AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Review

AMD’s latest CPUs are here, led by the Ryzen 7 9700X that debuted last week. Now the Ryzen 9 9900X is here – it’s a 12-core, 24-thread chip, can clock up to 5.6GHz, and still manages to beat its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7900X, despite its extremely similar specs. This is thanks to the new Zen 5 architecture, which is much more efficient than Zen 4 but without the steep power requirements.

This makes the Ryzen 9 9900X an extremely powerful processor, especially for creative workloads like 3D rendering and video editing. Of course, it’s also a great gaming processor, but if that’s all you’re doing with your PC, you can get similar performance out of pretty much any other high-end processor on the market. Instead, this processor is best for folks that do a little bit of everything on their PC, and is going to especially shine for streamers who need the extra CPU performance to capture their gameplay.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor built on the same Zen 5 architecture as the Ryzen 7 9700X and the Ryzen 5 9600X. This time around, the biggest improvement is efficiency, with these new 9000 series processors able to meet or exceed the last generation’s performance but with less power consumption.

Not that the Ryzen 9 9900X is a slouch. This processor has a TDP (thermal design power) of 120W, and a max socket power of 162W. Compared to the Ryzen 9 7900X, which has a power limit of 230W, the 9900X is much more conservative with power, even while delivering greater CPU performance.

The lower power limit also results in more manageable temperatures. The CPU did get up to 93C in my testing, but only during Cinebench all-core runs, rather than camping out at that higher temperature throughout the testing suite. (It typically hangs around 82C during regular use, such as gaming and Photoshop.) As such, the Ryzen 9 9900X should be a bit easier to cool effectively, but you’re still going to want to pair it with a beefy 280mm or 360mm AIO liquid cooler for best results.

Despite the lower power design of the Ryzen 9 9900X, it can reach the same 5.6GHz turbo boost of the Ryzen 9 7900X, and with the IPC (instructions per clock) improvements in Zen 5, the 9th-gen processor is able to do more with that clock speed than its predecessor, especially in creative workloads.

Where the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X had a hard time beating their predecessors, the Ryzen 9 9900X more capably beats the 7900X in almost every test.

In Cinebench R23, which simulates a 3D rendering workload, the Ryzen 9 9900X scores 32,070 points in the multi-core test, compared to 28,460 for the Ryzen 9 7900X. That’s a 12% uplift, and a big improvement from the 1-2% performance jumps I was seeing with the Ryzen 7 9700X over its predecessor. The 9900X also sees a sizable lead in the single-core test, scoring 2,186 points to the 7900X’s 1,970 points, making for a 10.9% lead.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is also extremely quick in Blender, scoring 203 samples per minute over 181 for the Ryzen 9 7900X, making for another 12% jump in performance. However, not every creative workload sees the same massive jump in performance. For instance, in Adobe Premiere, the Ryzen 9 9900X is just 1.6% faster than the 7900X, and 5% faster in Photoshop. Still, it’s improvements across the board.

When it comes to gaming, there is a bit of regression, but it all falls within margin of error. For instance, in the 3DMark Speed Way test, the 9900X manages 10,056 points to the 7900X’s 10,118. But that’s not even a 1% difference.

Likewise, in Cyberpunk 2077, the Ryzen 9 9900X manages 163 fps, compared to 187 fps with the 7900X, marking a 13% loss. However, this is an extreme outlier, and could come down to a driver issue. Something worth revisiting with a later update, to be sure.

However, the Ryzen 9 9900X does take its lead back in Total War: Warhammer 3, an extremely CPU-heavy game, with 258 fps, compared to 251 fps with the 7900X.

While the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a solid little gaming processor, it really shines in creative workloads like Blender and Photoshop. These applications can take the vast array of cores and threads and directly translate them into better performance. Unfortunately, this difference doesn’t directly result in better gaming performance as a whole.

There are many reasons for this, and while PC games are largely multi-threaded affairs these days, they’re still not optimized for many threads the same way something like Premiere is, which will take up any available resource on your machine. For that reason, if gaming is your primary use-case, you’re probably better off saving a few bucks and going with something like a Ryzen 7 or a Ryzen 5 instead.

Some games will see a performance uplift with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, but it’ll never be enough to justify spending a whopping $500 on a processor, especially if you’re playing at higher resolutions.

However, while I wouldn’t recommend going with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X if gaming is all you do, this is an excellent processor for streamers. This CPU will be able to handle pretty much any game, no matter the settings, but with 12 cores and 24 threads, you’re also going to have enough overhead to run OBS without grinding your gameplay to a stop. Even if you prefer to record your gameplay, edit it, and then upload it, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is going to seriously cut down on production times, meaning you have more time to actually play your games.