AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs are here—we test the blistering-fast 5900X and 5950X
Enlarge / Brand-new CPUs look so pretty before you put the thermal paste on and hide them under a cooler. (credit: Jim Salter)
| Specs at a glance: Ryzen 5000XT CPUs, as tested | |
|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 Professional |
| CPU | Ryzen 9 5950X (16c/32t) Ryzen 9 5900X (12c/24t) Ryzen 9 3900XT (12c/24t)-$455 at Amazon |
| RAM | 2x 32GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4 3200-$180 ea at Amazon |
| GPU | MSI GeForce 2060 RTX Super-formerly $450 at Amazon |
| HDD | Samsung 860 Pro 1TB SSD-$200 at Amazon |
| Motherboard | ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi)-$380 at Amazon |
| Cooling | NZXT Kraken X63 fluid cooler with 280mm radiator-$150 at Newegg |
| PSU | EVGA 850Ga Modular PSU-$140 at Amazon |
| Chassis | Primochill Praxis Wetbench test chassis-$200 at Amazon |
| Price as tested | $1,500 as tested, excluding CPU |
A month ago, AMD announced the arrival of the Zen 3 desktop CPU architecture. The announcement included new AMD internal benchmarks that implied Intel had lost its last desktop performance trophy-pure single-threaded performance.
Last week, Ars got samples of the two highest-end models in the new CPU lineup-the $800, 16-core/32-thread Ryzen 9 5950X, and the $550 12-core/24-thread Ryzen 9 5900X. And we can confirm most of AMD's benchmark claims-IPC has improved, along with both single and multi-threaded performance, across the board, beating Intel soundly on nearly all fronts.
The only quibble we have with AMD's claims regards power consumption, not performance-and to be fair, it's almost certainly not AMD's fault. The system's desktop idle power consumption increased about 10W-but the increase affected our older Ryzen 9 3900XT CPU, as well as the two new Zen 3 parts. Knowing that, we expect the increase comes from the mandatory BIOS upgrade we had to perform on the ROG Crosshair VIII Hero motherboard, rather than the new CPUs themselves.
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