AMD Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X Now Available, High-End Zen 5 With 16 Cores For $649 & 12 Cores For $499

AMD has officially launched high-end Zen 5 Desktop CPUs, the Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X, now available for $649 & $499 US, respectively.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X CPUs mark the second wave of Zen 5 chips to hit desktop platforms, offering high-end performance catered towards enthusiasts and content creators. These chips are priced at a premium but feature prices lower than the MSRPs of the last-gen Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" lineup.

We tested both chips in our review yesterday and while we found them to be great uplifts over the previous parts, especially in terms of multi-threaded performance and efficiency, their value compared to Ryzen 7000 chips such as the Ryzen 9 7950X & Ryzen 9 7900X is slightly lower which would improve over time as the discounts hit the streets. Regardless, for those who have been waiting for a Ryzen 9000 CPU, they are now available and can be found at the retail links below:

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.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X also packs 3 chiplets, two of which are the Zen 5 CCDs, each with 8 cores, 16 threads, and 32 MB of L3 cache while the third chiplet is the IO die or IOD which is based on the TSMC 6nm process node is nearly identical to the IOD we saw on the Ryzen 7000 chips but with a few minor adjustments. The IOD retains the same 2 compute units based on the RDNA 2 graphics architecture and comes clocked at 2200 MHz. The CPU comes with full support for overclocking on the CPU, & memory, & has all tech support for PBO2, Curve Optimizer, and support within the Ryzen Master utility. AMD also recommends a liquid cooler for optimal performance with this behemoth.

Next, we have the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X "100-000000662" CPU, the 12-core and 24-thread variant. This chip has a base clock of 4.4 GHz and a boost clock of up to 5.6 GHz with a 76 MB cache. The interesting thing with this chip is that it has a TDP of 120W much lower than the 170W of Ryzen 9 7900X chips.

Once again, while the chip retains the same boost clock speed as the Ryzen 9 7900X, the base clock sees a -300 MHz reduction which is once again to fit within the 120W power limit but once again, the 12-core should be able to boast some nice multi-threaded capabilities. Following are the TDP comparisons between the four chips of this generation with the prior one: