AMD Ryzen 9 7950X - Benchmarks

[Ras]

Buy a brand new BMW car in the UK and it comes with a 3-year warranty. So according to your logic BMW is saying that they expect their cars to last just 3 years.

Pretty much, yes. If their statistics didn't make them expect some expensive damages starting after three years, they would give you a longer warranty because it wouldn't cost them money.

[Werewolf]

Performance: Big increase
Efficiency: No progress

[M ANSARI]

I am looking to upgrade my PC soon and this looks interesting ... but at 95c ... I can't imagine anything but watercooling with that! I recently purchased an M2 Apple Macbook Pro and was just floored with how incredibly fast it did video editing ... and the laptop did not even get warm and even with heavy editing of my GoPro videos the battery life of the laptop is incredible. I don't like the Mac OS though as I am still finding it hard to navigate (been PC user all my life). I guess with the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, power for the amount of wattage required is off the scales! I saw that Intel has a 16 core version also ... but half of the cores seem to be virtual cores?

[Joost Buijs]

They are not virtual cores, but smaller/simpler cores. Don't underestimate the performance of these cores, they are still pretty decent.

The Intel Raptor Lake 13900K (that will be announced soon, maybe today) has 8 large cores and 16 small cores for a total of 24 cores. The drawback is that Intel consumer processors don't support AVX-512 like the AMD 7950X does.

[Ras]

but at 95c ... I can't imagine anything but watercooling with that!

If your cooling is insufficient, the 7950X will still only go to 95°C, just not at full performance. You'd need a 360mm AIO watercooling or a custom loop at 230W. Alternatively, you can limit the package power to 142W which loses you only 5-10% performance, but that should be doable with a dual tower air cooler such as Noctua NH-D15. At that wattage, the 7950X will still be about 35% faster than a 5950X. It will also be a lot more expensive - not just the CPU itself, but also the mobo and RAM.

[M ANSARI]

but at 95c ... I can't imagine anything but watercooling with that!

If your cooling is insufficient, the 7950X will still only go to 95°C, just not at full performance. You'd need a 360mm AIO watercooling or a custom loop at 230W. Alternatively, you can limit the package power to 142W which loses you only 5-10% performance, but that should be doable with a dual tower air cooler such as Noctua NH-D15. At that wattage, the 7950X will still be about 35% faster than a 5950X. It will also be a lot more expensive - not just the CPU itself, but also the mobo and RAM.

I can't imagine air cooling being enough for 95c, especially if I am running long term analysis at full throttle on all cores. I hate watercooling as it requires quite a lot of maintenance (at least when I was running water cooling on my rigs 15 years ago)! I still have 2 Vapochills ... but very noisy and I probably would have to fabricate a new block. I also have a dual CPU vapor1hp cooling rig I used many years back. I had my dual Xeon Skulltrail running at 5Ghz on 8 cores for days without any problems ... and that was around Bitcoin time so about 2009! I haven't really been following up on computer progress lately.

[Ras]

I can't imagine air cooling being enough for 95c

The CPU keeps itself at 95°C. Also, temperature itself has nothing to do with air or water cooling - it's the thermal power that the cooler has to dissipate, and 142W thermal power is well possible for a large air cooler.

[CornfedForever]

Stockfish 9 is from 2018 . Bench with SF 15 please? Seriously they say you can't beat anymore 8 core Stockfish from equal opening. Only benefit from fast processor is, that you solve (artificial) testpositions faster.

Sorry, no.
To start benching based on newer and newer versions throws away the comparisons to older CPU's.

Basically, who would have thought just a few years ago we would so quickly reach these kinds of numbers on a mainstream CPU....and one not one made by Intel at that? The Top Intel CPU...doesn't even come close really.

[jhellis3]

but at 95c ... I can't imagine anything but watercooling with that!

If your cooling is insufficient, the 7950X will still only go to 95°C, just not at full performance. You'd need a 360mm AIO watercooling or a custom loop at 230W. Alternatively, you can limit the package power to 142W which loses you only 5-10% performance, but that should be doable with a dual tower air cooler such as Noctua NH-D15. At that wattage, the 7950X will still be about 35% faster than a 5950X. It will also be a lot more expensive - not just the CPU itself, but also the mobo and RAM.

I can't imagine air cooling being enough for 95c, especially if I am running long term analysis at full throttle on all cores. I hate watercooling as it requires quite a lot of maintenance (at least when I was running water cooling on my rigs 15 years ago)! I still have 2 Vapochills ... but very noisy and I probably would have to fabricate a new block. I also have a dual CPU vapor1hp cooling rig I used many years back. I had my dual Xeon Skulltrail running at 5Ghz on 8 cores for days without any problems ... and that was around Bitcoin time so about 2009! I haven't really been following up on computer progress lately.

The key is being willing to undervolt & downclock a bit. The voltage curve spike is absurd for the last 100 - 150MHz. I was able to drop temps on my 5800x by 18 - 22c and cool it virtually silently on air with negative offsets on the voltage curve and capping the powertarget & max boost. It cost me ~3.5% performance.... well worth it IMO.

[M ANSARI]

I can't imagine air cooling being enough for 95c

The CPU keeps itself at 95°C. Also, temperature itself has nothing to do with air or water cooling - it's the thermal power that the cooler has to dissipate, and 142W thermal power is well possible for a large air cooler.

Yes I am a ware of the dissipation of heat ... the problem is using only air then to dissipate a CPU churning at 95c will mean you have to have fans that sound like a mini vacuum cleaner. With water you can really bring down the sound level.