Custom PC - UK (2020-02)

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t’stakenAMDa whiletogetitsfinalretailZen2 AM4

processoroutthedoor,andtheresultingdelay

meansthatit landsinthesamemonthasIntel’s

Corei9-10980XE,aswellasAMD’sown 24 and32-core

3rd-genThreadripperCPUs.It’s a fascinatingcombination,

butyoumightarguethattheRyzen9 3950Xis carvingouta

nicheforitself,ratherthancompetingwithanynewCPUsthat

havelaunchedthisyear.

Forstarters,eventhoughAMD’slatestchipsetsupports

PCI-E4,theX570platformstilllacksquad-channelmemory

supportandhasfarfewerPCI-Elanes

thanIntel’sX299equivalent.It has

somanymorecoresthananyother

mainstreamCPUthatthere’snosuitable

comparisonthereeither.

However,withNVMeSSDsreadily

availablein2TBcapacitiesforunder

£400,if youcandowithoutquad-

channel memory, the Ryzen 9 3950X

is potentially attractive as a high-end

content creation CPU that can mix it up

with gaming and lightly threaded tasks.

It’s a cheaper alternative to Intel’s HEDT

CPUs, and a far better all-rounder than

any of Intel’s mainstream products.

Dicing into the specs, there’s not

much new under the hood compared

with other Zen 2 CPUs, and the Ryzen

9 3950X sports the same architectural

improvements that lead to the dramatic

IPC improvements we’ve seen with

all Zen 2 CPUs compared with their

predecessors. As you move up the stack

and increase core counts, the benefit

of the 7nm manufacturing process

becomes more apparent too.

AMDRYZEN 9

3950X/£749incVAT

SUPPLIER overclockers.co.uk

SOCKET AM4 PROCESSOR

It has a TDP of 105W – just two thirds the TDP of Intel’s

Core i9-10980XE (see p26). Admittedly, the latter does have

two more cores, but that means you won’t need to factor in a

monstrous cooling system to deal with the Ryzen 9 3950X

either, especially if you’ll be running at stock speed. Even at

stock speed, the Intel CPU can be a toasty customer.

Under the heatspreader, you’ll find two fully active Core

Chiplet Dies sporting eight cores each, thanks to a pair of Core

Complexes sitting in each die, sporting four cores apiece.

Unlike the Ryzen 9 3900X, none of the 16 cores is disabled,

so you get the full 512KB per-core cache, totalling 8MB, along

with a mighty 64MB L3 cache.

The Ryzen 9 3950X is also hugely backwards compatible with

previous AM4 gear. It will work fine in X370 chipset motherboards,

REVIEWS / PROCESSORS

SPEC

Base frequency

3.5GHz

Max boost frequency

4.7GHz

Core

Zen 2

Manufacturing process

7nm

Number of cores

16 x physical (32 threads)

Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT)

Ye s

Cache

64MB L3 cache, 16 x 512KB L2 cache

Memory controller

Dual-channel DDR4, up to 3200MHz

Packaging

Socket AM4

Thermal design power (TDP)

105W

Features

Precision Boost Overdrive, FMA3,

F16C, SHA, BMI / BMI1 + BMI2,

AVX2, AVX, AES, SSE4a, SSE4,

SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMX Graphs

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