Computex 2024: the first AMD Zen 5 processor – “monster” Ryzen 9 9950X

AMD claims it’s «the world’s most powerful consumer desktop processor». The company just kicked off its presentation at Computex 2024 and is unveiling the Ryzen 9000 lineup.

In July, AMD will launch its first Zen 5 desktop processors, with the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X leading the series as «the world’s most powerful consumer desktop processor». The new Ryzen 9000 series of processors, based on AMD’s existing AM5 platform, includes the Ryzen 9 9950X, Ryzen 9 9900X, Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X.

Ryzen 9 9950X, Ryzen 9 9900X, Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X.

The flagship Ryzen 9 9950X — is a 16-core, 32-thread processor with 80MB of L2+L3 cache and a clock speed of 5.7GHz. AMD promises a 16 percent performance boost over the previous generation of Ryzen processors, as well as a boost in gaming performance.

Amazingly, AMD promises a 16 percent performance boost over the previous generation of Ryzen processors, as well as a boost in gaming performance.

«It’s a big leap, and we’re very proud of it» —Donnie Woligroski, senior manager of technical marketing for AMD consumer processors, said at a press briefing for The Verge. «It’s just a monster. This processor does really well against the competition»

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AMD promises gains of up to 56 percent in Blender over Intel’s Core i9-14900K with the new flagship 9950X, and even 21 percent in Cinebench 2024. On the gaming side, AMD’s benchmarks show a 4 percent frame rate boost over the 14900K in games like Borderlands 3, and up to a 23 percent performance improvement in Horizon Zero Dawn.

Amdmd’s benchmarks show a 4 percent frame rate increase over the 14900K in games like Borderlands 3, and up to a 23 percent performance improvement in Horizon Zero Dawn.

The 9950X is based on AMD’s new Zen 5 architecture. It still uses the AM5 socket, has the usual PCIe Gen 5 and DDR5 support, but there are some performance upgrades under the hood that AMD says make this upgrade not a simple one. «Sometimes Zen updates come out that aren’t as fundamental, but Zen 5 —s a massive update that has significantly improved branch prediction in both accuracy and latency» — says Woligroski. «It’s a really impressive difference, and it delivers twice the instruction throughput, twice the data throughput and twice the AI performance compared to the last generation».

The difference is really impressive.

Amdm originally promised that the AM5 socket, launched in 2022, would support new processors until at least 2025, but now at Computex it has extended that commitment to 2027 or later. The previous AM4 socket was introduced in 2016, and today, nearly a decade later, it’s still going strong. AMD will even release new 5900XT and 5800XT processors for AM4 motherboards in July. The original 5900X was a 12-core processor, and the 5900XT — is a 16-core, 32-thread processor designed to stand up to Intel’s mid-range 13th-generation desktop processors. The 5800XT has 8 cores, 16 threads and boosts clock speeds to 4.8GHz.

The 5800XT has 8 cores, 16 threads and boosts clock speeds to 4.8GHz.

Am AMD’s commitment to the AM4 and now AM5 socket is impressive, especially compared to Intel, which is set to launch its fourth desktop socket from 2015. The upcoming LGA 1851 socket will replace the LGA 1700, which debuts in 2021, and will replace the 2020 LGA 1200 socket, which will replace the LGA 1151 used by Intel from 2015 through 2019.

Amdm’s commitment to the AM4 socket is impressive, especially when compared to Intel’s LGA 1151 socket used from 2015 through 2019.

«It really speaks to the success of the AM4 socket and previous-generation processors, which last much longer than anyone thought» — says Woligroski. «It’s a real advantage when a processor vendor makes a commitment that says we’re forward-looking — if you want to upgrade a processor at some point, you don’t have to throw away the system and start from scratch».

And that’s a real advantage.

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While AM5 is expanding, AMD is also releasing new X870 and X870E motherboard chipsets for these new Ryzen 9000 series processors. The new boards aren’t required for these new processors, but they come with USB 4.0 as standard, and they all include PCIe 5 Gen 5 for graphics and NVMe, even the X870 boards, which aren’t Class E this time around. They also support the higher EXPO memory overclocking, which is great for enthusiasts who want to maximize memory speeds.

They also support the higher EXPO memory overclocking, which is great for enthusiasts who want to maximize memory speeds.

Four new Ryzen 9000 and 5900XT / 5800XT series processors will hit the market in July, but AMD hasn’t named prices for any of them yet. The Ryzen 9 9900X will feature 12 cores, 24 threads and overclocking up to 5.6GHz. Interestingly, its TDP is 50 watts lower than the 7900X. The Ryzen 7 9700X features eight cores, 16 threads and is clocked at 5.5GHz. Finally, the Ryzen 5 9600X will have six cores and 12 threads, and a maximum frequency of 5.4GHz.

The Ryzen 5 9600X will have six cores and 12 threads, and a maximum frequency of 5.4GHz.