38 PCWorld DECEMBER 2020REVIEWS AMD RYZEN 5000
For this review, AMD sampled its top two
chips: The 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X and the
16-core Ryzen 9 5950X. For comparisons, we
used Intel’s newest 10th-gen Core i9-10900K,
as well AMD’s midsummer Ryzen 9 3900XT.
The AMD CPUs were tested in an MSI
MEG X570 Godlike motherboard, while the
Intel CPU was installed in an Asus Maximus XII
Extreme board.
All four CPUs were tested with the newly-
released Windows 10 20H2 version, as well
as matching GeForce RTX 2080 Ti GPUs with
the latest public driver. Both machines were
outfitted with identical 32GB of Corsair
DDR4/3600 RAM
in dual-channel
mode, with their
XMP profiles
loaded.
For cooling, we
used NZXT X62
280mm liquid
coolers, with fans
and pumps
manually set to their
maximum speed.
Both were built in
cases with the case
doors off, and small
exterior desktop fans blowing air over the
motherboard and graphics card.
Storage on the AMD systems used a
Corsair MP600 PCIe 4.0 SSD, while the Intel
system used a Samsung 960 Pro SSD. In away, this gives the AMD CPUs an advantage
due to PCIe 4.0. On the other hand, AMD is
only vendor to offer PCIe 4.0 on a desktop
chip today, so it feels unfair to handcuff it to
PCI 3.0.
To ensure the results are fair, the vast
majority of our tests were retested. For a few
tests where the OS, graphics driver are
unlikely to move the needle that much, we
reused results and noted them as such.RENDERING PERFORMANCE
We’ll kick this off where we usually do, with
Maxon’s Cinebench R20. This is a 3D
modelling test
based on the same
engine Maxon uses
in its Cinema4D
application.
Besides being a
professional
application in use
every day, it’s also
the same 3D
modelling engine
that’s embedded in
several Adobe
Creative Cloud
apps, such as After
Effects and Premiere. Like most 3D modelling
apps, it favors more threads and scales with
the increase in CPU cores very efficiently.
For this test, we mix in results from
previous reviews. As Cinebench R20 is nearly