AMD 16-Core Ryzen 9 3950X: Up to 4.7 GHz, 105W, Coming September
by Dr. Ian Cutress on June 11, 2019 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Ryzen
- Zen 2
- Ryzen 3000
- Ryzen 3rd Gen
- Ryzen 9
- 3950X
One of the questions that was left over from AMD’s Computex reveal of the new Ryzen 3000 family was why a 16-core version of the dual-chiplet Matisse design was not announced. Today, AMD is announcing its first 16 core CPU into the Ryzen 9 family. AMD stated that they’re not interested in the back and forth with its competition about slowly moving the leading edge in consumer computing – they want to launch the best they have to offer as soon as possible, and the 16-core is part of that strategy.
The new Ryzen 9 3950X will top the stack of new Zen 2 based AMD consumer processors, and is built for the AM4 socket along with the range of X570 motherboards. It will have 16 cores with simultaneous multi-threading, enabling 32 threads, with a base frequency of 3.5 GHz and a turbo frequency of 4.7 GHz. All of this will be provided in a 105W TDP.
| AMD 'Matisse' Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs | |||||||||||
| AnandTech | Cores Threads |
Base Freq |
Boost Freq |
L2 Cache |
L3 Cache |
PCIe 4.0 |
DDR4 | TDP | Price (SEP) |
||
| Ryzen 9 | 3950X | 16C | 32T | 3.5 | 4.7 | 8 MB | 64 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 105W | $749 |
| Ryzen 9 | 3900X | 12C | 24T | 3.8 | 4.6 | 6 MB | 64 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 105W | $499 |
| Ryzen 7 | 3800X | 8C | 16T | 3.9 | 4.5 | 4 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 105W | $399 |
| Ryzen 7 | 3700X | 8C | 16T | 3.6 | 4.4 | 4 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 65W | $329 |
| Ryzen 5 | 3600X | 6C | 12T | 3.8 | 4.4 | 3 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 95W | $249 |
| Ryzen 5 | 3600 | 6C | 12T | 3.6 | 4.2 | 3 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 65W | $199 |
AMD has said that the processor will be coming in September 2019, about two months after the initial Ryzen 3rd Gen processors, due to extra validation requirements. The chip uses two of the Zen 2 eight-core chiplets, paired with an IO die that provides 24 total PCIe 4.0 lanes. By using the AM4 socket, AMD recommends pairing the Ryzen 9 3950X with one of the new X570 motherboards launched at Computex.
With regards to performance, AMD is promoting it as a clear single-thread and multi-thread improvement over other 16-core products in the market, particularly those from Intel (namely the 7960X).
There are several questions surrounding this new product, such as reasons for the delay between the initial Ryzen 3000 launch to the 3950X launch, the power distribution of the chiplets based on the frequency and how the clocks will respond to the 105W TDP, how the core-to-core communications will work going across chiplets, and how gaming performance might be affected by the latency differences going to the IO die and then moving off to main memory. All these questions are expected to be answered in due course.
Pricing is set to be announced by AMD at its event at E3 today. We’ll be updating this news post when we know the intended pricing.
Update: $749
Related Reading
- AMD Ryzen 3000 Announced: Five CPUs, 12 Cores for $499, Up to 4.6 GHz, PCIe 4.0, Coming 7/7
- AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen 'Matisse' Coming Mid 2019: Eight Core Zen 2 with PCIe 4.0 on Desktop
- AMD: 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper in 2019
- AMD Confirms PCIe 4.0 Not Coming to Older Motherboards (X470, X370, B350, A320)
- ASUS Pro WS X570-Ace: A No-Nonsense All-Black Motherboard with x8/x8/x8
- GIGABYTE Unveils X570 Mini-ITX Motherboard: X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi
- ASRock X570 Aqua: Heaviest AMD Flagship Motherboard Ever (Plus Thunderbolt)
- MSI Unveils the MEG X570 Ace: Black and Gold For AMD 50
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Arbie - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
Regarding the 3950X... since AMD will be selling it with a cooler, that component has to figure into the guaranteed boost. Coolers can't be binned like silicon, especially since the interface quality will be uncontrolled.Meaning that AMD will be forced to leave performance on the table, as margin.
Meaning that premium cooling could very well enable PBO / XFR to push the boost significantly higher. I'll bet that with top air cooling most 3950X will boost at least 100 MHz higher. And on water, well, maybe 5.0GHz.
Personally I'd rather they omitted the cooler from the top chips, for exactly this reason. I'll hate to throw it away...
xrror - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
Don't throw the stock cooler away - put it on ebay, AMD stock coolers are actually some of the first OEM coolers that weren't a joke =)Back in the Opteron days, the stock cooler was all copper with heatpipes. They're worth listing ;)
zealvix - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
Or they can do what Intel did with 8700, provide a cooler that is just sufficient for base all cores speed. :DSaturnusDK - Tuesday, June 11, 2019 - link
Barely sufficient. It was only sufficient in a 21C ambient room. Above that, thermal throttling.godrilla - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
The 16 core Ryzen 3950x is overkill for gaming. 8 core is probably the minimum recommended for some level of future proofing especially because next gen console ports are around the corner. From there what ever overclocks the best is going to be more attractive for high end gaming. Who knows maybe the 12 core part might overclock better than both 8 core and 16 core parts.xrror - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
well duh ;) okay non-jerk mode now:the 3600 and 3600x - depending on how they overclock, those are the gamer chips hands down.
I don't think many games currently know what to do with more than 12 virtual cores?
vanilla_gorilla - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
Unless you are a gamer who likes to record, edit and encode your gaming.xrror - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
fair enough, you got me there. Lets hope those "extra" cores/threads get the boost lovin' too!Metroid - Tuesday, June 11, 2019 - link
each chiplet = 8 cores, 2 chiplets = 16 cores, that full package, 12 cores = 2 chiplets of 8 cores with 2 cores disabled on each chiplet, so 2 x 6 = 12 cores, so yes, the 12 cores is the one that could most overclock here.Irata - Wednesday, June 12, 2019 - link
Didn't we have the "four cores and threads are more than enough for gaming" mantra when Ryzen was first launched (saying gamers would not need more cores) ?Techspot has an interesting article up, re-benchmarking Ryzen 1600 vs. the 4C/4T core i5-7600k which at the time was seen as the better gaming CPU.
Now, two years later, it is actually the worse gaming CPU in newer games and really struggling with some:
"Today when testing with Battlefield V the 1% low performance is a disaster for the 7600K and this means although the R5 1600 was only slightly faster on average the actually gaming experience was worlds better. The Core i5-7600K crash and burned at 1440p, this is a game that simply requires more than four cores and threads, even if they’re clocked at or around 5 GHz."