I'm thinking of getting a new PC but my knowledge of CPUs and GPUs isn't that good as I have been out of the market for 6 or 7 years now. I'm mainly looking to game, do programming, and running virtual machines and I'm curious if the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is a decent choice? How do AMD CPUs compare to Intel CPUs these days? Should I look at a cheaper CPU? If so what should I consider? I want something that will last me for a good few years which is why I am tempted to get the highest-end model.
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AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2
- Thread starter Cromulent
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Caporegime
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The 9950X3D2 has very little gains over the cheaper 9950X3D, save your money and get that.
Thank you very much.
I have a budget of about £3.5k but I want the machine to last at least 5 years. In terms of specs:
- 64GB RAM
- 2TB NVME SSD (Windows 11)
- 1TB NVME SSD (Linux)
Caporegime
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9950X3D is a decent choice and well priced sub £500 at times. AMD will give you a future CPU upgrade path on their AM6 socket, Intel is an option but they won't have a further generation of CPUs on their current socket. Nova Lake, Intel's big refresh, is due early 2027 and could well be interesting.
GPU wise the 9070XT is the best mid range option, otherwise you're looking at a 5080 (it's meant to be replaced by a 24GB refresh following the 5090 being killed off - I wouldnt buy the 16GB version).
AMD Linux support is stronger if you're gaming on Linux.
GPU wise the 9070XT is the best mid range option, otherwise you're looking at a 5080 (it's meant to be replaced by a 24GB refresh following the 5090 being killed off - I wouldnt buy the 16GB version).
AMD Linux support is stronger if you're gaming on Linux.
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Thank you. I thought the AMD GPU would be good on Linux and the CPU as well. I'll do some more hunting!
250K and 270K are priced well for the multithreading performance they offer, but generally second best when gaming to the X3D CPUs. The difference depends on the resolution and the graphics card.
I don't know how the E-Cores would interact with your VMs, since the Intel CPUs are a mix of 2 different (P and E). AMD CPUs use the same cores (i.e. they're just one type, on the whole CPU).
The 9950X3D2's main feature is having the 3D cache across both CCDs instead of just one, but that's rarely beneficial because most multicore workloads don't benefit meaningfully from the cache anyway.
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Thank you. In terms of resolution I was thinking of getting an ultrawide but haven't decided on which one yet. As for graphics cards I'm tempted by the AMD 9070 XT.
Good point about efficiency cores and performance cores. I'm not sure if the Linux hypervisor would put a virtual machine on an E core. I'll do some hunting.
Associate
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With the Zen 6 processors being 12 cores on a single CCD it may be worth considering a lesser CPU for the short term. I'm sure Zen 6 is scheduled for 2027 at some point.
It will be interesting to see how much the release price of the 5080 super will be?
It will be interesting to see how much the release price of the 5080 super will be?
Sorry. Missed this post.
I'm not very confident when it comes to building PCs or upgrading them. I'm thinking of getting an OCUK pre-built machine. I don't know if OCUK do upgrades if you pay for it. I'd have to send them an email. I'll look out for that though. Do you know if Zen 6 supports socket AM5?
Caporegime
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Zen 6 will be socket AM5 with availability being Spring/Summer next year.
I don't think OcUK do upgrades but it's a very simple process so you could get someone local to do it if you didnt feel up for it.
Problem will likely be a big jump in price, personally I'd just grab the 9950X3D as it's not stupid expensive and will last years.
Thank you. Yeah I think I'll do that as it should happily last 5+ years.
I have owned the 9950X3D and currently enjoy the 9950X3D2: I also agree the former is a good choice and recommended. The 9950X3D2 is the current flagsip CPU, however, the improvements are incremental - to the 9950X3D - and not commensurate with the additional spend.
Although, I read somewhere there was one peculiar exception for a specific biochemistry industry software where the 9950X3D2 had a 30-40% improvement over the 9950X3D! This was an outlier.
Enjoy!
Although, I read somewhere there was one peculiar exception for a specific biochemistry industry software where the 9950X3D2 had a 30-40% improvement over the 9950X3D! This was an outlier.
Enjoy!
I’ve got the 9950x3d2 and unless you get a good imc there’s no point. The 2nd ccd is fused 200mhz less than ccd1 and is a worse bin.
You still get the latency hit between CCDs and apart from a few outliers the performance gains seen are largely due to the higher power limit at stock compared to the 9950X3D.
Once you remove limits via motherboard the original 9950X3D can catch up while being easier to cool.
I’d save the money, X3D2 honestly feels like a gimmick.
You still get the latency hit between CCDs and apart from a few outliers the performance gains seen are largely due to the higher power limit at stock compared to the 9950X3D.
Once you remove limits via motherboard the original 9950X3D can catch up while being easier to cool.
I’d save the money, X3D2 honestly feels like a gimmick.
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Thank you very much.
All depends what you are doing with the VMs, the number you run and what hardware you need to pass through. IOMMU grouping can be royal PITA on desktop boards, so motherboard choice is pretty important. Linux works pretty well with ecores, they are just dog slow and there are never enough of them. The reality is AMD and Intel are in different leagues in terms of efficiency and even with Pcores turned off. There simply isn’t an efficiency argument to be made.
If you’re looking for an efficient system just to run a few VMs by day and use the system for gaming at night the 7800X3D can be a very good option especially in term of performance per watt but, it is a little limiting at a point and that’s where the 9950X3D comes into its own. If you’re doing more serious work then Threadripper or EPYC will beat the snot out of any desktop system in all metrics. I personally jumped to EPYC a few years ago and haven’t looked back. Not cheap, but will comfortably do everything it says on all the tins.
If you’re looking for an efficient system just to run a few VMs by day and use the system for gaming at night the 7800X3D can be a very good option especially in term of performance per watt but, it is a little limiting at a point and that’s where the 9950X3D comes into its own. If you’re doing more serious work then Threadripper or EPYC will beat the snot out of any desktop system in all metrics. I personally jumped to EPYC a few years ago and haven’t looked back. Not cheap, but will comfortably do everything it says on all the tins.
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Most of the VM stuff I'll be doing is running things like PostgreSQL and testing deployments. Some of that can be done using Docker instead so I'm not really doing anything intense at all. I'd still like 64GB of RAM though just to make sure.
I'd love to get a Threadripper system but not sure I can afford it.
200mhz is only a few percentage of half the CPU and that’s not going to offset V-cache the difference if used. TBH it’s probably imperceptible. The latency aspect is also pretty irrelevant when it comes to VMs.
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I’d definitely lean towards a V-cage chip for SQL workloads as the performance gain can be huge.