Another interesting comparison is to see the performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X vs 7800X3D . Although it seems that there is already a clear winner, the truth is that it deserves a more detailed analysis to know if a processor update can make you gain performance in those workloads that you are going to deal with.
Table of Contents
Ryzen 9 9950X vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D technical specifications
The technical specifications table of the two contenders in our battle, Ryzen 9 9950X vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D, is as follows:
| AMD Ryzen 9 9950X | AMD Ryzen 9 7800X3D | |
| Manufacturing node | TSMC 4nm / IOD 6nm | TSMC 5nm / IOD 6nm |
| Number of transistors | 16.63 billion CCD and 3.4 billion cIOD
FinFET type |
11.27 billion CCD and 3.4 billion cIOD
FinFET type |
| Socket | AM5 (LGA 1718) | AM5 (LGA 1718) |
| Microarchitecture | Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) | Zen 4 (Raphael) |
| Number of cores | 16 physicists
32 logical (SMT) |
8 physicists
16 logical (SMT) |
| Clock frequency | 4.3 Ghz
Turbo up to 5.7 Ghz |
4.2 Ghz
Turbo up to 5 Ghz |
| iGPU | Radeon RDNA3.5 Dual Core 2200MHz (on cIOD) | Radeon RDNA3 at 2200 Mhz (on cIOD) |
| NPU | Not included | Not included |
| Cache memory | L1: 80 KB per core
L2: 1 MB per core L3: 64 MB shared |
L1: 64 KB per core
L2: 1 MB per core L3: 96 MB shared |
| Unlocked | Yeah | No |
| Tj max | 95ºC | 89ºC |
| TDP | 170W | 120W |
| Memory support | DDR5 5600 MT/s Dual Channel | DDR5 5200 MT/s Dual Channel |
| PCIe lanes | 28x Gen 5 (24x usable) | 24x Gen 5 |
You might also be interested in knowing the best processors on the market
Ryzen 9 9950X vs 7800X3D: Zen 5 vs Zen 4
In our Ryzen 9 9950X vs 7800X3D comparison , we are going to compare two processing units that not only have a different microarchitecture, but also use a different manufacturing process and different packaging. That is, Zen 5 vs Zen 4, 4nm vs 5nm, 2D vs 3D packaging…
However, it should be noted that Zen 5 is not built from scratch, but is simply an improvement of Zen 4, that is, a redesigned Zen 4 to squeeze out even more performance, achieving an average of 16% higher IPC , that is, 16% more instructions executed per clock cycle, which is not bad at all.
To achieve this, the Front-End width has been improved , now wider to handle more instructions at once. The FPU word size has also been doubled , now 512-bit, so instructions like AVX-512 don’t have to be executed twice as before in Zen 4.
The L1 memory capacity has been increased, and it has also been optimized to improve speed and latency. Work has also been done on improving the branch predictor, to avoid failures as much as possible and so that they do not penalize performance. However, it is true that the L3 capacity is still greater in the 7800X3D , given its 3D V-Cache technology with 3D packaging.
Other improvements present in Zen 5 also affect the execution units, such as the ALU, as well as the MMU, etc. However, as you will see, they do not seem to be enough to satisfy the thirst for cache memory in video games…
I recommend you read our guides to choose the best RAM and the best motherboard for these processors
Ryzen 9 9950X vs 7800X3D: Benchmarks
Now that we know the differences in terms of design, as well as in terms of technical specifications, the next step is to stop the stories and look at reality, and for that we are going to subject the Ryzen 9 9950X vs 7800X3D to a series of performance tests :
Benchmark results
We start as usual with the latency and performance in terms of RAM accesses for these two processing units, with these results:
When tested against benchmarks like Cinebench for single-core and multi-core performance scores , the Ryzen 9 9950X vs 7800X3D results are (more is better) as expected, with better results for the Zen 5-based unit:
If you want to know the results of the comparison between the Ryzen 9 9950X vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D for VR and rendering , as is logical for this type of workload, greater parallelism is needed, and the Ryzen 9 wins:
Gaming performance
As expected, here comes the comparison of the Ryzen 9 9950X vs 7800X3D in gaming , that is, the top of the range Zen 5, against a unit with 3D V-Cache from the previous generation and fewer processing cores. To see the performance of both, we have tested them with different well-known AAA video games, whose results are (more FPS is better):
As you can see, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D unit, in addition to being cheaper, wins in gaming by achieving higher FPS rates.
Consumption and temperature
The consumption at idle and under load for these two CPUs also leaves us with a winner (less watts is better), with a Zen 5 unit that behaves better at idle given the improvement in efficiency compared to Zen 4, but that consumes more under load because we are comparing an R9 vs R7, with more cores:
When comparing the idle and load temperatures of the AMD Ryzen 9950X vs 7800X3D, the results measured in degrees Celsius are (lower is better) similar to those of consumption, only in this case the 3D V-Cache harms the load temperature of the R7 unit, despite having fewer cores running:
Conclusion
As you can see, when you put these titans up against each other, the first thing you might think is that the Ryzen 9 9950X is going to win hands down due to its higher core count and next-gen microarchitecture. However, while this is true for some workloads where parallelism matters more, it is not the case in gaming. Not only is the 7800X3D around €300 cheaper, which you can then spend on upgrading your RAM or graphics card of choice for your setup, but performance is still superior in most gaming tests. So if you’re a gamer, go with the 7800X3D . For tasks where parallelism matters, the 9950X is the better choice . And remember, the 7800X3D is OC-locked and has a lower maximum supported temperature…