AMD’s batch of CES announcements this year includes just two new products for desktop PC users: the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D. Both will be available at some point in the first quarter of 2025.
Both processors include additional CPU cores compared to the 9800X3D that launched in November. The 9900X3D includes 12 Zen 5 CPU cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.5 GHz, and the 9950X3D includes 16 cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.7 GHz. Both include 64MB of extra L3 cache compared to the regular 9900X and 9950X, for a total cache of 144MB and 140MB, respectively; games in particular tend to benefit disproportionately from this extra cache memory.
But the 9950X3D and 9900X3D aren’t being targeted at people who build PCs primarily to game—the company says their game performance is usually within 1 percent of the 9800X3D. These processors are for people who want peak game performance when they’re playing something but also need lots of CPU cores for chewing on CPU-heavy workloads during the workday.
AMD estimates that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is about 8 percent faster than the 7950X3D when playing games and about 13 percent faster in professional content creation apps. These modest gains are more or less in line with the small performance bump we’ve seen in other Ryzen 9000-series desktop CPUs.
Enlarge/ We (and other testers) have had issues getting the Ryzen 9000 series to behave normally.
Andrew Cunningham
AMD recently released its Ryzen 9000-series processors, which brought the company’s new Zen 5 CPU architecture to desktops for the first time. But we (and multiple other reviewers) had issues getting the chips’ performance to match up to AMD’s promises, something that the company wasn’t able to fully resolve before the processors launched to the public.
AMD has since put out statements explaining some of the discrepancies and promising at least partial fixes for some of them.
A Windows problem
The main fix for slower-than-expected game performance, the company says, will come with the Windows 11 24H2 update later this year, which will include “optimized AMD-specific branch prediction code” that improves Ryzen 9000’s performance by between 3 and 13 percent in an AMD-provided cross-section of games and benchmarks (though a handful of tests also showed no change). AMD says that these improvements will also benefit Zen 3- and Zen 4-based Ryzen processors, but that “the biggest boost” will be reserved for Ryzen 9000 and Zen 5.
Apparently, this branch prediction code improvement is already available in current Windows builds if you’re running games and apps in Administrator mode, which AMD used to run its tests. From AMD’s post, it’s unclear whether it was running games from within the normally disabled Administrator account, as has been reported elsewhere, or if it was merely running them in Administrator mode from within a standard user account.
In any case, even a standard user account with Administrator permissions spends most of its time running in a standard user mode, throwing up a User Account Control elevation message when Administrator privileges are needed for something. For security reasons, Windows only runs software in Administrator mode when it’s required, generally to install an app for the first time or make other system-wide changes. Virtually no one will be running games with Administrator privileges or while logged in as Administrator, which makes it an odd testing choice. Regardless, the 24H2 update should make those branch prediction improvements available to standard user accounts running in user mode.
The Windows 11 24H2 update should be released to the general public this fall, though Windows Insiders can also get it from the Insider Preview channel or by downloading an ISO. The 24H2 update is already the default version of Windows on Copilot+ PCs and on the Ryzen AI-powered Asus laptop we tested recently, so for most people it should be stable and reliable enough for day-to-day use.
There’s no word on whether or when these changes might come to Windows 10. But as with Intel’s Thread Director, which is not optimized for Windows 10, I wouldn’t count on AMD or Microsoft working very hard to bring significant performance improvements to a last-generation operating system that is just over a year away from its end-of-support date, even if it is still Steam’s most popular Windows version by a handful of percentage points.
AMD had planned to launch its first round of Ryzen 9000-series desktop processors by the end of July, but those plans have changed thanks to a very non-specific problem found with the first batch of processors that AMD sent out to its partners. The six- and eight-core Ryzen 9600X and 9700X are now slated to launch on August 8, and the 12- and 16-core Ryzen 9900X and 9950X will launch on August 15.
AMD’s full statement is below:
We appreciate the excitement around Ryzen 9000 series processors. During final checks, we found the initial production units that were shipped to our channel partners did not meet our full quality expectations. Out of an abundance of caution and to maintain the highest quality experiences for every Ryzen user, we are working with our channel partners to replace the initial production units with fresh units. As a result, there will be a short delay in retail availability. The Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X processors will now go on sale on August 8th and the Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X processors will go on-sale on August 15th. We pride ourselves in providing a high-quality experience for every Ryzen user, and we look forward to our fans having a great experience with the new Ryzen 9000 series.
When asked for details about the specific problem and what the fix was, AMD Public Relations Manager Matthew Hurwitz told Ars that AMD had implemented additional screening for the Ryzen 9000 CPUs but couldn’t share specifics about what AMD is screening for.
It doesn’t seem as though any changes are being made to the silicon or the manufacturing process itself, and Hurwitz told us that the first batch of processors would be sent back out to channel partners once they had been recalled and re-screened.
