I've been doing a lot of video rendering and photo editing, and I'm trying to decide between the Ryzen 9 9950X and the 7950X. I remember when they first launched, the performance seemed a bit underwhelming. I saw that Puget Systems did some benchmarks a year ago, and it looked like the 7950X was just as good, if not better, in some applications. I'm curious if AMD has released any firmware updates or anything that might enhance the performance of the 9950X, making it worth considering over the 7950X.
4 Answers
Make sure to update to the latest motherboard BIOS, SSD firmware, AMD GPU drivers, and CPU chipset drivers. This can help ensure you're getting the best performance possible from your setup!
There were definitely some issues with voltage management in the early BIOS versions for the 9000 series, which caused a few CPUs to get bricked, but don't worry, those problems have been fixed now. Personally, I have two builds with the 9950X, and they perform really well. I upgraded from a 7950X to the 9950X when they both launched and noticed a solid performance boost. If you're only focused on performance, I wouldn't hesitate to go for the 9950X, but if you can find the 7950X cheaper, you won't regret that choice either. By the way, the 9950X also runs cooler overall, especially when properly undervolted.
There was a newer version of Windows released that did boost performance for the 9950X, but it also improved the 7950X to the same extent. So if the 7950X was already performing similarly or better in past benchmarks, it probably still is. One thing to note though is that the 9950X generally runs cooler, which can help with long tasks.
I'm not sure which Puget benchmark you're referring to, but in general, the Ryzen 9000 series is typically about 10-15% faster for productivity tasks, although that can vary depending on what you're doing.
Thank you very much! How much did you undervolt your two builds?