Computer Shopper 2019-11-01

30 NOVEMBER 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 381

YOUCANNEVERhave toomany CPU cores,

or at least that’s what AMD is suggesting with

the Ryzen 93900X. As the very first Ryzen 9

CPU, it goes even further than the premium

Ryzen 7line-up by including 12 physical cores

and 24 threads, an obscene amount forwhat

is ostensibly amainstream processor.

Yes, despitethe price and the specs, this

is intended as simply the next step forward

forthe Ryzen family,without teetering over

intothe enthusiast space occupied by

Threadripper.It’s forgaming and content

creation alike,with aview to being better at

both than the Ryzen 73700X –which, as

we’ve seen from the Chillblast Fusion Axion

(page 22) and CCL Paladin (page 23), is

already ahighly multitalented CPU.

SILICONETALLY

Like the Ryzen 73700X and the rest of the

3rd-gen Ryzens, the Ryzen 93900X uses a

7nm manufacturing process. This just means

that the CPU’s transistors are smaller than

theywould be on a10nm or 14nm chip,and

are therefore more power efficient: increasing,

in theory,the number of calculations it can

perform with each cycle.Speaking of which,

clock speeds are high forachip with so many

cores: 3.8GHz at base speeds, with amaximum

single-core boost speed of 4.6GHz.

The latter isn’t quiteasfast as the 5GHz

achieved by the closest Intel equivalent, the

Core i9-9900K (Shopper371), but AMD’s chip

has four more cores and eight more threads,

as well as the smaller manufacturing process

helping do more with each clock cycle.The

result is that the Ryzen 93900X smashes the

Core i9-9900K on multithreaded performance.

Having installed the Ryzen chip in our

test PC, it went on to score 397 in the

video-editing portion and asuperlative 523 in

the multitasking portion, beating the Core

i9-9900K’s respective scores of 319 and 390,

and by hefty margins, too. The multitasking

result, in particular,isprobably down to the

Ryzen 93900X’s superior core count coming

intoplay, so it already looks like the better

choice forrunning multiple-monitor setups

where you might be running several resource-

VERDICT

Arecord12coresimbuestheRyzen93900X

withunrivalledmultitaskingprowess.It’s

hardto overclock,butyouwon’tneedto

AM4 PROCESSOR

intensive

applications at once.

We also recorded all 12 cores

running at about 4GHz under

sustained heavy load, so it’s good that

even at maximum capacity it’s not being

forced down to its lowest base speed.

Things are alot closer on single-core

performance,with the Ryzen 93900X scoring

168 in the image portion of our tests. That’s a

little lower than the Core i9-9900K’s 173,

suggesting that its faster boost speed can

make adifference,although not such agreat

one that it’s easy to notice during normal use.

PLAYINGTHE FIELD

The two CPUs traded blows on gaming, too.

Running Metro: Last Light Redux on aGTX

1060 GPU, with the high quality preset and a

1,920x1,080 resolution, the Ryzen 93900X

averaged 49fps, asingle frame behind the

Core i9 9900K. Dirt Showdown, on the other

hand, produced 132fps with the Ryzen 9

3900X and 127fps with the Core i9-9900K,

again using 1080p and the highest graphical

settings. As with the 2D image test, these

aren’t particularly significant differences,

but it does show once again that AMD has

finally caught up with Intel on single-core

and gaming clout.

Since the Core i9-9900K has been out

long enough to shed some of its price,itis

about £40 cheaper than the Ryzen 93900X,

but we think that’s afair price to payfor its far

higher multithreaded capability.Its overall

score in our benchmarks was 422, not even

close to the Core i9-9900K’s overall score of

330. We got this up to 345 with overclocking,
     but that’s still ahuge gap.
     Then again, at least the Core i9-9900K is
     receptive to overclocking. The Ryzen 93900X

is the first AMD chip

where it’s just not

worth bothering with: the

system crashed even with

ultra-conservative all-core

targets of 4.1GHz and 4.05GHz,

both of which you’ll notice are well

below the stock boost speed. Going any lower

would only equal what the cores run at under

maximum load anyway, so at least with abig

air cooler such as our Noctua NH-U12S, there’s

little point in messing with multipliers.

WARMWELCOME

Thereare acouple of possible reasons for

this. First, starting with the 2nd-gen Ryzen

chips, AMD has intentionally clocked them as

high as theycould safely go,leaving little

headroom to raise clock speeds further

without high-end liquid cooling. Second, the

Ryzen 93900X does get rather hot: even at

idle it routinely sits around 42°C, shooting up

to 83°C under heavy load. The highest peak

we recorded was 91°C, which is awfully close

to the officially rated maximum of 95°C.

This takes the shine off the Ryzen 9

3900X somewhat, and there’s also the matter

of the Ryzen 73700X: at £320, it’s just as

effective forgaming, and still has ample

strength fortasks such as video encoding and

photoediting. It will, therefore,bethe better

choice formost home users, but the Ryzen 9

3900X could still be agreat addition to a

luxury PC build or apseudo-workstation.

JamesArcher

AMD Ryzen93900X

★★★★★

£520•From http://www.ebuyer.com

Windowsoverall

Multitasking

DirtShowdown

0% -50 Reference + 50 + 100

Seepage94forperformancedetails

SOCKETAM4•CORES (^12) • FREQUENCY(BOOST)3.8GHz
(4.6GHz)•INTEGRATEDGRAPHICSNone•WARRANTY
TwoyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.amd.com•PARTCODE
100-100000023BOX

422

132fps

523

SPECIFICATIONS

The Ryzen93900X smashes the IntelCorei9-9900K on

multithreaded performance