It has been a while, but here we are with AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series launched and ready for purchase!
AMD’s new CPU series starts with a serious set of excellent high-end CPUs. We are not going to analyze all of them individually in this post, but as a quick summary:
- Ryzen 5 9600X: 6 cores and 12 threads for $250.
- Ryzen 7 9700X: 8 cores and 16 threads for $320.
- Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Also 8 cores and 16 threads, but with extra cache for $480.
- Ryzen 9 9900X: 12 cores and 24 threads for $380.
- Ryzen 9 9950X: 16 cores (!) and 32 threads (!!) for $550.
So, how do these new CPUs measure up? Do they belong in our chart?
The Good
All of the new CPUs are on the new Zen 5 architecture, with a smaller lithography. The CPUs use less power, and thus they run cooler. Despite being (slightly) lower clocked, they still provide greater performance than their predecessors. This new series remains on the AM5 socket, so if your older AM5 motherboard gets a BIOS update that allows it, you can upgrade your CPU without needing to upgrade anything else.
All-in-all, the new CPUs are competitive enough to edge out their Intel rivals in four of the highest tiers! Pretty good, overall!
The Meh
While the new CPUs perform better, the performance increase is… kinda small! You can expect a realistic increase of ~4-8% when comparing similar CPUs (i.e. 9900X vs 7900X). When was the last time a ~4% performance increase got anyone excited?
The Weird and the Bad Fixed Temporarily?
For some unfathomable and (still) unexplained reason, AMD decided to launch the CPUs more than a month before fully out-of-the-box compatible motherboards were available. We covered that earlier, and we have had to wait till these new motherboards were available before we could recommend the 9000 series.
The price at launch for these CPUs was a bit iffy, but now (for a fathomable and explainable reason) AMD decided to give all of the CPUs a nice price cut. With the price cut, these CPUs are a more competitive option, but there is a catch: AMD has said that the price cut is temporary and only for the holidays. If that is true and the prices change in the future, we may bring back the 7000 series as a logical recommendation.
Going Forward
In terms of updates to our main build chart,
- The 9600X has been added to the Outstanding and Exceptional tiers.
- The 9700X has been added to the Outstanding, Exceptional, and Enthusiast tier.
- The 9900X has been added to the Enthusiast and Extremist tiers.
- The 9800X3D has been added to the Extremist and Monstrous tiers.
- The 9950X has been added to the Monstrous tier.
(All of the above were added with compatible motherboards, of course.)
Additionally, due to price changes:
- The i5-12600K has been removed from the Superb tier, and added to the Very Good tier.
- The i5-13600K has been added to the Superb tier.
We have also changed the base CPU for comparison from the older 3900X to the new 9900X. This change should be live for all CPUs new and old, but if we missed any please let us know.
Conclusion
The new CPUs (after the price cut) are quite good, so they are recommended. That should wrap it up for this update.
You might be wondering: What about Intel’s new CPUs? Well, that will be a blog post too, very soon!
Sources
(There are more sources out there, but TPU has been consistently top-tier. RIP Anand.)