The Ryzen 9000-series CPUs are the direct follow-up to the Ryzen 7000 series from late 2022, and the second generation of chips to use the AM5 processor socket—if you don’t count the Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs, which are Ryzen 7000 with more L3 cache, or the Ryzen 8000G chips, which are Zen 4-based laptop processors repackaged for desktops. Ryzen 9000 chips should drop into existing AM5 motherboards after a BIOS update, though AMD is also releasing a mildly improved lineup of chipsets to power new boards.
AMD has prioritized power efficiency for the Ryzen 9000 chips but is still promising low-double-digit performance improvements in both single- and multi-core workloads.
AMD has released more information about its next-generation Ryzen 9000 processors and their underlying Zen 5 CPU architecture this week ahead of their launch at the end of July. The company reiterated some of the high-level performance claims it made last month—low- to mid-double-digit performance increases over Zen 4 in both single- and multi-threaded tasks. But AMD also bragged about the chips’ power efficiency compared to Ryzen 7000, pointing out that they would reduce power usage despite increasing performance.
Prioritizing power efficiency
AMD said that it has lowered the default power limits for three of the four Ryzen 9000 processors—the Ryzen 5 9600X, the Ryzen 7 9700X, and the Ryzen 9 7900X—compared to the Ryzen 7000 versions of those same chips. Despite the lower default power limit, all three of those chips still boast double-digit performance improvements over their predecessors. AMD also says that Ryzen 9000 CPU temperatures have been reduced by up to 7º Celsius compared to Ryzen 7000 chips at the same settings.
Ryzen 9000’s low-double-digit performance gains are coming despite the fact that the company has lowered most of its chips’ default TDPs. These TDP settings determine how much power one of AMD’s CPUs can use (though not necessarily how much they will use).
AMD
Because the TDPs have been lowered, AMD claims that Ryzen 9000 chips will have a bit more overclocking headroom than Ryzen 7000.
AMD
It’s worth noting that we generally tested the original Ryzen 7000 CPUs at multiple power levels, and for most chips—most notably the 7600X and 7700X—we found that the increased TDP levels didn’t help performance all that much in the first place. The TDP lowering in the Ryzen 9000 may be enabled partly by architectural improvements or a newer manufacturing process, but AMD already had some headroom to lower those power usage numbers without affecting performance too much. TDP is also best considered as a power limit rather than the actual amount of power that a CPU will use for any given workload, even when fully maxed out.
Still, we appreciate AMD’s focus on power efficiency for the Ryzen 9000 series, especially because Intel’s high-end 13900K and 14900K have been plagued by crashes that seem to be related to high power use and improper motherboard configurations. Intel has yet to release a definitive statement about what the issue is, but it’s plausible (maybe even likely!) that it’s a side effect of these chips being pushed to their thermal and electrical limits.
Ryzen 9000 CPUs can still be pushed further by users who want to raise those power limits and try overclocking—AMD points out that the chips all have more headroom for Precision Boost Overdrive automated overclocking, precisely because the default power limits leave a little more performance on the table. But as long as the chips still perform well at their default settings, people who just want to build a computer without doing a ton of tinkering will be better served by chips that run cooler and use less power.
More time on the clock for socket AM5
AMD has committed to supporting the AM5 socket until “2027+,” two more years than the “2025+” it promised back in late 2022.
AMD
Ryzen 9000 will launch alongside several marginally updated chipsets, though existing AM5 boards will be able to use these chips after a BIOS update.
AMD
Another small but noteworthy change buried in AMD’s slide decks, and good news for anyone who has already invested in a Socket AM5 motherboard or has plans to do so in the near future: AMD has officially extended the socket’s guaranteed support timeline to at least 2027 and is leaving the door open to support past that point. That’s a two-year extension from the “2025+” timeline that the company laid out in late 2022.
Of course, “support” could mean a lot of different things. AMD is still officially supporting the AM4 socket with new CPU releases and continues to lean on AM4 as a budget platform as socket AM5 costs have remained stubbornly high. But these “new” releases have all been repackagings of various iterations of the late-2020-era Ryzen 5000 CPUs, rather than truly new products. Still, AMD’s formal commitment to socket AM5’s longevity makes it a bit easier to recommend for people who upgrade their CPUs regularly.
Ryzen 9000 chips will be able to pop into any current AM5 motherboard after a BIOS update. The company is also announcing a range of 800-series chipsets for new motherboards, though these generally only come with minor improvements compared to the 600-series chipsets they replace. The X870E and X870 are guaranteed to have USB 4 ports, and the X870 supports PCIe 5.0 speeds for the GPU slot where the X670 only supported PCIe 4.0 speeds for the GPU slot. The lower-end B850 chipset still supports PCIe 5.0 speeds for SSDs and PCIe 4.0 speeds for GPUs, while an even lower-end B840 chipset is restricted to PCIe 3.0 speeds for everything. The B840 also won’t support CPU overclocking, though it can still overclock RAM.
