AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Evaluate



Within the desktop processor market, efficiency is commonly probably the most crucial criterion for comparability, but it surely isn’t the one necessary issue. Worth performs a task too, naturally, and energy consumption, warmth technology, and different concerns matter. That is necessary to remember with the topic of at this time’s assessment: the $499 AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and its fierce competitors with Intel’s competing Core i7-14700K. Neither processor actually has the sting on efficiency alone, however with these different elements in thoughts (and Intel’s present stumbles with its thirteenth and 14th Gen chips), the Ryzen 9 9900X has rather a lot going for it that the Intel competitors isn’t constructed to match.Detailing the Ryzen 9 9900X: A Dozen Lean Zen 5 CoresAMD’s Ryzen 9 9900X relies on AMD’s new “Zen 5” microarchitecture. It incorporates a dozen CPU cores unfold between two of AMD’s Core Advanced Dies (CCDs). These dies comprise eight cores every, however 4 out of these 16 have been disabled, doubtless attributable to slight defects within the underlying dies in the course of the fabrication course of—a variety course of sometimes called “binning.” Because of simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) expertise, every core can function two processing threads concurrently, giving it assist for as much as 24 concurrent threads whole.

(Credit score: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)

These specs additionally match the Ryzen 9 9900X’s predecessor, with the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X having the identical variety of cores and threads. With related clock speeds and each chips having the identical quantity of L3 cache at 64MB, you would possibly anticipate them to carry out fairly equally. Nonetheless, the Ryzen 9 9900X will get a lift from architectural enhancements, with extra L1 and L2 cache in addition to elevated inside bandwidth that provides it a leg up by way of efficiency. Its CPU cores had been additionally constructed on a 4-nanometer (nm) manufacturing course of, which ought to assist effectivity.
Additionally unchanged between the Ryzen 9 9900X and the Ryzen 9 7900X is the I/O die. AMD opted for a similar I/O die constructed on a 6nm course of for the Ryzen 9000 collection of processors because it used for the Ryzen 7000 collection. Because of this the PCIe 5.0 controller, the reminiscence controller, and the Radeon built-in graphics processor (IGP) carried out on that die are the identical between collection. Nonetheless, due to minor enhancements from manufacturing the I/O die for an prolonged interval, AMD has elevated the max official DDR5 reminiscence velocity supported by the 9900X from 5,200MHz to five,600MHz.

(Credit score: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)

Probably the most thrilling facet of the Ryzen 9 9900X by far is its listed thermal design energy (TDP) of 120 watts (W). That is 50W decrease than the TDP set on the Ryzen 9 7900X, suggesting that the processor attracts much less energy and generates much less warmth. Energy consumption isn’t all the time a key concern for desktop system builders, however warmth actually is. Take it from somebody working {hardware} exams all day: You’ll be able to generally tangibly really feel the distinction in room temperature when you will have a very power-hungry part working beside you.Except for not eager to warmth your own home, extra warmth isn’t perfect for the long-term lifespan of your parts or their efficiency, and better energy consumption can add up in your energy invoice over time, too. Merely put, decrease energy consumption and warmth technology are all the time helpful, as long as they don’t include a equally vital drop in efficiency. With that, let’s get onto the exams to see how this wattage discount pans out.Take a look at Setup and CompetitionFor testing functions, we paired the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with an ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard and 32GB of DDR5 RAM clocked on the processor’s max official reminiscence velocity of 5,600MHz. A Cooler Grasp MasterLiquid PL240 Flux water cooler actively cooled the processor in the course of the benchmarking course of. The system additionally has a 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD and a SilverStone DA850 850W energy provide—all constructed right into a Praxis Wetbench chassis. We carried out all exams inside Home windows 11 with the entire most up-to-date Home windows updates put in.We additionally added an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card to the system, which was used for all exams besides these centered on testing the IGP efficiency.

(Credit score: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)

