AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D gaming performance revealed by new leak
So far, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D has only been tested in benchmarks such as Blender and Geekbench, neither of which fully take advantage of its 3D V-cache. Hence, it may seem it lags behind its non-3D counterpart (Ryzen 9 7950X) and Intel's flagship Core i9-13900K. HD-Technologia published some new first-party gaming benchmarks from AMD, finally giving us a glimpse into how the next-gen X3D processor holds up against the competition.
AMD's test rig used 32 GB of overclocked DDR5 6,000 RAM, an NZXT Kraken X63 CPU cooler, a Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB NVMe SSD, an unnamed AMD reference motherboard and Windows 11. It pitted the Ryzen 9 7950X3D against the Ryzen 9 7950X and Intel Core i9-13900K. Both processors were paired with flagship graphics from Nvidia (RTX 4090) and AMD (RX 7900 XTX), resulting in multiple data sets. Interestingly, both zeroed in on the same conclusion, at least at 1080p.
The list of games included many resource-heavy AAA titles, such as Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry 6, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. While the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D managed to stay ahead of the Core i9-13900K in most titles, the Raptor Lake flagship took the lead in some CPU-bound games such as CS: GO and DOTA2. Unfortunately for AMD, the Core i9-13900K beat the Zen 4 X3D flagship in almost all productivity benchmarks (Cinebench R23, Geekbench, Kraken Benchmark) but managed to win in 7Zip and DolphinBench.
Overall, when paired with a GeForce RTX 4090, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D flagship was, on average, 6% faster than its Raptor Lake counterpart. However, swapping out the GeForce RTX 4090 for a Radeon RX 7900 XTX lowers that differential to 5.6%. As expected, the Zen 4 X3D part trounces its non-3D counterpart by 16%. It is important to note the whole test suite was likely run on pre-production firmware, and the real-world performance differences could be much higher. That said, one would be better off waiting for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Not only is it cheaper, but its 3D V-cache is also rumoured to operate at much higher clocks compared to its Ryzen 9 cousins.