1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,120 The way I see it, you clicked on this video for one of just three reasons. 2 00:00:04,120 --> 00:00:08,560 You either want to watch tech giants in a CPU dunking contest. 3 00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:13,040 You could legitimately be shopping for the fastest PC hardware on the planet. 4 00:00:13,040 --> 00:00:17,840 Congratulations, by the way. Or, most likely, you just wanna eat some popcorn 5 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:21,920 and watch the fanboys squabble in the comments about an overpriced CPU. 6 00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:26,160 Well, guess what? Buckle in tight, cause you're gonna see all three today. 7 00:00:26,160 --> 00:00:29,840 The Ryzen 9950X3D2 Dual Edition 8 00:00:29,840 --> 00:00:33,440 is an eye-wateringly expensive, zero-compromise product, 9 00:00:33,440 --> 00:00:37,280 and I love it. It's the perfect purebred show horse 10 00:00:37,280 --> 00:00:42,840 to excite geeks like us by pushing the limits of modern technology, while also serving as a reminder 11 00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:46,600 that most people really don't need one. 12 00:00:46,600 --> 00:00:50,560 What everyone does need, though, is this segway to our sponsor. 13 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:56,080 Hi, if you're wondering why this video is a day late, well, AMD didn't send us a chip to review, 14 00:00:56,080 --> 00:00:59,240 and they also didn't send a lot of people chips to review. 15 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:03,080 Make of that information what you will. Anyway, here is our review. 16 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:25,560 It's a 9950X, so that means you got 16 of AMD's latest 17 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:28,760 Zen 5 architecture cores and 32 threads. 18 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:33,120 It's 3D, which means it features a large stacked 3D vCash, 19 00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:37,400 which can offer a major performance benefit in certain workloads, notably gaming, 20 00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:41,320 and it's two, and also dual, 21 00:01:41,320 --> 00:01:47,800 both of which seem to mean the same thing, because compared to a regular 9950X3D non-two, non-dual, 22 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:54,600 the big change that the dual edition brings is that AMD's super large 3D vCash now sits on both 23 00:01:54,600 --> 00:01:58,240 of the core complex dies or CCDs that are under the gray heat spreader 24 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:05,360 rather than only on one of them. That gives the dual a whopping 192 megabytes of level 3 cache. 25 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:09,240 That's enough to install Windows 95 on your CPU 26 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:15,120 three times over. Doesn't really work like that. We just thought it was kind of a funny thing to point out. 27 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:19,320 But hold on a second, if 3D vCash is so great, then why didn't AMD use it 28 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:25,280 across all of their cores in the past? Well, because there are some trade-offs, the price for one, 29 00:02:25,280 --> 00:02:28,480 but also a considerable 30 watt increase 30 00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:34,480 to total design power that brings the dual to a sweaty 200 watts that in some situations, 31 00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:39,080 it even exceeded by a significant margin. And this extra power seems to have resulted 32 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:42,380 in a small decrease in boost clock speeds. 33 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:47,640 But hey, that should be more than made up for by the extra 3D vCash, right? 34 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:52,280 Especially in gaming, right? Well, let's talk about that. Out of the gate, things are looking good 35 00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:55,720 in city skylines too. A game we chose more for its ability 36 00:02:55,720 --> 00:03:00,000 to bring CPUs to their knees than its community appeal. 37 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:05,400 Here, the dual leads the pack with the other 9000 X3D chips in tow behind it. 38 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:11,200 Makes sense? After all, they're supposed to be good for gaming, right? And we see the same deal in Cyberpunk 2077. 39 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:15,760 Though it is worth noting here that while these high average FPS numbers here 40 00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:19,640 are very impressive, when it comes to the all important 1% lows, 41 00:03:19,640 --> 00:03:23,560 which represent the performance you can expect in the most demanding moments, 42 00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:27,800 some older and much less expensive chips 43 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:30,920 are nipping dangerously close to their heels. 44 00:03:30,920 --> 00:03:34,240 In F124, it seems like any high end processor 45 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:37,480 from the past couple generations is gonna do ya just fine. 46 00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:40,520 Shout out to the venerable 5800 X3D, by the way, 47 00:03:40,520 --> 00:03:45,200 which is rumored to be returning for a celebration of the AM4 Socket's 10th anniversary. 48 00:03:45,200 --> 00:03:49,880 Then in the last of us part, one, the 9950 X3D2 dual returns to the top position 49 00:03:49,880 --> 00:03:52,880 and is also about as fast as it gets in Counter-Strike 2, 50 00:03:52,880 --> 00:03:57,240 at least as far as 1% lows are concerned. Across our suite of gaming benchmarks, 51 00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:02,480 the Ryzen 9 9950 X3D2 dual edition is just plain ripping fast. 52 00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:06,480 And yet, still nearly impossible for me to recommend. 