the distinction in efficiency on the stacked die versus the non-stacked die.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

While these outcomes are a contact odd—observe the efficiency will increase within the center—it’s clear total that AMD’s methodology of dealing with the swap between its two dies isn’t analogous to Intel’s flipping between its efficiency and effectivity cores. It’s additionally extra obvious that the asymmetrical design helps preserve efficiency increased, given the drop in clock speeds when duties prolong throughout each dies.

The wanting it’s: You can’t count on to, say, run a recreation off the stacked die whereas streaming by way of OBS on the non-stacked die. Not but, anyway. This is the scenario at launch. AMD may (and sure will) proceed to refine how duties are assigned. In the meantime, in the event you’re itching for extra guide management, you possibly can go into the BIOS of your motherboard and alter the precedence order for the dies—e.g., “frequency” as an alternative of “cache,” or going again to the default of permitting AMD’s driver to resolve.

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It delivers top-notch energy effectivity

Power consumption isn’t the hill that remark wars are waged on. But even in the event you’re an individual working tons of incandescent bulbs in your house with out batting an eye fixed, the 7950X3D’s energy effectivity continues to be noteworthy. Despite its high-performance, it hits the juice comparatively mild, undercutting the 7950X, 13900Okay, and 13900KS by a considerable margin.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

During our Cinebench R23 multi-core check, the 7950X3D’s whole system energy draw dropped common wattage use by about 31 p.c in comparison with the 13900Okay, and 36 p.c versus the greedier 13900KS. It additionally slips beneath the 7950X by virtually 7 p.c. For the single-core benchmark, the chasm narrows to a far slimmer hole, however the 7950X3D stays the victor. The shocking loser: the 7950X, which we lauded at launch for energy effectivity in comparison with Intel’s 12th-generation Core i9-12900Okay.

Gordon Mah Ung / PCWorld

Many individuals don’t purchase CPUs for his or her energy effectivity—in all probability flagship chips least of all. If you want excessive efficiency, then you definitely’re shopping for excessive efficiency. Still, this represents a cool technical enchancment, and for individuals in areas with excessive spikes in utility charges, it might be a partial issue when selecting elements.

So, do you have to purchase the Ryzen 9 7950X3D?

AMD has undoubtedly improved on its high 3D V-Cache providing—your video games can get a hefty enhance from the combo of an extra-fat L3 cache and barely higher single-core efficiency than the usual 7950X. And in comparison with the 5800X3D, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D’s efficiency is extra even throughout the board.

But the important thing phrase is “can.” That enhance is determined by which video games you play. The 7950X3D lacks dominance as a gaming chip. General apps efficiency varies, too. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D would be the proper CPU for somebody—however you’ll must first assessment what you propose to do with it. It’s not an all-around winner.

So potential patrons ought to ask themselves: Is world-class gaming efficiency your first precedence? Can you stand barely slower efficiency in closely multithreaded purposes and duties? Is power effectivity essential to you? And do you’ve the cash to spend on that in comparison with a 7950X or 13900Okay?

Willis Lai / Foundry

Because whereas spending greater than $500 on a processor possible means cash’s much less of a difficulty, at launch, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D prices about $100 to $125 greater than the 7950X. Street costs for the usual X half have drifted down. Likewise, the Intel Core i9-13900Okay goes for the same quantity, regardless of the looming threat of price hikes.

But even in the event you understand that one other chip fits your wants higher, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D continues to be extremely thrilling. AMD could not have come out the gate with an Intel-crushing entry, however spherical two for the corporate has traditionally been nonetheless a part of constructing section. It makes progress—and went from its eight-core, sixteen thread 5800X3D on a single die to now packing 3D V-Cache onto its higher-end dual-die elements. 

The third era is when AMD bulldozes—in each optimistic sense of that phrase. Ryzen 5000 on desktop completely crushed, and Ryzen 6000 in laptops cemented AMD as an possibility value consideration. So the third set within the match may put the corporate again on high. For now, the $699 Ryzen 9 7950X3D presents ample gaming and productiveness firepower alike to the precise particular person.