Ryzen 3950X – Still worth buying?
Since the Ryzen 3950X launched back in September last year, it’s been pretty much the king of mainstream desktop CPUs, but now that it’s getting older, and Intel have finally released some competition, is it still worth buying? Lets test it and find out, but first, if you haven’t already, consider subscribing for more videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!
So, the 3950X, the 16 core, 32 thread, productivity monster with gaming prowess to boot. Obviously, most people who are buying these are content creators in some form, whether they are independent like me, or creative professionals and this is their in-office workstation, you don’t buy one of these just for gaming. So, how does it perform?
| Premiere Pro (s) | Blender (s) | Cinebench Single | Cinebench Multi | Power (W) | Max temp (C) | |
| 3900X | 832 | 118 | 508 | 7100 | 145 | 79 |
| 9900K | 880 | 160 | 499 | 4915 | 180 | 96 |
| 10900K | 863 | 126 | 509 | 6170 | 220 | 92 |
| 10900K 5.1GHz | 769 | 119 | 520 | 6492 | 285 | 97 |
| 3950X | 748 | 92 | 521 | 9073 | 138 | 79 |
Of course, gaming performance is pretty important too, so how does it handle that?
| BFV 1440p Ultra | AVG | Low |
| 3900X | 128.19 | 105.93 |
| 9900K | 146.73 | 127.71 |
| 10900K | 143.87 | 123.91 |
| 10900K OC | 147.7 | 130.54 |
| 3950X | 139.25 | 120.91 |
| COD MW 1440p Max | AVG | Low |
| 3900X | 124.58 | 99.1 |
| 9900K | 138.45 | 110.01 |
| 10900K | 144.43 | 117.78 |
| 10900K OC | 145.51 | 123.6 |
| 3950X | 133.31 | 110.61 |
| PUBG 1440p Ultra | AVG | Low |
| 3900X | 145.59 | 91.3 |
| 9900K | 169.23 | 115.77 |
| 10900K | 164.88 | 123.76 |
| 10900K OC | 161.42 | 117.8 |
| 3950X | 148.53 | 104.85 |
| Fortnite 1440p EPIC | AVG | Low |
| 3900X | 144.47 | 101.63 |
| 9900K | 157.83 | 116.83 |
| 10900K | 150.02 | 102.03 |
| 10900K OC | 160.04 | 116.88 |
| 3950X | 156.43 | 101.76 |
Now, if you are in the market for one of these, you probably won’t need to look twice at Intel’s latest lineup, but lets humour them. Their top end 10900K is ‘only’ 10 cores, it draws nearly 60% more power, and is a good 30% slower in productivity apps like Blender and Premiere. If you wanted real competition with the 3950X, you’d have to step up to Intel’s HEDT lineup which is overdue a refresh anyway, and is considerably slower for gaming, and more expensive too, so not a realistic option.
Ok, but what about 4th gen Ryzen, that’s coming out soon right? Well, if the rumours are anything to go by, there is going to be an intermediary launch of “XT” CPUs first, before the 4th gen launch in a number of months. Either way, it’s likely going to be a while before you can actually purchase any new Ryzen CPUs that would outperform this.
Ryzen also has the benefit of forwards compatibility. If you buy a B550 or X570 motherboard – or potentially even existing B450 boards, should you risk it, you are only a bios update away from having full support for 4th gen Ryzen CPUs, and you can resell the 3950X for minimal loss, should you really need to upgrade immediately.
The conclusion then is pretty simple, if you can benefit from having 16 cores for your workload, I don’t think there is much better of an option than this right now. Sure the “next new thing” may be just around the corner, but it’s still around the corner and we don’t know how much faster they would be, even assuming they launch a 16 core option immediately. Intel may have similarly performant options depending on your workload, but not for the same budget and certainly not for the same power usage.
3950X on Amazon: https://techteamgb.co.uk/3950x
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