53 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:11,520 Why? Well, for starters, we benchmark gaming CPUs at 1080p. 54 00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:16,120 This gives us a clear view of which chips will separate themselves from the pack 55 00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:22,480 in an intentionally CPU bottleneck situation. But if you're buying a $900 chip, 56 00:04:22,480 --> 00:04:25,560 you're almost guaranteed to be running at at least 1440p, 57 00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:31,120 if not 4K, where a GPU bottleneck is way more likely than a CPU one. 58 00:04:31,120 --> 00:04:36,500 The second reason is that even if you were an eSports professional trying to eek out every last frame, 59 00:04:36,500 --> 00:04:41,440 I still wouldn't sell you a dual because while it does have more 3DV cash goodness 60 00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:47,080 than anything we've ever seen before, which is cool. In the real world, it performs basically the same 61 00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:50,480 as any of the other 9000 series X3D chips. 62 00:04:50,480 --> 00:04:53,880 But why is that? Well, as some of you might know, 63 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:58,240 high-end X3D chips have always come with kind of a weird trade-off. 64 00:04:58,240 --> 00:05:02,920 They had all these cores on them, but only some of the cores were best for gaming, 65 00:05:02,920 --> 00:05:06,120 the 3DV cash ones. So you always wanted to make sure 66 00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:11,280 that your games were running on those. To do this, AMD uses a technique called core parking, 67 00:05:11,280 --> 00:05:15,080 which unintuitively does not stop the core from doing any work, 68 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:21,680 but rather it forces a given program to only use specific CPU cores and then ignore the rest. 69 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:26,080 Over the past couple of years, AMD and Microsoft have worked on de-jancifying this behavior 70 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:30,400 to the point where as long as you're running an up-to-date chipset, BIOS, and operating system, 71 00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:36,080 you should find that your two CCD CPU is using the right cores for any given job. 72 00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:40,400 That is assuming, of course, that Windows recognizes your games as a game. 73 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:45,120 But we have 3DV cash on all the cores now. So why are we talking about parking anything anywhere? 74 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:48,480 Vroom, vroom, right? Well, as it turns out, 75 00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:52,040 most games just plain don't need more than eight cores. 76 00:05:52,040 --> 00:05:58,760 And regardless of what type of cash your cores have, if they have to coordinate work across multiple CCDs, 77 00:05:58,760 --> 00:06:01,960 the data has to travel across the Infinity Fabric 78 00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:05,560 and the IO die, which is gonna introduce extra latency. 79 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:09,880 So the solution, the same jank we were already using, 80 00:06:09,880 --> 00:06:13,480 core parking. And that is why the new dual edition performs 81 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:18,440 basically exactly the same in gaming. So then, who is it useful for? 82 00:06:18,440 --> 00:06:22,160 Well, for starters, anyone who might run multiple workloads 83 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:25,960 that benefit from extra cash, a great example would be someone who wants to stream 84 00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:30,600 or record their gameplay while they're gaming without burdening their GPU. 85 00:06:30,600 --> 00:06:35,160 A more niche benefit is that overclockers and system tuners could identify 86 00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:40,320 which of their CCDs runs the fastest and then put their most performance sensitive workloads 87 00:06:40,320 --> 00:06:43,400 on those cores. Or at least that would be an option 88 00:06:43,400 --> 00:06:48,160 if AMD and Windows allowed you to choose. From our testing, it seems that games are locked 89 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:52,720 to CCD zero for the time being. Another focus for AMD's marketing for this chip 90 00:06:52,720 --> 00:06:56,640 is a claimed five to 10% increase in productivity. 91 00:06:56,640 --> 00:07:02,600 Let's take a look at that. And unsurprisingly, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 dual edition 92 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:06,880 Core 2 dual extreme max plus the sequel is an absolute monster here as well. 93 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:10,680 In seven zip, the dual has a clear lead over any other consumer CPU, 94 00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:15,340 both in compression and in decompression. And in Cinebench, it sits at that top of the chart 95 00:07:15,340 --> 00:07:19,040 or darn near it in both multicore and single core performance. 96 00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:26,920 The only problem is that its closest competitor is a, $550 cheaper at retail right now. 97 00:07:28,280 --> 00:07:33,340 But hey, those are kind of just benchmarks, right? And if you're in the market for a CPU this expensive, 98 00:07:33,340 --> 00:07:38,520 you probably want to get some real work done with it, right? We're in blender, the dual edition does manage 99 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:43,040 and as advertised, 5% improvement over its less endowed twin 100 00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:48,240 and a considerable 15 ish percent over the 7950X3D. 101 00:07:48,240 --> 00:07:53,880 This is one of the first cases we've seen where the dual actually kind of stands out for its value. 102 00:07:53,880 --> 00:07:57,080 To be clear, it only beats the much more affordable 103 00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:02,240 270K plus by 10 seconds. But if you use your system to make money, 104 00:08:02,240 --> 00:08:05,400 every second counts and the dual is as fast as it gets 105 00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:09,800 without paying a considerable premium for a workstation platform motherboard. 