It’s almost time to welcome a new ruler of the roost in the world of processors, with preliminary benchmarks for Ryzen 9 9950X promising efficiency and performance in equally impressive measures. So much so, in fact, that the new AMD flagship seemingly runs circles around Core i9 14900K using far fewer watts.
Ryzen 9 9950X should be the best CPU of all AMD’s Zen 5 processors, but it seems likely that it’ll rule the entire roost when it arrives on July 31. Out of the box, it operates with a 170W TDP, but it is, of course, tweakable. Now, someone apparently lucky enough to get their hands on an engineering sample has shown us just what this chip is capable of with a little extra juice (or much less). In short, this beast makes its biggest competition look practically redundant.
| Ryzen 9 9950X ES TDP | Cinebench R23 MT score |
|---|---|
| 40W | 12,424 |
| 60W | 23,985 |
| 80W | 29,430 |
| 100W | 33,373 |
| 120W | 36,478 |
| 160W | 42,336 |
| 200W | 44,782 |
| 230W | 46,090 |
Anandtech forum user igor_kavinski (via WCCFTech) shared several screenshots of Cinebench R23 results, allegedly using a Ryzen 9 9950X Engineering Sample (ES). Their benchmarks cover TDPs ranging from 40-230W, demonstrating its capabilities when it’s both starving for and indulging itself in watts. Curiously, though, there’s no 170W test, which would shine a light on stock performance. Still, there’s plenty of insightful data to sift through.
Starting with the headline result, this engineering sample puts Ryzen 9 9950X ahead of Core i9 14900K at 160W. In our review of Intel’s chip, we recorded a multi-core result of 41,264 with a peak power consumption of around 330W. Ergo, not only is AMD’s Zen 5 champion more powerful, producing a score of 42,336, it’s a damn sight more efficient too.
Given that Ryzen 9 9950X is able to achieve such a feat at 160W, it naturally only pushes its lead further with more watts at its disposal. More specifically, at 230W and still 100W below Core i9 14900K, it manages to turn in a whopping score of 46,090. Better still, even at such a high TDP, it barely breaks a sweat with an average operating temperature of 60°C. So, it appears AMD’s claims that Zen 5 runs much cooler than Zen 4 holds true, and then some.
In terms of generational improvements, we’re looking at something in the region of 12% compared to findings from our Ryzen 9 7950X review. However, this is comparing 170W results of that chip to the 160W of Ryzen 9 9950X, so expect a large jump overall. With these figures in mind, I can’t wait to see whether the more affordable Ryzen 5 9600X smacks down Core i5 14600K as AMD reckons it will.
It won’t be long now until the official Club386 verdict drops the Ryzen 9000 series. Excited as I am to see these processors action, especially following on from this leak and AMD’s recent claims that Ryzen 9 9700X beats 5800X3D, my heart still longs to see Zen 5 chips equipped with 3D V-Cache. I’ll only have a few months to wait for Ryzen 9000X3D if our source holds true, but I’ll certainly not let future ambitions enjoy the splendour of the present.
