Ryzen 9 9900X tested: More economical, faster, disappointing in games
AMD's new twelve-core processor comes with a reduced power budget. Nevertheless, it calculates faster than its predecessor. However, it looks poor in 3D games.
(Image: c't)
Following the launch of the Ryzen 9000 with six and eight cores a week ago, the top models Ryzen 9 9900X and Ryzen 9 9950X with twice as many cores will follow tomorrow, August 15. AMD only gave us the opportunity to test the twelve-core Ryzen 9 9900X in advance, so we were unable to get a complete picture. As soon as we have also measured the 16-core, we will provide a large comparison test with a detailed architecture analysis.
Although the Ryzen 9 9900X has the same Turbo clock of 5.6 GHz as its predecessor Ryzen 9 7900X, the all-core Turbo drops by 300 MHz (4.4 instead of 4.7 GHz) under load on all CPU cores. AMD has reduced the Thermal Design Power (TDP) from 170 to 120 watts, which reduces the actual thermal budget (Package Power Tracking, PPT) from 230 to 162 watts. Thanks to the new Zen 5 architecture, the Ryzen 9 9900X still computes faster in most applications. In the single-threaded rating of the Cinebench 2024 rendering benchmark, it is 12 percent faster than its Zen 4 counterpart. Under load on all cores, the Zen 5 chip still achieves a lead of eight percent.
| Ryzen-9000-Prozessoren fĂĽr AM5 | ||||||
| CPU | Kerne/Threads | Basistakt | Turbotakt | L3-Cache | TDP/PPT | Preis |
| Ryzen 9 9950X | 16 / 32 | 4,3 GHz | 5,7 GHz | 64 MByte | 170 W / 200 W | 709 € |
| Ryzen 9 9900X | 12 / 24 | 4,4 GHz | 5,6 GHz | 64 MByte | 120 W / 162 W | 539 € |
| Ryzen 7 9700X | 8 / 16 | 3,8 GHz | 5,5 GHz | 32 MByte | 65 W / 88 W | 399 € |
| Ryzen 5 9600X | 6 / 12 | 3,9 GHz | 5,4 GHz | 32 MByte | 65 W / 88 W | 309 € |
| TDP: Thermal Design Power, PPT: Package Power Tracking | ||||||
Better efficiency, but not world class
The Ryzen 9 9900X is 13 percent more efficient than the Ryzen 9 7900X thanks to its higher computing performance and lower power consumption. However, with 7.75 Cinebench points per watt, it has to admit defeat to the eight-core Ryzen 7 9700X with 65 watts TDP and 88 watts PPT (9.11 CB/watt) as well as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D (8.98 CB/watt), because the latter only utilizes about half of its thermal budget of 162 watts in practice.
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| Ryzen 9 9900X: Benchmarks und Messwerte | ||||||||
| Prozessor | Kerne / Threads | Takt / Turbo | Cinebench 2024 1T [Punkte] | Cinebench 2024 MT [Punkte] | AIDA GPGU 64 Bit [FLOPS] | F1 2022, Full HD, [fps] | Effizenz [CB/Watt] | Leistungsaufnahme: Leerlauf / Volllast [Watt] |
| Ryzen 9 9900X | 12 / 24 | 4,4 / 5,6 GHz | 133 | 1699 | 2038 | 336 | 7,75 | 41 / 212 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X | 12 / 24 | 4,7 / 5,6 GHz | 119 | 1574 | 1023 | 346 | 6,84 | 49 / 248 |
| Ryzen 7 7800X3D | 8 / 16 | 4,2 / 5,0 GHz | 113 | 1078 | 619 | 432 | 8,98 | 45 / 123 |
| Core i9-14900K | 8P+16E / 32 | 3,2 / 6 GHz | 134 | 2060 | 1122 | 346 | 5,9 | 31 / 361 |
Despite the architectural improvements, the new twelve-core is not convincing in 3D games. In the racing simulation "F1 2022" and the action role-playing game "Cyberpunk 2077", the frame rate at Full HD resolution with Nvidia's top graphics card model GeForce RTX 4090 is even slightly below that of the Ryzen 9 7900X. For gamers, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D with additional stacked level 3 cache therefore remains the ultimate.
AMD charges 539 euros for the Ryzen 9 9900X, a whopping 50 percent more than the street price of its predecessor (ab 375 €). The top model Ryzen 9 9950X starts at 709 euros and competes with the equally expensive Intel Core i9-14900KS Special Edition for the crown of the currently most expensive desktop processor.
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(chh)