106 00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:15,360 And it even continues AMD's bro move of supporting ECCU dims on select motherboards, 107 00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:20,160 making it a great semi pro offering. And that carries over to encoding as well, 108 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:26,120 where the X3D2 is again at the top of the charts in H.264 and close in AV1. 109 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:31,520 In Puget Bench's Photoshop benchmark, the dual is the first consumer x86 CPU we've tested 110 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:34,920 that cracks 14,000 points, which is cool, 111 00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:38,920 but only a negligible increase over the rest of the Zen 5 contenders. 112 00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:44,000 And NVIDIA editing, she's a chart topper again, and more importantly, can offer an uplift 113 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:48,360 that you might actually feel compared to an older generation 3DV cache chip 114 00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:51,720 like the 7950X3D. Now you wouldn't think that 115 00:08:51,720 --> 00:08:56,640 based on the overall score from Puget Bench, but we found that depending on the files you're working with, 116 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:01,660 you might find performance enhancements that are much greater than the two ish percent on our chart. 117 00:09:01,660 --> 00:09:05,760 However, as with gaming, the situations where we see large improvements 118 00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:09,240 over the non-dual, are few and far between. 119 00:09:09,240 --> 00:09:12,420 As for Premiere Pro, it's kind of like a grade schooler going to the gym. 120 00:09:12,420 --> 00:09:17,480 The games are there, but they're minor. So yeah, in our creator focus testing, 121 00:09:17,480 --> 00:09:21,880 the dual doesn't offer much, but to be fair, there are lots of kinds of productivity 122 00:09:21,880 --> 00:09:27,020 and the extra level three cache can be huge in mathy and science C workloads. 123 00:09:27,020 --> 00:09:31,880 Check out this result from Veronica's review of the original 9950X3D. 124 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:37,160 Since we're a day late, we have the rare second mover advantage and we can actually just show you some of Veronica's results. 125 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:41,720 And you can see that there's some workloads where the chip benefits a lot from the extra V cache. 126 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:47,800 You might be thinking, that's not very many workloads and yeah, yeah. 127 00:09:47,800 --> 00:09:50,840 Anyways, if you do want to learn more, we highly recommend going over to Veronica's, 128 00:09:50,840 --> 00:09:54,720 looking at their Linux and scientific benchmarking. It's pretty cool. 129 00:09:54,720 --> 00:09:58,080 There's going to be a link in the description. But I will say there's a solid chance 130 00:09:58,080 --> 00:10:01,880 that if you are de-gritting radio signals from space, 131 00:10:01,880 --> 00:10:06,440 this could be your new powerhouse. Speaking of power, at 200 Watts, 132 00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:10,720 this is the highest TDP that AMD has ever set on a consumer chip. 133 00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:17,360 And who does it ever deliver on its promise? In Cinebench, this thing pulls up to 260 Watts 134 00:10:17,360 --> 00:10:23,280 across the total CPU package. That is like Intel 1400K levels of power draw. 135 00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:27,000 But thankfully, it doesn't have the same power density 136 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:30,040 and IHS problems as the 1400K. 137 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:35,200 With that said, if you were thinking of upgrading from a Ryzen 5950X to this new CPU, 138 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:38,400 you should make sure that your power supply can handle the extra power draw. 139 00:10:38,400 --> 00:10:41,760 And oh yeah, probably also your CPU cooler. 140 00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:46,560 That's a tech tip. The good news in all of this is that the extra power draw only rears its head 141 00:10:46,560 --> 00:10:49,640 in heavy all-core CPU workloads. 142 00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:54,560 In F124, for example, we found this chip drew about the same power as its siblings, 143 00:10:54,560 --> 00:11:00,720 meaning that you can enjoy manageable temperatures while just pretending to race in the Las Vegas heat. 144 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:04,360 In conclusion, the Ryzen 9950X3D2 Dual Edition 145 00:11:04,360 --> 00:11:07,800 puts a punctuation point on AMD's last three years 146 00:11:07,800 --> 00:11:12,880 of CPU domination. But while I love the new fastest one, 147 00:11:12,880 --> 00:11:19,240 as much as anyone does, it's hard to recommend a chip that demands such a price for such small gains 148 00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:22,360 and it feels a little bit like this is an unnecessary 149 00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:26,840 victory lap and I would rather AMD focus their development efforts on things their community 150 00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:33,000 really wants, like oh, I don't know, maybe bringing FSR4 to our DNA3 GPUs 151 00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:37,620 or hey, how about finally bringing Zen 5 to budget buyers? 152 00:11:37,620 --> 00:11:42,920 Where is Ryzen 3 AMD? Also, where is my sponsor? 153 00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:48,400 If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the one we did recently on how X3D chips in particular 154 00:11:48,400 --> 00:11:52,480 don't really need the fastest memory for gaming which could help save you some money 155 00:11:52,480 --> 00:11:54,320 if you're putting together a new system.