AMD Ryzen 9000 series desktop CPUs: Zen 5 vs Zen 4 vs Intel 14th Gen

August 27, 2024 – AMD has finally released its new gaming desktop CPUs based on the Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) architecture, also known as the AMD Ryzen 9000 series. These CPUs include the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, Ryzen 7 9700X, Ryzen 9 9900X, and Ryzen 9 9950X.

While initially AMD intended to release all four new CPUs at the end of July, the two Ryzen 9 models were delayed by about two weeks because of some issues with quality assurance.

Was the long wait worth it? Below we will discuss how these new gaming processors compare with the older generation based on the Zen 4 architecture, and with Intel’s competition.

AMD Zen 5 vs Zen 4 CPUs

First of all, what is the Zen 5 architecture? The Zen 5 architecture is designed to be better at multitasking and processes data much faster. It achieves this largely thanks to its 4nm manufacturing technology.

This refers to the size of the transistors in the CPU, smaller transistors mean more can fit on the chip, leading to better performance and energy efficiency. 4nm is about 1/10,000th the thickness of a human hair, that’s how small AMD transistors are now.

The new architecture also boasts improved branch prediction accuracy and latency. When a CPU processes instructions, it often has to guess the next step (this is called “branch prediction”). Better accuracy in these guesses means the CPU spends less time correcting mistakes, which makes it faster.

Aside from architectural changes, as you can see from the comparative table below AMD has not increased the number of cores, threads, or the overall cache size between the 7000 CPUs series and their 9000 series counterparts (e.g. Ryzen 9 9950X vs Ryzen 9 7950X).

Clock speeds have seen a small boost for the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 models, while the two Ryzen 9 models retain the max speeds of their predecessors. Maximum power consumption (Thermal Design Power, or TDP) has gone down for most models (except for the Ryzen 9 9950X).

In terms of price, compared to previous models that offered a similar performance, the prices have been slashed a bit, which is very nice to see and makes them quite competitive against Intel’s CPUs (more below).

But what can we say in terms of actual performance? The guys over at cpubenchmark.net and nanoreview.net have already thoroughly tested these new Zen 5 CPUs and found that they are quite an improvement over the equivalent models from the 7000 series.

For example, the most powerful CPU that the 9000 series currently has to offer, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X outperforms the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X by about 10% in single-threaded tasks (the tasks that matter most in gaming). The cheaper price of the former CPU is the cherry on top.

Similar increases in performance have been found for the other CPUs in the 9000 series when compared to their 7000 series equivalents (i.e. Ryzen 9 9900X vs Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 9700X vs Ryzen 7 7700X, Ryzen 5 9600X vs Ryzen 5 7600X).

Keep in mind that there is no 9000 series equivalent for the 7000 series X3D models, yet. So we don’t know what the upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X3D will be able to do.

According to nanoreview.net the Ryzen 9 9950X already outperforms the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, one of the best gaming CPUs, in single-threaded tasks. But the people at techspot.com, who tested the Ryzen 9 9950X on several demanding games, found that in some cases the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and Ryzen 7 7800X3D can still dominate when comparing frame rates, likely thanks to their colossal cache size.

Where these new 9000 series CPUs seem to shine is multithreaded tasks such as 3D rendering (think of 3D-modeling software like Blender), rather than gaming, and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X show this quite clearly.

AMD Zen 5 vs Intel 14th Gen CPUs

Now that we sorted out how AMD Zen 5 CPUs perform compared to their Zen 4 predecessors, you may wonder how they fare against the competition, namely Intel’s most recent and powerful gaming CPUs (14th gen).

Below is a table to help you visualize some of the main differences in terms of cores, threads, max speed, cache size, TDP, and price.

At first glance, if you look only at the number of cores, max speed, and TDP, you may think that Intel packed much more power in its gaming CPUs compared to AMD, but keep in mind that these numbers are not always indicative of gaming performance, since cache size can also make a big difference.

In fact, according to the testing done by cpubenchmark.net, the top CPU produced by Intel, the Intel Core i9-14900KS, only slightly (3%) outperforms the top CPU currently available in the AMD 9000 series, the Ryzen 9 9950X, in single-threaded tasks.

However, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is somewhat cheaper, and according to the people over at nanoreview.net it also has greater power efficiency, as suggested by its much lower maximum power consumption (TDP).

What about the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, Ryzen 7 9700X, and Ryzen 5 9600X? According to the testing done at nanoreview.net, their single-threaded performance is very close to that of the Intel Core i9 14900F.

In terms of multithreaded tasks, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and Intel Core i9 14900F are also very close, but the latter clearly outperforms both the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and the Ryzen 5 9600X. On the other hand, all three AMD CPUs win at being more power efficient.

Conclusion

While the AMD 9000 series CPUs are definitely a step in the right direction, with increased performance and lowered price compared to the 7000 series, they don’t outperform Intel’s competition in gaming yet, which still holds the crown of the fastest gaming CPU with the Intel Core i9-14900KS.

However, if we factor in also price and power efficiency the AMD Ryzen 9950X can definitely be considered one of the best gaming CPUs on the market, and a tie with the Intel Core i9-14900KS in terms of value.

So AMD and Intel are both offering great gaming CPUs, but we haven’t seen the 9000 series equivalent of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D yet, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D. If the improvements we have seen over the 7000 series carry over, then we should expect a truly amazing gaming CPU coming up next.

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