AMD’s Ryzen 7000 processors sort of dropped the ball when it comes to gaming performance, losing to the cheaper 13th Gen Core CPUs. The Core i5-13600K is faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X despite costing half as much. Luckily for Team Red, the Ryzen 7000X3D V-Cache chips retook the gaming crown shortly thereafter. At the top of the stack, we’ve got the Ryzen 9 7950X3D with 16 cores and 96MB of L3 cache, which is what we’ll be testing today.
| AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D | AMD Ryzen 9 7950X | AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D | Intel Core i9-13900K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cores/Threads | 16/32 | 16/32 | 8/16 | 24/32 |
| Base Clock | 4.2GHz | 4.7GHz | 3.4GHz | 3.0GHz |
| Boost Clock | 5.7GHz | 5.7GHz | 5.4GHz | 5.8GHz |
| L3 Cache | 32MB+32MB+64MB | 32MB+32MB | 32MB+64MB | 36MB |
| Power | 120 watts | 170 watts | 105 watts | 253 watts |
| Socket | AM5 | AM5 | AM4 | LGA1700 |
| Price | $699 | $569 | $316 | $559 |
The 7950X3D features the second iteration of AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology with a 7nm cache die stacked atop one of the 5nm CCDs. It packs two eight-core dies, one optimized for gaming and the other for compute-oriented content creation workloads. The former pairs 96MB of L3 cache (including 64MB 3D stacked cache) with eight Zen 4 cores clocked just over 5GHz. The latter is a standard Zen 4 CCD running at up to 5.75GHz.
Test Bench
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Hero Z790/X670.
- Memory: 16GB x2 DDR5 6,000MT/s CL38 (EXPO).
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 4080 16GB FE
- Power Supply: Cooler Master 850 SFX Gold
Intel i9-13900K vs R9 7950X3D: Gaming Benchmarks
Starting off with rasterization, we’ve got “A Plague Tale: Requiem,” which is particularly CPU-intensive. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D averages 197 FPS at 720p, beating the Core i9-13900K by 21%. Even though the frame rates drop substantially at 1080p, the performance deltas between the two CPUs remain unchanged.
Compared to the Core i9-13900K, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D produces a much smoother frametime graph with no major spikes.
Assassins’ Creed Valhalla favors AMD hardware, yet the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is just under 10% faster than the 13900K at 1080p and 720p.
Cyberpunk 2077 treats the two processors equally, netting an average of roughly 170 FPS at both 1080p and 720p. This indicates a strong CPU bottleneck, which only frame-generation upscalers like DLSS 3 can bypass.
The frametime graphs are also similar, although the 13900K does a slightly better job.
Dying Light 2 is the fourth title in our suite, where the Ryzen 9 7950X3D beats Intel’s 13900K. With an average FPS of 303 at 720p, the X3D is 8% faster than its Raptor Lake rival.
The Ryzen 9 7950X3D continues its winning streak in F1 2022 with a lead of 14% over the Core i9-13900K at 1080p.
Ghostwire Tokyo turns the tables on AMD’s fastest gaming chip. The Intel Core i9-13900K is over 50% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D across every resolution. Having a closer look at the frame times, you can see that, unlike the 13900K, the latter also suffers from frequent spikes now and then.
Hogwarts Legacy is an abomination of a benchmark. The performance simply doesn’t scale when going from 720p to 1080p. The numbers at the two resolutions are almost identical. Regardless, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D maintains a lead of 20% over the Intel Core i9 13900K.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a widely used benchmark. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D, once again, claims a win over the i9-13900K with notably better lows. The frametime graph of the latter highlights the irregularities causing the poor lows.
In the two final titles, the fastest gaming chips win one each. The Core i9-13900K is 12% faster than the 7950X3D at 720p, with a lead of only 6% at 1080p. Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is a more volatile benchmark. The Intel i9-13900K is a smidge faster at 720p, but the delta drops close to zero to 1080p (yet to be updated).
Overall, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D claims seven wins out of ten titles, leaving the i9-13900K with three flimsy victories.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D Ray Tracing Benchmarks on the next page…
