Final nail in the coffin: Bar-raising AMD Ryzen 9 5950X somehow lags behind four Intel parts including the Core i9-10900K in average bench on UserBenchmark despite higher 1-core and 4-core scores

Earlier this year there was quite a fuss made about UserBenchmark and its questionable scoring method in regard to results produced by Intel Comet Lake chips. The synthetic benchmark also found itself banned from numerous important tech-related subreddits but remains one of the most widely visited processor testing sites. However, the site has frequently been accused of operating with a heavy Intel bias, and current results and ranking for the 16-core, 32-thread Zen 3 AMD Ryzen 9 5950X won’t make those accusations go away.

Looking solely at the results of the Ryzen 9 5950X, which has been described as offering “a new level of consumer grade performance across the board” by the respected review site AnandTech, and it is clear to see the Vermeer CPU has benchmarked well on UserBenchmark. Unsurprisingly, the 16-core part amasses a huge score in the 64-core test (results in screenshots below) but as is well known UserBenchmark doesn’t place too much emphasis, or score, on multi-core benchmarks (“16 cores are only suitable for professional use cases”). However, AMD has been working hard on improving single-core performance with its Zen 3 architecture, and this is demonstrated with the Ryzen 9 5950X’s 1-core and 2-core scores. All of these impressive results deliver the Vermeer chip a decent average benchmark score of 100%.

Apparently, this great performance from the Ryzen 9 5950X (based on a comparatively low sample set of 134 units at the time of writing) is not enough to overtake the Intel Core i9-10900K…or the i9-10850K, i9-10900KF, or the i9-9900KS. If there was some score weighting based on price then it would be understandable as it is possible to pick up Intel’s 10-core i9-10900K for around US$540 at the moment whereas the Vermeer rival is pricey at US$799. But the UserBenchmark weighting is based on performance and core scores (“40% single-core, 58% quad-core, and 2% multi-core” according to Tom’s Hardware). So how does the Ryzen 9 5950X produce average scores of 188/901/2,943 points and still fall behind the Comet Lake chip on 183/878/1,990 points? Even discounting the huge 64-core result difference leaves the AMD CPU ahead – but the average benchmark remains 102% vs. 100% in Intel’s favor.

Is this the final nail in the coffin for UserBenchmark? Yes...at least for users looking for impartial results when benchmarking their CPU anyway. It’s vitally important for these synthetic benchmark sites to offer up fair testing for SKUs from all companies; an apparent bias to any semiconductor producer will lead to growing criticism. The site insists it is not affiliated with any company but once again has recently grown defensive in regard to its skewed scoring system: “AMD ‘fans’ continue to smear UserBenchmark via an army of anonymous accounts on Reddit, YouTube and forums.” But this is not a smear campaign…the site’s published results speak for themselves.