Since its debut in 2024, Ryzen 9 9950X has maintained its position as king of the processor hill. Its industry-leading levels of performance usually comes part and parcel with a high price, but you needn’t pay hand over first for AMD’s Zen 5 champ. In fact, you can pick up one of the best CPUs on the market right now with a welcome discount.
Ryzen 9 9950X
“Ryzen 9 9950X embodies Zen 5 in its finest desktop form.” Read our review.
UK shoppers can save 12% (£68.99) on Ryzen 9 9950X, bringing the processor’s total cost down to £529.99. Meanwhile, those in the US enjoy an 8% ($55.01) discount that bring the CPU down to a more reasonable $593.99 price point. Regardless of which region you buy from, though, you’ll be paying the lowest ever price for the chip.
For all those pennies, Ryzen 9 9950X provides the finest 16 cores and 32 threads AMD has to offer. Combine these specs with its 5.7GHz maximum boost clock and you’re staring down a proper productivity powerhouse. It’s also a dab hand at gaming too.
Placing Ryzen 9 9950X vs. Core Ultra 9 285K, it’s clear that the AMD processor enjoys a distinct lead over its rival in most workloads. Making this accolade all the shinier are its relatively lower platform costs, as it’s backwards compatible with all Socket AM5 motherboards following a quick BIOS update.
It’s important to note that you will need to have your own compatible cooler on-hand for Ryzen 9 9950X. Tempering its 170W TDP isn’t a difficult task but I’d suggest checking the Club386 guide on what size radiator is best for this processor in particular before making any purchases. It may surprise you to learn just how a small a solution is necessary.
I should also mentioned that the 3D V-Cache variant of Ryzen 9 9950X is en route from AMD, 9950X3D. While this prospective processor will out perform the current champion in some categories, I can guarantee you won’t find it at a similar price to this for some time.
If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you’ll be able to get Ryzen 9 9950X shipped to your door all the quicker. If you’re new to the service and thinking of joining, Club386 has put together a rundown of everything you get with an Amazon Prime subscription, from faster deliveries to music and video streaming goodness.
