AMD 16-Core Ryzen 9 3950X: Up to 4.7 GHz, 105W, Coming September
by Dr. Ian Cutress on June 11, 2019 6:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- AMD
- Ryzen
- Zen 2
- Ryzen 3000
- Ryzen 3rd Gen
- Ryzen 9
- 3950X
One of the questions that was left over from AMD’s Computex reveal of the new Ryzen 3000 family was why a 16-core version of the dual-chiplet Matisse design was not announced. Today, AMD is announcing its first 16 core CPU into the Ryzen 9 family. AMD stated that they’re not interested in the back and forth with its competition about slowly moving the leading edge in consumer computing – they want to launch the best they have to offer as soon as possible, and the 16-core is part of that strategy.
The new Ryzen 9 3950X will top the stack of new Zen 2 based AMD consumer processors, and is built for the AM4 socket along with the range of X570 motherboards. It will have 16 cores with simultaneous multi-threading, enabling 32 threads, with a base frequency of 3.5 GHz and a turbo frequency of 4.7 GHz. All of this will be provided in a 105W TDP.
| AMD 'Matisse' Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs | |||||||||||
| AnandTech | Cores Threads |
Base Freq |
Boost Freq |
L2 Cache |
L3 Cache |
PCIe 4.0 |
DDR4 | TDP | Price (SEP) |
||
| Ryzen 9 | 3950X | 16C | 32T | 3.5 | 4.7 | 8 MB | 64 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 105W | $749 |
| Ryzen 9 | 3900X | 12C | 24T | 3.8 | 4.6 | 6 MB | 64 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 105W | $499 |
| Ryzen 7 | 3800X | 8C | 16T | 3.9 | 4.5 | 4 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 105W | $399 |
| Ryzen 7 | 3700X | 8C | 16T | 3.6 | 4.4 | 4 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 65W | $329 |
| Ryzen 5 | 3600X | 6C | 12T | 3.8 | 4.4 | 3 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 95W | $249 |
| Ryzen 5 | 3600 | 6C | 12T | 3.6 | 4.2 | 3 MB | 32 MB | 16+4+4 | ? | 65W | $199 |
AMD has said that the processor will be coming in September 2019, about two months after the initial Ryzen 3rd Gen processors, due to extra validation requirements. The chip uses two of the Zen 2 eight-core chiplets, paired with an IO die that provides 24 total PCIe 4.0 lanes. By using the AM4 socket, AMD recommends pairing the Ryzen 9 3950X with one of the new X570 motherboards launched at Computex.
With regards to performance, AMD is promoting it as a clear single-thread and multi-thread improvement over other 16-core products in the market, particularly those from Intel (namely the 7960X).
There are several questions surrounding this new product, such as reasons for the delay between the initial Ryzen 3000 launch to the 3950X launch, the power distribution of the chiplets based on the frequency and how the clocks will respond to the 105W TDP, how the core-to-core communications will work going across chiplets, and how gaming performance might be affected by the latency differences going to the IO die and then moving off to main memory. All these questions are expected to be answered in due course.
Pricing is set to be announced by AMD at its event at E3 today. We’ll be updating this news post when we know the intended pricing.
Update: $749
Related Reading
- AMD Ryzen 3000 Announced: Five CPUs, 12 Cores for $499, Up to 4.6 GHz, PCIe 4.0, Coming 7/7
- AMD Ryzen 3rd Gen 'Matisse' Coming Mid 2019: Eight Core Zen 2 with PCIe 4.0 on Desktop
- AMD: 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper in 2019
- AMD Confirms PCIe 4.0 Not Coming to Older Motherboards (X470, X370, B350, A320)
- ASUS Pro WS X570-Ace: A No-Nonsense All-Black Motherboard with x8/x8/x8
- GIGABYTE Unveils X570 Mini-ITX Motherboard: X570 I Aorus Pro WiFi
- ASRock X570 Aqua: Heaviest AMD Flagship Motherboard Ever (Plus Thunderbolt)
- MSI Unveils the MEG X570 Ace: Black and Gold For AMD 50
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mrsnowman - Sunday, June 16, 2019 - link
It seems appropriate to have an anandtech article explain this:https://www.anandtech.com/show/13544/why-intel-pro...
You're wrong in disagreeing with the post in that way though. "It is for AMD" can't really be interpreted in any other way than you saying it's power consumption.
xrror - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
I'm still angry that Intel made TDP a marketing joke =(imaheadcase - Tuesday, June 11, 2019 - link
It is a joke when people are not buying high end CPU and caring about it. No one builds a high end system wondering how much power it is drawing while playing games or whatever they do. lolXyler94 - Friday, June 14, 2019 - link
It does matter for cooling purposes though.Gastec - Wednesday, June 19, 2019 - link
Only a newbie in computing would write that. Or a "gamer" with more money than common sense.shabby - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
Tell me more...xrror - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
TDP used to mean TOTAL design power. As in the max the chip could theoretically pull from the socket, if you could light up every transistor on the die at once. It was actually really hard to ever hit this number in real use, but if you built your power delivery and cooling to handle TDPmax you were covered.Intel later "clarified" that the T meant "Typical" rather than "Total"
Thus, TDP went from being a useful real engineering number to just being another whiff out of some marketers ass.
R.I.P. real TDP
xrror - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
My bitterness is that they should have left TDP the heck alone, and then defined a NEW measurement like "Nominal Design Power" or ANYTHING else rather than fubaring TDP as a marketing item.But maybe the blame isn't all Intel's, probably some sales exec at an OEM started the trend and it snowballed. Who knows.
bubblyboo - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
I recall Intel did SDP for their early Y-series processors.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_design_power...
xrror - Monday, June 10, 2019 - link
Lastly, as far as I know (tm) AMD still adheres to the older Total Design Power, so when they say 105w they mean it, unlike Intel.I give AMD credit for that, because for Joe/Jane Blow that puts AMD at a disadvantage for being honest.