AMD processors are making huge improvements every year, whether in the form of core numbers growth or improving power efficiency. Although Ryzen processors made extensive IPC improvements in the early years compared to older bulldozers and piledriver microarchitectures, Intel still had the lead in that domain. With the Zen 3 aka Vermeer aka Ryzen 5000 series, AMD is finally leading the last remaining chest of the performance metrics. Team Red claims a 19 percent IPC improvement with Gen 3 compared to Gen 3, which is a significant achievement considering that AMD did not switch to a smaller node but managed to include improvements in power efficiency and performance that would otherwise normally be achieved node changes. In this review, we look at the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and Ryzen 9 5900X which are the two best processors in the new Ryzen 5000 series. The former is a 16-core / 32-thread processor priced at INR 60,990 (SEP) + 18% GST which works out to INR 71,968 and the Ryzen 9 5900X is a 12-core / 24-thread processor priced at INR 548 including GST. The initial launch includes the Ryzen 7 5800X priced at INR 34,490 (SEP) + GST ​​ending at US 40 40,698 and also the Ryzen 5 5600X with SEP 22,990 + GST. The retail price of Ryzen 5 5600X is INR 27,128 AMD said it was taking additional steps to control prices in India and that any retailer setting SKU prices above SEP + GST ​​was doing so on its own.

Zen3 Microarchitecture

Zen 2 has overhauled several aspects of microarchitecture to reach AMD Zen 3. To begin with, there are ways to sort and connect the cores in the die. With the Zen 2, each compute die (CCD) had two core complexes (CCX) and each CCX would have four cores / eight threads with a 16 MB L3 cache to work with. In Zen 3, each CCD has a single unified CCX with eight cores / 16 threads and 32 MB L3 cache. Also, each package is limited to 2 CCD so the maximum core count you will see with Zen 3 is 16 which is similar to Zen 2 which means we cannot expect higher core count of this generation. AMD has been transformed into a ring architecture so that the cores can communicate with each other. Another popular architecture is the use of a mesh interconnect for cores that helps reduce core-to-core latency and is commonly used in processors with higher core numbers. This does not mean that AMD will experience higher delays with ring architectures, as the integration of CCX presents a much more latency reduction than the fake architecture can achieve.

We see that within a CCX, core-to-core latency has increased because we are looking for a longer way for specific cores to communicate with each other. However, across CCXs, we see an overall reduction in delays for consolidation. AMD says that this improved core-to-core and core-to-cache access time (read below) is quite effective in improving performance in certain video games. Dota 2, for example, has the advantage of reducing inter-core latency as well as low latency within the CPU core in the GPU. AMD says that as a result of this change, the average gaming performance between Zen 2 and Zen 3 is 26 percent.

AMD 4th Gen RYZEN 9/7/5 Vermeer (Ryzen 5000) lineup and specification

The new AMD Ryzen 5000 processor lineup includes four SKUs – Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X, Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 5 5600X. Compared to their Ryzen 3000 series counterparts, the Ryzen 5000 processor has slightly lower base clock but higher boost clocks. As applications tend to work on base clocks for longer periods of time, this is an interesting transition and an indication of the kind of performance improvements that have been achieved.

One of the most popular processors in the world right now is the Ryzen 5 3600X and its Ryzen 5000 counterpart is the Ryzen 5 5600X which features 100MHz reduction in base block and 200MHz increase in boost clock. However, the Ryzen 5 5600X is a 65W TDP CPU whereas the Ryzen 5 3600X is a 95W CPU. Combined with the increase in IPC, it will be a big improvement in performance.

AMD RYZEN 9 5950X and 5900X performance

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X have very little to do with being considered better than just the competition so the following results should hardly be surprising. There is still room for improvement with the original clock speed and we can see “XT” processors if AMD wants to get them out. Also, Intel’s Rocket Lake is around the corner so that’s an additional reason to expect more from our Zen 3 in the coming months. But for now, let’s see how the new Ryzen 5000 processors work.

We tested the unit in the following configuration:

AMD Raisin Test Rig

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X

Motherboard: ASRock X570 Taichi

SSD: Samsung 970 PRO 1TB

HDD: Seagate FireCuda 2 TB ST2000DX002

RAM: Corsair Dominator PRO 16GB (2x 8GB) @ 3200 MHz

Cool: Corsair H115i Pro

PSU: Corsair HX1050

As always, we start with Cinebench 20 to see how the processor fare in single threaded and multithreaded performance. At the single-threaded benchmark, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900XT ended up with a huge lead over its own Zen 2 processor as well as Intel Core processors. These scores are in the 630-640 range which is the first time we have seen anything so high. Multithreaded runs obviously scale very well and we can see the same in results.

As the POV-Ray is a multi-threaded benchmark, the Ryzen 9 5950X scale looks really good and maintains a healthy lead above 5900X and 10900K.

In our handbrake run, a 4K video clip is transcoded from one codec to another without changing the resolution. Handbrake is the fastest and most ‘creative community’ to incorporate new CPU encoding engines. The 5950X Ryzen 9 shows a 17 percent reduction in encoding time compared to the 3900X and about 10 percent less than the 10900K.

Blender is a fairly well-known open source rendering software. In this benchmark, we see the time taken for a run to finish rendering. So the lower the score in this test, the better the CPU. The AMD Ryzen 9 has a significant lead score of 10,900K over the 5950X 3900X as well. However, this difference is only detected when running multiple repetitions of the same work pressure. A single run, the difference is barely there.

The 7-Zip decompression benchmark puts the Ryzen 95950X at the top of the chart with the Ryzen 95900X. It scales pretty well and we see a significant lead above 3900XT as well as 10900K.

In our gaming benchmarks, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X perform at or equal to most benchmarks. Basically, we’re looking at the best performing gaming processors here.

Judgment

Voodoo magic at this work. AMD has been able to improve performance in the last few domains where it lags behind Intel in gaming and content creation. Basically, we’re seeing equally significant improvements in better gaming performance and content creation applications. It remains to be seen how Indian retailers will price the new Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X. The Intel Core i9-10900K is priced at R 52,000 on Amazon all over the place, and the AMD processors we reviewed are priced at R 50,000 (5900X) and 72 72,000 (5950X). As you can see, there are very few reasons to get Intel desktop flagships anymore. There are still applications that use proprietary Intel technology where Team Blue continues to burn but for all other applications under the sun, AMD is the clear winner.