AMD is announcing Ryzen 9000 and Zen 5, the second CPU architecture for its AM5 platform.
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AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X heads up the new Ryzen 9000 family.
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There are three other variants here, with 12, 8, and 6 Zen 5 CPU cores. The Ryzen 7000 series launched with chips at the same tiers.
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AMD is also announcing a pair of high-end chipsets, though they don’t offer much that’s new; 600-series boards should all support Ryzen 9000 after a BIOS update.
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The Zen 5 CPU architecture powers the Ryzen 9000 series.
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A handful of architectural highlights from Zen 5.
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The performance improvements with Zen 5 are occasionally quite impressive, but on average we’re looking at a 16 percent increase over Zen 4 at the same clock speeds. That’s decent, but not as good as the move from Zen 3 to Zen 4.
AMD
It’s been almost two years since AMD introduced its Ryzen 7000 series desktop CPUs and the Zen 4 CPU architecture. Today, AMD is announcing the first concrete details about their successors. The Ryzen 9000 CPUs begin shipping in July.
At a high level, the Ryzen 9000 series and Zen 5 architecture offer mostly incremental improvements over Ryzen 7000 (Ryzen 8000 on the desktop is used exclusively for Zen 4-based G-series CPUs with more powerful integrated GPUs). AMD says that Zen 5 is roughly 16 percent faster than Zen 4 at the same clock speeds, depending on the workload—certainly not nothing, and there are some workloads that perform much better. But that number is far short of the 29 percent jump between Zen 3 and Zen 4.
AMD and Intel have both compensated for mild single-core performance improvements in the past by adding more cores, but Ryzen 9000 doesn’t do that. From the 9600X to the 9950X, the chips offer between 6 and 16 full-size Zen 5 cores, the same as every desktop lineup since Zen 2 and the Ryzen 3000 series. De-lidded shots of the processors indicate that they’re still using a total of two or three separate chiplets: one or two CPU chiplets with up to 8 cores each, and a separate I/O die to handle connectivity. The CPU chiplets are manufactured on a TSMC N4 process, an upgrade from the 5nm process used for Ryzen 7000, while the I/O die is still made with a 6nm TSMC process.
Enlarge/ Ryzen 9000 has the same layout as the last few generations of Ryzen desktop CPU—two CPU chiplets with up to eight cores each, and an I/O die to handle connectivity.
AMD
These chips include no Zen 5c E-cores, as older rumors suggested. Zen 5c is a version of Zen 5 that is optimized to take up less space in a silicon die, at the expense of higher clock speeds; Zen 5c cores are making their debut in the Ryzen AI 300-series laptop chips AMD also announced today. Boosting the number of E-cores has helped Intel match and surpass AMD’s multi-core performance, though Ryzen’s power consumption and efficiency have both outdone Intel’s throughout the 12th-, 13th-, and 14th-generation Core product cycles. Apple also uses a mix of P-cores and E-cores in its high-end desktop CPU designs.
Ryzen 9000 doesn’t include any kind of neural processing unit (NPU), nor does AMD mention whether the Ryzen 7000’s RDNA 2-based integrated GPU has been upgraded or improved.
AMD is also announcing new X870 and X870E motherboard chipsets to accompany the new processors; as with the X670, the E-series chipset is actually a pair of chipsets on the same motherboard, boosting the number of available USB ports, M.2 slots, and PCIe slots.
The only real improvement here seems to be that all X870-series boards support USB4 and higher EXPO memory overclocking speeds by default. The chipsets also support PCIe 5.0 speeds for the main PCIe slot and M.2 slot, though the X670 chipsets already did this.
The processors’ power requirements aren’t changing, so users with 600-series motherboards ought to be able to use Ryzen 9000 CPUs with little to no performance penalty following a BIOS update.
AMD plans to keep the AM4 socket around as a budget platform until at least 2025, according to this slide.
AMD
To that end, it’s announcing a couple more riffs on the old Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 series, to entice budget builders and upgraders. Pricing hasn’t been announced.
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Ryzen 9000 doesn’t seem likely to resolve the biggest issues with the AM5 platform, namely the high costs relative to current-gen Intel systems, the high cost relative to AM4-based systems today, and even the high cost relative to AM4-based systems at the same point in the AM4 socket’s lifespan. Motherboards remain more expensive, DDR5 memory remains more expensive, and there are still no AM5 processors available for significantly less than $200.
