AMD Ryzen 9 3950X: What Real Users Actually Think

I don't need 16 cores... but damn do I want 16 cores.

16 cores running at the same power as 8 of Intel's cores.....hot damn.

The 5950X is just a superior chip, there's nothing about it that's inferior to the 3950X.

It puts it around 8% above the 9980xe and probably on par with the new 10980xe. And it's not even a Threadripper. Talk about AMD pushing the bar forward!

The 3950x really showcasing how good the binning is. I wonder if these are the top tier silicon, or if there's slightly better stuff reserved for server chips? Probably the latter.

And it's not even a Threadripper. Talk about AMD pushing the bar forward!

Careful: Only 10 benchmark runs for the 3950X vs. 56 runs for the 5950X CPU, so outliers matter much more for the 3950X. Both CPUs react rather strongly to power limit changes under this load, and I suspect that more 5950X runs obey the 145W limit while many 3950X runs might run closer to the 200W hardware limit.

It's a solid all-rounder CPU. Can't complain. Seems like heat density is a real issue though — even with a Kraken S62 it seems like thermals are either an issue, or the boost algorithm is acting weird and not using up the full PPT limit.

It's not just cores, performance is also there. Great achievement. AMD now needs improved latency and per CCX manual overclock. Those chips can benefit from it a lot.

It looks amazing for numerical simulations. We don't need any of the HEDT extra stuff, just pure computing power. I'm very much looking forward to get one of those.

Anyone notice how a mainstream CPU has ECC memory support. Just wow..

If anybody is interested in Cry Engine or Duna Engine games that heavily use a single physics thread for intense stuff, Intel's 9900K is about 16% faster than the 3950x. So if you're planning on playing upcoming MMO titles like New World or Star Citizen, Intel is the choice.

There's nothing condescending about that AMD support response. They are correct. It is very unlikely that two separate CPUs are faulty.

The article is a little misleading because a manual voltage of 1.4V is most likely not safe for daily use with 3rd generation Ryzen CPUs especially since even the 2nd generation Ryzen CPUs have a safe manual voltage limit of 1.375V.

I don't like that all reviewers do that — they just use 1.4v when its not safe for the last two ryzen releases. I wonder shouldn't AMD tell them what safe voltages are when they give them the review kits.

Not unless it's quite cheap.

You killed 2 3950Xs in under a year — maybe you aren't as experienced as you think and you should seek some help from people with knowledge.

Just file another support ticket and say that checks have been done and the system completely replaced but the CPU still will not post if you're confident of your own fault tests. For the condescending stuff, you're probably reading into it too much. The support staff are usually low paid employees who go through the standard procedures — they handle hundreds of tickets each day.

1.4V under load is decently out of the max safe all-core voltage. When being restrained to a safe level you probably end up at 4.1–4.2 GHz. What'd be interesting is how this chip performs with two cores on each CCD disabled.

Only a few times in a decade that someone will release a CPU that will last you about 5 years. This is that chip. I remember having a Q6600 that overclocked to 3.2Ghz and it lasted me about ~5 years. When that chip was released, lots of people were asking 'why the fuck would you need a 4 core CPU?' It lasted me 5 years because games started moving towards multithreading.

The response didn't seem condescending at all, it reads as professional and the information is valid. It's rare to have two CPUs fail without fault of something else. If you've gone through all the steps and verified all the parts, I'd just submit another ticket saying you've followed through with the steps and come to the same conclusion that it's the CPU.

What is the market for this chip exactly? It performs like it belongs in the HEDT segment but it's missing quad channel memory and the extra PCIe lanes. So people in the market for a machine like this will probably wait for CLX to roll around or go Threadripper. And people who prefer mainstream will likely find $750 a tough pill to swallow considering lower core count CPUs do great in gaming and normal productivity software at a much lower price.

Safe voltage is relative to load. Probably for gaming you can have a 1.45V OC and have a long life on your CPU. Same OC could kill a chip in hours running Blender nonstop.

Absolutely not. Unless it's for so cheap price it could be free, there's no advantage on getting it, if you want to game, just buy the X3d ones, if you want to do heavy-stuff, just look for the 5900xt or the 5950x, newer CPUs, better performance and better longevity too.

No, unless it's like super cheap. 5600x will outperform it in games, and 5950x/5900xt will outperform it in CPU workloads.

My 3900X will manual OC to 4.3Ghz@1.3875V or 1.3V per core/thread, whereas a manual OC to 4.2Ghz only needs 1.275V or 1.2V per core/thread. Going higher is more a limit of cooling the silicon than voltage limitations. Fully stable with cpu at 100% doing avx encoding. Using a Noctua D15 cooler.

I just need a good and cheap CPU to upgrade from my 2600 4 years down the line without having to change the whole platform. Going from 6 to 16 cores on the same mobo is going to be fucking sweet.

Sometimes I think people in this forum sometimes lose perspective. Look, short answer is no, don't because the platform has moved on. But if you're asking if it's still a functional CPU for nearly any task, the answer is absolutely 100%. I'm a heavy gamer and 3D modeler, and I've not noticed any negative impact from the CPU. I'm not saying you should get it because its a dead platform, but like others have said - if you have all the other parts, and can get this cheap, its fantastic.

5000 series made them obsolete there was too much performance improvement. You are losing 30% of performance which is too much and you can find 5000/7000 alternative easily.

Going from Zen 3 to Zen 2? It might be better for productivity but probably worse for gaming. You're upgrading to a CPU that is like 5 years old now. I doubt you'd see the type of performance increase you'd want with your setup for $200 I can't see it being worth it.

I'm getting sick of lousy lazy reviewers that don't do their homework. I could probably have my 3900X running all core 4.4 at the same voltage, but NOPE!, I'm not gonna do it.

Stock operation, no PBO enabled or Core Optimizer tweaks, so I'll be power limited under a heavy all core load — I get 418. With PBO on so pretty much no power limits I get 461. 5950X with good cooling is the way to go unless you want to move to a workstation or server platform for rendering.

Honestly, if I had a CPU like this, I'd take my time figuring out which cores consistently boost a little higher than the rest first. Then go to the BIOS and overclock each core individually. Most cores would probably do just 4.2–4.3 GHz but a few of them would probably do 4.4–4.5 GHz. It would take me time getting everything right, but it would be worth it.

Given that the current generation of consoles are 8 core, and the next generation are going to be 8c/16t, I don't think many games will utilise more than 8c/16t for at least the next 5 years or so. But it's a god-send for many applications. Take Blender for example, my 2700X is just marginally slower than my 1070 at rendering (cycles). So this would blow my GPU out of the water, and ignore the limits of GPU rendering like VRAM size.

This graph just shows that 3900x has better value than 3950x. It's way cheaper for same order of performance.

Gaming? No. Multi threaded all core workloads? Yes.

I'm running stable at 4.35 GHz on all cores, Noctua air cooler, 83C max temperature. Cinebench score: 10113

If you're using your PC for gaming, the 3950X is outperformed by the 8000 Series APUs in CPU performance, and those are on the weaker end of AM5. A 7600X would be a good upgrade over the 3950X, and if you want to have a workstation, a 5950X would generally be better or if you can afford, a 7950X.

If you are using this PC for gaming the 3950x is a downgrade.

Only Gaming? No. Editing/rendering and sometimes gaming? Yes, why not.

I would not try custom cooling in mini ITX with this chip. Get a compact Push-Pull AIO with high speed fans and if that does not get you low temps you may have to enable eco mode.