AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Flagship “Zen 5” 16-Core CPU Tested From 40W Up To 230W, Matches Core i9-14900KS At 160W In Cinebench

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X 12-Core & Ryzen 7 9700X 8-Core CPU Benchmarks Leak: 11% Faster Vs 7900X & 10% Faster Vs 7700X In Cinebench 1

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X, the fastest Zen 5 Desktop CPU, has been tested in Cinebench & matches Intel's top 14900KS chip at just 160W.

The latest benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 16-Core "Zen 5" Desktop CPU have been published by Anandtech forum member, Igor_kavinski, who previously showcased the full performance scaling potential of the flagship in Blender at various TDPs. For the latest tests, Cinebench R23 was selected as the go-to benchmark and the results are quite amazing.

Starting with the specifications, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X "100-000001277" CPU is the flagship offering with two Zen 5 CCDs and a single IOD. The CPU offers 16 cores, 32 threads, a base clock of 4.3 GHz, and a max boost clock of up to 5.7 GHz. It comes with 80 MB of cache (64 MB L3 + 16 MB L2) and has a TDP of 170W. Now in terms of clock speed, while the boost clock is identical to the Ryzen 9 7950X, the base clock is slightly dialed down by -200 MHz but we can expect a lot of efficiency coming out of this flagship product, especially in terms of multi-threaded performance.

Once again, Igor's results come from a source running an ES (Engineering Sample) version of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X CPU which is rated at lower clock speeds but was manually tweaked (PBO+CO) & tested at various target PPTs. For testing, stock 4800 MT/s DDR5 memory was used along with a custom water-cooling which seems to be quite hefty considering it can keep the chip at 60C even under a 230W PPT. We know that Ryzen CPUs run cooler, but it must still be a beast of a water-cooling setup to keep the chip this cool.

As you can see, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X "Zen 5" Desktop CPU manages to match the 7950X3D at 120W and is able to match the Core i9-14900KS with a 160W TDP. The result versus i9-14900KS is the standout given that the latter was tested at its extreme profile which can push over 300W of power, almost double that of the 160W PPT and this isn't even the retail chip. With a PPT of 200W, the 9950X sits 5% ahead and with a PPT of 230W, the Zen 5 chip sits 8% ahead (and its still going to be less power hungry than the i9).

Ryzen 9 9950X (230W) - 46,090 (100%) / 5477.0 MHz (Peak) 60.5C

Ryzen 9 9950X (200W) - 44,782 (97.1%) / 5227.0 MHz (Peak) 54.6C

Ryzen 9 9950X (160W) - 42,336 (91.8%) / 5206.4 MHz (Peak) 47.9C

Ryzen 9 9950X (120W) - 36,478 (79.1%) / 4190.1 MHz (Peak) 43.5C

Ryzen 9 9950X (100W) - 33,373 (72.4%) / 3821.8 MHz (Peak) 40.5C

Ryzen 9 9950X (80W) - 29,430 (63.8%) / 3340.1 MHz (Peak) 41.0C

Ryzen 9 9950X (60W) - 23,985 (52.0%) / 2687.8 MHz (Peak) 39.5C

Ryzen 9 9950X (40W) - 12,424 (26.9%) / 1401.7 MHz (Peak) 34.8C

Now as for the engineering sample, the stock 170W score from AMD's official Ryzen 9 9950X tests seem to match the 160W PBO+CO optimized score. The 160W ES chip is slightly ahead thanks to the extra bit of tuning but it should give you a reference for comparison.

Ryzen 9 9950X (LN2) - 53557 (127.7%)

Ryzen 9 9950X (Curve Shaper) - 45303 (108.0%)

Ryzen 9 9950X (PBO + EXPO) - 43905 (104.7%)

Ryzen 9 9950X (Stock) - 41924 (100%)

We have said it before and we will say it again, the multi-threaded performance of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X CPU with its 16 Zen 5 cores is looking great and with the added efficiency and lower temps, it will turn out to be a leadership product for the high-performance desktop segment. The official launch takes place on the 31st of July so stay tuned for the performance reviews.