Earlier than diving into the take a look at outcomes, we should acknowledge the present turmoil within the desktop processor market. Intel’s thirteenth Gen and 14th Gen desktop processors have been experiencing voltage supply and stability points, resulting in potential chip degradation. (It is sophisticated; see the main points in our explainer.) Intel is engaged on fixing this problem, however it could come at the price of efficiency. Intel’s desktop motherboard companions had been simply beginning to roll out the primary BIOS updates with microcode fixes at this writing.In gentle of this, it’s tough to advocate any thirteenth and 14th Gen desktop processors proper now. It additionally makes it difficult to match these processors with AMD’s pretty, as we don’t know what the efficiency affect of Intel’s patch could also be (or that of any underclocking you could carry out to keep away from damaging your personal processor). We’ve retained the scores achieved by the affected Intel processors unaltered in our outcomes right here. Till Intel’s patch comes out and we will take a look at it, that is our fairest means for evaluating these processors.Nonetheless, given Intel’s present points, we’ll give AMD the advantage of the doubt right here within the occasion of any close to ties and broaden our margin of error for what we think about a tie to five% versus our typical 3%.AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Exams: CPU PerformanceThe Ryzen 9 9900X’s fundamental competitor, the Intel Core i7-14700K, has a transparent benefit on general core rely and threads. With 20 cores to the 9900X’s 12, and 28 threads to the 9900X’s 24, it’s not notably shocking that the Core i7-14700K was quicker than the Ryzen 9 9900X within the multi-threaded Cinbench R23 take a look at. Nonetheless, it was solely quicker by 3%, and the Ryzen 9 9900X had higher single-threaded efficiency, additionally by a bit greater than 2%, which speaks volumes to the efficiency of AMD’s new Zen 5 CPU cores. Given Intel’s present points, I’d give the win to the 9900X on each fronts right here, although the 2 chips’ efficiency was undoubtedly shut. And the last-generation Ryzen 9 7900X was notably slower.
We bumped into a difficulty with Adobe Photoshop that prevented us from testing the Ryzen 9 9900X or Ryzen 9 9950X with this app. The issue seems to be associated to a software program problem and never because of the Ryzen 9 processors, so we’ll press on. In Premiere Professional, the Ryzen 9 9900X and the Core i7-14700K achieved near-identical scores; in HandBrake, the Intel chip completed simply 6 seconds sooner, and the 2 processors completed with nearly the identical completion occasions within the Blender and POV-Ray exams.Total, you may see little distinction within the CPU exams between the Core i7-14700K and the Ryzen 9 9900X, however as we talked about, we have counted these as wins for the Ryzen 9 9900X. That is because of the present crashing problem affecting Intel CPUs and the probability that the patch to repair that problem will in the end damage the efficiency of Intel CPUs by a minimum of a small margin—sufficient to separate these ties and widen these slender spreads. These ties and tiny margins are extra exceptional by the 9900X working at simply 120W in contrast with the i7-14700K’s 253W—lower than half the wattage for comparable efficiency.Likewise, although we haven’t crunched the numbers to offer an actual share improve for all exams, the Ryzen 9 9900X confirmed notable enhancements over the Ryzen 9 7900X in lots of benchmarks, displaying an honest uplift over the earlier technology.AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Exams: Gaming PerformanceOn 3DMark, we noticed some unusually low-performance outcomes for the Ryzen 9 9900X, however this can be a artificial take a look at, and the outcomes we acquired on that take a look at don’t mirror the relative outcomes we recorded from in-game benchmarks.
The GeForce RTX 3080 triggered our outcomes to bunch up barely in these exams, however the Ryzen 9 9900X nonetheless confirmed a 4% enchancment over the Ryzen 9 7900X in F1 22 on the 1080p decision. The Ryzen 9 9900X scored decrease in any respect resolutions than the Core i7-14700K in F1 22, but it surely was nicely throughout the margin of error on all counts.Guardians of the Galaxy confirmed the 9900X with a slight 3% lead over the Core i7-14700K at 1080p, and at 1440p, it did barely higher with a 4% lead over the Core i7-14700K and the Ryzen 9 7900X. The 9900X landed a noticeable win with Whole Struggle: Three Kingdoms with an 8% quicker body fee, whereas Tomb Raider scared up a small win for the Blue Staff rival.AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Exams: Built-in Graphics PerformanceThe Radeon IGP contained in the Ryzen 9 9900X has 128 shaders and is clocked at 2.2GHz. It’s equivalent to the IGP discovered within the different Ryzen 9000-series and 7000-series processors within the chart beneath, but it surely carried out usually worse than the Ryzen 7000-series chips in these IGP exams.
Hitting close to 60 frames per second in a comparatively trendy sport like F1 22 is first rate for an built-in graphics resolution, even when this was solely potential on the 720p decision. Although it’s a poor possibility for gaming, it could play in a pinch, notably working older titles like Bioshock: Infinite and Tomb Raider for those who flip the graphics settings down a methods. In these exams, we used max settings for these two video games, and each had been arguably playable at that with the 720p decision, however at 1080p, playability must also be attainable with decrease settings.AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Exams: Energy and ThermalsHere’s the place we get to place the Ryzen 9 9900X and its decrease 120W TDP to the take a look at for actual. We take a look at the facility consumption utilizing a Kill-A-Watt wall meter to gauge the system’s energy draw throughout choose exams.
Although they had been greater than anticipated, the Ryzen 9 9900X achieved fairly first rate energy numbers. It pulled a bit much less energy in the course of the Adobe Premiere Professional take a look at than its fundamental competitor, the Core i7-14700K. That’s not unhealthy, given the same efficiency, however the Cinebench R23 consequence was even higher. Right here, the Ryzen 9 9900X consumed 31% much less energy whereas reaching near-identical efficiency. That’s appreciable and one thing you would possibly discover long-term in your energy invoice for those who run many CPU-intensive functions.Idle energy draw was rather more disappointing, however the energy consumption of different parts, like the person motherboard, performs a much bigger position right here, and we can not say this distinction is totally right down to the processor. Ideally, we’d be capable of take a look at each chips on the identical platform to higher gauge the idle energy draw, however that merely isn’t potential between CPUs on two completely different socket sorts.The Ryzen 9 9900X consumed about the identical quantity of energy because the Ryzen 9 7900X at peak, which was additionally a little bit of a shock. Warmth technology is means down on the Ryzen 9 9900X, although. Throughout our Cinebench R23 take a look at, it achieved a max temperature of 80 levels Celsius, much better than the 95 levels Celsius of its predecessor or the 100 levels Celsius that the Core i7-14700K hit with the identical cooler.The decrease temperature that the Ryzen 9 9900X achieved calls the processor’s energy consumption into query. Usually, we see a direct correlation between energy draw and warmth technology, however with the Ryzen 9 9900X, we noticed an analogous energy draw to the Ryzen 9 7900X and decreased warmth technology. The almost definitely rationalization? Whereas the Ryzen 9 9900X hit an analogous peak energy consumption, its common energy consumption was decrease, enabling it to remain cooler.Nonetheless, in case your chip is hitting 80 levels Celsius with a 240mm water cooler, we’d advise you to stay with an analogous 240mm water cooler or a big air cooler to make use of with this processor. Although you would possibly be capable of use a cheaper cooler, 80 levels Celsius is a cushty working temperature, and utilizing a lesser cooler that may make it run hotter beneath load isn’t perfect.Verdict: Edging Out Intel With EfficiencyAMD’s Ryzen 9 9900X might not have scored a clear efficiency kill in opposition to its fundamental competitor, the Intel Core i7-14700K, but it surely racked up decisive wins in a minimum of two key areas: energy consumption, and warmth technology. Not everybody will probably be involved about these two variables, and a few might solely care about efficiency. From a pure efficiency standpoint, neither chip will get the outright win, although. Each are near-identical in that regard, a minimum of till Intel’s patch for its crashing problem is obtainable for all new motherboards and we and different retailers can assess its efficiency affect.Which means we should depend on different elements to find out which processor is finest. If we go along with the monetary distinction, then the Core i7-14700K would win. It’s accessible for round $399 from a number of retailers and has an MSRP of $409. Saving that $100 is tempting, however so is having a pc that runs cooler and attracts much less energy. You’ll doubtless save a few of that $100 again with the AMD processor by way of your electrical invoice, however it should take time, so one may simply argue for both possibility.

