A new AMD Ryzen 9 9950X benchmark leak suggests that AMD’s upcoming, 16-core flagship gaming CPU will be incredibly efficient compared to the current competition from Intel. The leak shows the AMD chip can match the performance of the Intel Core i9-14900K even when it’s restricted to just a 120W power limit.
The test of AMD‘s new best gaming CPU contender was reportedly run on the Blender 3D modeling app, but rather than being a straight run of the new AMD chip, the test only ran the CPU when restricted to various power limits. The test CPU is also an engineering sample, rather than a full retail sample, so it has slightly lower peak power ratings.
The test runs, which come from Anandtech forum member ivor_kavinski, were reportedly performed at 60W, 90W, and then 120W power limits, with the extra power headroom allowing the chip to automatically increase its clock speeds each time. As a result, at 60W the chip would boost its clock speed as high as 4,084MHz, increasing to 5,053MHz at 90W, and then to 5,220MHz at 120W.
Notably, the latter figure is much lower than the official boost clock of the chip, which sits at 5,700MHz. However, not only were these tests run on engineering sample that may have slightly lower clock limits anyway, but that peak clock speed is generally only achievable in single-threaded workloads, not a heavily multi-threaded task such as Blender.
Looking at the results, which we’ve replicated below, with the 9950X sat at 60W, it could still outperform an Intel Core i9-12900K, which pulled 241W to achieve the same score. Meanwhile, at 90W the chip sailed past its Zen 3 predecessor, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, with that chip’s lower scores being achieved at a 142W power draw.
As for the 120W results, these saw the 9950X almost exactly match the performance numbers of the Core i9 14900K, while that chip pulled 253W of power. Interestingly, AMD’s current 16-core champ, the Ryzen 9 7950X, was actually the outright leader in this test, although it wasn’t all that far ahead of the 9950X at 120W, despite the 7950X pulling 230W.
All this goes to suggest that AMD’s upcoming Zen 5 architecture is set to be incredibly efficient and, at least until the rival Intel Arrow Lake chips arrive, will clearly be the only sensible choice for high-end CPU buyers when they launch. That is, of course, assuming they’re competitively priced.
One point to note about these and other tests using the Blender app is that this software is heavily multi-threaded, and can take full advantage of as many cores as a CPU has to offer. As such, for low to mid-range CPUs, this sort of app generally favors Intel’s current options, as they tend to have more cores (thanks to their low-power E-Cores) compared to competing AMD chips.
For example, the AMD Ryzen 7600X has only six cores compared to the total of 14 cores on the Core i5 14600K. The same is true of several other multi-threaded workloads, so while the above tests suggest AMD’s Zen 5 chips will be the clear option across the board, certain Intel products may end up offering a better balance of performance and price for your needs in heavily multi-threaded software.
To learn more about AMD’s upcoming new CPUs, you can check out our Zen 5 guide, and for more of an idea of the overall performance of AMD and Intel’s current CPUs, check out our AMD Ryzen 7950X review and our Intel Core i9-14900K review, both of which include a range of benchmarks for both apps and games.