Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gaming Benchmarks — The TLDR
Nearly every title in our 16-game test suite benefits tremendously from 3D V-Cache acceleration, but this isn't the case with all games in the wild. Some games simply don't benefit as much, or at all, from the 3D V-Cache. This can be due to either the game code or a GPU limitation. We have also included AMD's benchmarks with a very broad range of 40 titles at the end of this page to provide a more balanced view of the impact of 3D V-Cache in some titles that don't benefit.
Here is the high-level view of gaming performance, using the geometric mean of our 16 gaming benchmarks at 1080p, which is then followed by our individual benchmarks further down the page. We're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 FE to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions and fidelity.
Once again, AMD's 3D V-Cache technology impresses us with stunningly good performance across our gaming benchmarks, with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D matching AMD's claims of being within roughly one percent of the current fastest CPU for gaming, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The 9800X3D was 0.4% faster than the 9950X3D across our full 1080p gaming suite, which is a tie. However, this removes much of the underlying nuance — the dual-CCD Ryzen X3D models are faster than the single-CCD models in some titles, while roles are reversed in others. You can see which titles favor which below, but the big takeaway is that the 9950X3D is wicked fast in gaming.
AMD only claims a 20% lead over the 285K, but the Ryzen 9 9950X3D leads the Core Ultra 9 285K by a whopping 37% in our benchmarks, mirroring the delta we saw with the 9800X3D launch. Intel's previous-gen Core i9-14900K is actually the best contender against the AMD lineup in gaming, but the 9950X3D is still an insurmountable 26% faster.
Surprisingly, during our tests, we regularly saw the 9950X3D's V-Cache CCD boost to ~5.5 GHz, while the 9800X3D was often in the 5.2 to 5.3 GHz range. In the albums below, you can see the average clockspeeds of each processor during each game.
Intel's troubled Arrow Lake continues to suffer. Intel originally said the Core Ultra chips would match the previous-gen Core i9-14900K, but a chaotic launch found the chips severely trailing even the prior-gen parts. Intel promised fixes to bring Arrow Lake up to the original claims of performance parity with its 14th-Gen chips, but our testing found that those fixes didn't help. In our testing, the latest Windows updates benefited the 14th-Gen chips more than Arrow Lake, worsening the situation.
We retested again for this review. Even with the latest version of Windows and the RTX 5090, things haven't improved for our Arrow Lake test platform.
The 9950X3D is also a respectable 15% faster than the prior-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D and 20% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. As you can see above, there isn't as much of a gap between the new 9000X3D series models as with the prior-gen 7900X3D and 7950X3D.
AMD has finally brought full overclockability to its X3D series, but we haven't done much fine-grained tuning. Instead, we tested with AMD's simple auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature (marked with 'PBO' in the chart), and it delivered less than a 1% gain in gaming. As such, we left that entry out of the individual game tests below. However, PBO was very impressive in the heavily threaded workloads in our productivity benchmarks, which you can see on the following page. More targeted tuning might yield better results in gaming, but as always, your mileage will vary.
Our gaming suite is very heavily skewed toward CPU-limited titles, and our selection is also very 3D V-Cache-friendly. Again, not all games will benefit equally. The competition between AMD and Intel chips can vary based on the title (particularly with X3D models) and the GPU you use. It's best to make an informed decision based on the types of titles you frequently play, so be sure to check out our individual game tests below. (Our lab isn't as temperature-controlled as we would like, so consider the gaming temperature measurements a rough guide.)
A Plague Tale: Requiem Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
The Ryzen 9 98000X3D starts out the gaming results with what will become a familiar trend throughout the rest of the results — it resides comfortably above the competing Intel processors.
Baldur's Gate 3 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
As you can see, the dual-CCD 9950X3D beats the single-CCD 9800X3D in this title, and the previous-gen dual-CCD Ryzen 9 7950X3D also beats its single-CCD comparable, the 7800X3D.
There are several more examples of this trend throughout the albums below; some titles respond better to the dual-CCD design, while others favor the single-CCD design. Given that most games are locked to a single CCD regardless, we think this is largely the result of the 9950X3D's higher effective clock rates on its cache-equipped CCD.
Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Cyberpunk 2077 can be an incredibly GPU heavy game with ray tracing, and we're opting for the more CPU constrained ultra (non-RT) settings, without upscaling — and note that none of our CPU gaming tests have upscaling of any form enabled.
F1 2024 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
We test F1 24 with the ultra preset, which does enable some RT effects. They're relatively lightweight compared to other games, and of course we're still hitting 200+ FPS on most of the CPUs.
Far Cry 6 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Far Cry 6 is an AMD-promoted game that responds incredibly well to 3D V-Cache.
Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Hitman 3 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Hitman 3 leverages Intel's E-cores for certain game functions, but it also likes Ryzen X3D's voluminous L3 cache. We enabled ray tracing effects for this title to further tax the CPUs, but as you can see, the RTX 5090 still chews through this title easily if the CPU keeps it fed.
Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Hogwarts Legacy is yet another game that slightly favors the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's dual-CCD design.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 obviously benefits from L3 cache — the Ryzen X3D chips are incredible in this title. We've added the newer version of this game to our benchmark suite, too, but we'll keep this one around as well due to its popularity.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
We've also begun testing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. This title relies heavily on data streaming and has a unique game engine, so it's time to start poking at it. As you can see, it inherits Flight Simulator 2020's love for 3D V-Cache (perhaps even more so).
Minecraft — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Monster Hunter Wilds — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Starfield Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
The Last of Us, Part 1 — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Watch Dogs Legion Benchmarks — AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D
Watch Dogs Legion closes out our testing with mundane scaling instead of the typical large deltas we see with the X3D chips.
AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D Gaming Benchmarks
As mentioned, performance can vary based on the title. AMD shared its own benchmarks to highlight what you should expect in various titles, so this is useful information — especially given that our test suite is 3D V-Cache-friendly. As with all vendor-provided performance data, view it with the appropriate skepticism. AMD's test notes are on the final slide.