According to AMD’s own timeline, it plans to keep the AM4 socket around until at least 2025. AM4 is still a surprisingly decent budget platform given that the socket was introduced eight years ago, and AMD does, in fact, continue to trickle out new Ryzen 5000-series CPUs to give buyers and upgrades more options. But it still means that system builders either need to choose between an expensive platform that has a future or a cheaper platform that’s more or less a dead end.
AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 series is its next-gen laptop platform, and the first to support Copilot+ PC features.
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Ryzen AI 300 uses a new CPU architecture, a revamped NPU, and a tweaked GPU architecture that AMD hasn’t said much about.
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Only two high-end processors will be available by July, though others will surely follow.
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How AMD’s new laptop CPU naming scheme applies to Ryzen AI 300.
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AMD’s next-generation laptop processors are coming later this year, joining new Ryzen 9000 desktop processors and ushering in yet another revamp to the way AMD does laptop CPU model numbers.
But the big thing the company wants to push is the new chips’ performance in generative AI and machine-learning workloads—it’s putting “Ryzen AI” right in the name and emphasizing the presence of an improved neural processing unit (NPU) that meets and exceeds Microsoft’s performance requirements for Copilot+ PCs. The new Ryzen AI 300-series, codenamed Strix Point, succeeds the Ryzen 8040 chips from earlier this year, which were themselves a relatively mild refresh for the Ryzen 7040 processors less than a year before.
AMD promises performance of up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS) with its new third-generation NPU, a significant boost from the 10 to 16 TOPS offered by Ryzen 7000 and 8000 processors with NPUs. This would make it faster than the 45 TOPS offered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus in the first wave of Copilot+ compatible PCs, and also Intel’s projected performance for its next-generation Core Ultra chips, codenamed Lunar Lake. All exceed Microsoft’s Copilot+ requirement of 40 TOPS, which enables some Windows 11 features that aren’t normally available on typical PCs. Copilot+ PCs can do more AI processing locally on device rather than relying on the cloud, potentially improving performance and giving users more privacy.
If you don’t particularly care about generative AI, locally executed or otherwise, the Ryzen AI 300 processors also come with an updated CPU based on the same Zen 5 architecture as the desktop chips, plus an “RDNA 3.5” integrated GPU to boost gaming performance for thin-and-light systems that can’t fit a dedicated graphics processor. The chips are being manufactured on a TSMC N4 process.
AMD is mostly talking about the performance of the new NPU, which at least according to AMD should slightly outperform offerings from Qualcomm and Intel.
AMD
The new integrated GPUs stack up well against Intel’s current Arc GPUs, though how they perform against next-gen Lunar Lake-based chips is anyone’s guess.
AMD
AMD is announcing two chips today, both in the high-end Ryzen 9 series. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 includes 12 CPU cores and 16 GPU cores, up from a maximum of eight CPU cores and 12 GPU cores for the Ryzen 8040 series. The Ryzen AI 9 365 steps down to 10 CPU cores and 12 GPU cores. Both have the same NPU onboard.
Though an increase in CPU core count suggests big improvements in multi-threaded performance, note that in both chips a majority of the CPU cores (8 in the 370, 6 in the 365) actually use the “Zen 5c” architecture, a variant of Zen 5 that supports the exact same instructions and features but is optimized for small size rather than high clock speeds. The result is essentially AMD’s version of one of Intel’s E-cores, though without the truly heterogeneous CPU architecture that has caused incompatibility problems with some apps and games.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a mix of big and small CPU cores from AMD, but it is the first time we’ve seen it at the high-end. Zen 4c cores only really showed up in lower-end, lower-power CPU designs in the Ryzen 3 and 5 and Ryzen Z1 families.
Perhaps tellingly, AMD offered no direct comparisons between the CPU performance of the Ryzen AI 300 chips and the Ryzen 8040 series, opting instead to compare to offerings from Intel, Qualcomm, and Apple. This certainly doesn’t mean performance has regressed generation over generation, but it is usually code for “this isn’t the kind of improvement we want to draw attention to.”
AMD also didn’t offer performance comparisons between the new Radeon 890M and 880M and the old Radeon 780M. The company said that the 890M was an average of 36 percent faster in a small selection of games compared to the Intel Arc integrated GPU in the Meteor Lake Core Ultra chips and 60 percent faster than the Snapdragon X Elite in the 3DMark Night Raid benchmark (this was part of a slide that was specifically highlighting the performance impact of translating x86 code on Arm chips, though for the time being it’s true that the vast majority of games running on Snapdragon PCs will have to deal with the overhead of code translation).
AMD says that the Ryzen AI chips are slated to appear in “100+ platforms from OEMs” starting in July 2024, a month or so after Microsoft and Qualcomm’s first wave of Snapdragon X-equipped Copilot+ PCs. Ryzen AI will also compete with Intel’s next-gen Lunar Lake chips, also due out sometime later this year.