(Credit score: Michael Justin Allen Sexton)

You could possibly additionally lean towards the AMD possibility attributable to Intel’s thirteenth and 14th Gen voltage debacle. Nonetheless, we cannot pin this assessment totally on one doubtless non permanent problem affecting Intel, which the corporate is addressing. We merely haven’t evaluated the affect of that patch but to know what, if any, efficiency distinction it makes. Regardless, you may need extra peace of thoughts going with AMD given the circumstances. Understandably so; Intel has prolonged its guarantee on its thirteenth and 14th Gen boxed processors, however nobody actually is aware of the long-term effiicacy of the rising microcode fixes.Finally, private desire will play a task in deciding which is healthier. You may discover compelling and legitimate arguments in both route. As somebody who wants their PC to work, I’m inclined towards the AMD possibility. It’s extra reassuring to keep away from the Intel problem, and I’ve a Mini-ITX system that makes AMD extra alluring attributable to its higher warmth technology numbers. The real distinction in room temperature from hotter-running processors additionally makes me lean towards the AMD possibility, as I want much less AC and fan energy to chill my workplace. (Should you’re in Alaska, your mileage might range.)On the entire? Go together with the Core i7-14700K for those who actually can’t spend the additional $100 or are Intel brand-loyal (and also you’re certain there’s an accessible microcode patch for the LGA1700 motherboard you personal or are shopping for). In any other case, I’d advocate the Ryzen 9 9900X as the higher possibility.

Like What You are Studying?
Join Lab Report back to get the most recent critiques and prime product recommendation delivered proper to your inbox.

This text might comprise promoting, offers, or affiliate hyperlinks. Subscribing to a e-newsletter signifies your consent to our Phrases of Use and Privateness Coverage. Chances are you’ll unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.

About Michael Justin Allen Sexton

Analyst

For so long as I can keep in mind, I’ve had love of all issues tech, spurred on, partly, by a love of gaming. I started engaged on computer systems owned by speedy members of the family and family once I was round 10 years previous. I’ve all the time sought to study as a lot as potential about something PC, resulting in a well-rounded grasp on all issues tech at this time. In my position at PCMag, I drastically benefit from the alternative to share what I do know.I wrote for the well-known tech website Tom’s {Hardware} for 3 years earlier than I joined PCMag in 2018. In that point, I’ve reviewed desktops, PC circumstances, and motherboards as a freelancer, whereas additionally producing offers content material for the positioning and its sibling ExtremeTech. Now, as a full-time PCMag analyst, I am specializing in reviewing processors and graphics playing cards whereas dabbling in all different issues PC-related.
Learn Michael Justin Allen’s full bio

Learn the most recent from Michael Justin Allen Sexton

We will be happy to hear your thoughts

Leave a reply

dadelios.com
Logo
Compare items
  • Total (0)
Compare
0
Shopping cart