Purchasing the absolute best CPU for gaming that the consumer market has to offer, means purchasing either the Ryzen 9 5950X, or the Ryzen 9 5900X. Not only have benchmarks from multiple sources (Gamer’s Nexus, Techspot, Tom’s Hardware) proven the superiority of these CPUs in gaming performance, single-core performance, and multi-core performance, but they also display how these CPUs have accomplished the task while using far less energy – and at lower temperatures – than their competition. 

If you care little for price to performance ratios, or just need the extra multicore performance, then the Zen 3 Ryzen 9 options are an easy choice to make. But choosing the hardware to pair them with won’t be as simple a task; due to the plethora of available options that can all work well with these processors. For example, what appears to be the gold-standard for RAM kits, at least for testing their performance, is a frequency-latency combination of 3,200 MHz and a CAS of 14 cycles. However, now that the price for DDR4 RAM has dropped considerably, a RAM kit with a speed of 3,600 CL14, which sells for only $189.99 (Via Amazon) (2×8 – total 16 GB) – or an even more extreme, 3,800 MHz CL14 kit which can be found for as low $220 to $290 (2×8 – total 16 GB) – can enhance their performance even further. Then, would you go for an X570 flagship motherboard, or a B550? A Noctua NH-D15 air CPU cooler, or a Corsair H115i Elite Capellix AIO liquid cooler? A Sabrent Rocket 4+ NVMe SSD, or a Samsung 980 Pro?

This is what makes the current generation of hardware one of the best to invest in for an upgrade, or a brand-new PC, there are so many valid options to choose from. This is also the case for choosing a graphics card, as Nvidia’s superiority in the GPU market is in question after AMD “released” their new Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics cards. And though AMD has added extra incentive for to purchasing one of these GPUs, to be paired with a Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 Series processor (like Smart Access Memory), Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs still can’t be counted out. People have grown fond of Nvidia as a brand because their GPUs have proven to be reliable throughout several iterations; whereas AMD has faced multiple issues in the past, related to their graphics cards, including poor drivers and overheating units.

AMD vs Nvidia: Features & Technology

Nvidia GeForce

The GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs feature a new Ampere architecture: with 2^nd generation ray tracing cores, 3^rd generation tensor cores, as well as new Streaming Multiprocessors (SM); all accounting for double the throughput. Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) software is one of their top selling points, as it upscales lower resolution images in real time via the using of deep learning AI – allowing the GPU to achieve faster framerates at higher resolutions. Harnessing the power of AI-acceleration is not solely utilized for their DLSS feature, as Nvidia Studio and Nvidia Broadcast allow for livestreaming, voice chats, and video conference calls that are devoid of background noise, and allow you to switch the background of your video feed with the touch of a button. GeForce Experience is also a very convenient application that allows you to quickly update your drivers – as well as livestream and capture screenshots that you can enhance and customize via the use of Nvidia’s Ansel.

But what is arguably the most important feature that is included with Nvidia’s GeForce 30 Series GPUs – especially for competitive or professional gamers – is Nvidia Reflex. Aimed to drastically reduce render queues, mainly by utilizing direct communication between CPU and GPU, Nvidia has created a feature that brings overall system latency to a minimum. In fact, Nvidia has put significant effort into optimizing Reflex, working with third-party monitor manufacturers to produce displays that carry a hardware component named the Reflex Latency Analyzer.  This input-lag analyzer allows the monitor to display end-to-end system latency in real-time. Through these 360 Hz displays, Nvidia Reflex can reduce input lag by a staggering 66% when compared to a 144 Hz monitor using a GeForce RTX 20 Series graphics card. For professional e-Sports and competitive-gaming enthusiasts, one of these five available 1080p 360 Hz monitors, paired with a GeForce RTX 30 Series GPU, provides the most utility out of all available setup options. Even if the GPU benchmarks a few frames less than its competition, having less input-lag and the ability to monitor system latency in real time, provides far better value, in terms of practicality, than any other hardware combination one can purchase. 

AMD Radeon

AMD does still hold their own against Nvidia’s technological advancements, as certain key architectural elements allow their RDNA 2 GPUs to compete with the GeForce Ampere graphics cards, even on a high level. Firstly, the Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs make use of a 128 MB Level 3 Cache – called the Infinity Cache – which is based on those found in the Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs. This Infinity Cache allows for almost twice the memory bus bandwidth; despite a lower energy expenditure. Additionally, AMD’s new generation of Compute Units (CU) have redesigned data paths, pervasive fine-grain clock gating, and a new pipeline rebalancing.

Perhaps the most impressive, and most useful, of AMD’s new technologies, is the aforementioned Smart Access Memory. Built to provide synergy between both AMD CPU and GPU products (and as an additional incentive to those with a Zen 3 CPU to buy a RDNA 2 GPU) Smart Access Memory creates an expanded data channel by utilizing PCI Express lanes to power the CPU to access more VRAM; effectively removing any inherent GPU memory bottleneck. The increase in performance allowed by Smart Access Memory is quite considerable, as it can provide the edge for the RDNA 2 GPUs to slightly surpass Nvidia GeForce graphics cards which would otherwise hold a slight advantage against them in framerate output.

AMD also has a new set of features that, admittedly may not be as impressive as those offered by Nvidia, but are definitely nice to have. AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition is the equivalent of Nvidia’s GeForce Experience, providing driver updates, single-click overclocking called “Rage Mode”, and performance reports in a convenient and easy-to-use interface. Next, we have AMD Radeon Chill, which automatically caps the framerate of any specific game depending on the monitor’s refresh rate; thus saving energy by limiting the GPU to process only the amount of framerate necessary to maximize the monitor’s capabilities. Another neat feature is AMD’s Integer Scaling, which is used for better capturing the visuals of retro games on modern displays. It basically scales one pixel to multiple pixels, so that the faded look of pixelated graphics on a high-resolution monitor will look clearer and more in-tune with the game’s inherent low-bit graphics.

To increase FPS, and lessen the strain to the GPU, AMD’s Radeon Boost works by lowering the resolution of frames during quick motion (frames that are difficult to notice), in turning giving the GPU the ability to generate faster framerate when the in-game character is in motion. Note, however, than AMD Radeon Boost currently only works for a handful of gaming titles. When paired with Radeon Boost, AMD’s second-generation Anti-Lag can lessen end-to-end input lag, similar to Nvidia Reflex. Still, the 31% reduction figure that is stated on AMD’s website is a result from tests run at a 4K resolution – and, funny enough, using an Intel i7-9700K CPU – so the results will not be nearly as impressive at 1080p. 

AMD vs Nvidia: Top GPU Comparisons

Now that we have a better idea of what each company is offering in terms of new technology and features, let’s compare each of their two best GPUs, and see how they fare against each other in specifications and in benchmarked framerates.

AMD RX 6800 XT vs Nvidia RTX 3080

T

AMD RX 6900 XT vs Nvidia RTX 3090

Verdict

Comparing all four of the above GPUs, we can see that each has its advantages and disadvantages. Indeed, any of these graphic-card models can be used optimally for different types of 5900X and 5950X builds.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X Competitive Gaming Builds

If you take competitive gaming seriously, nothing beats a GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics card paired with a 1080p 360 Hz monitor. Because the benchmarked framerate averages of the GeForce RTX 3090 and the GeForce RTX 3080 are so similar, we recommend pairing the latter with a Ryzen 9 5900X – which displayed an identical average framerate to the Ryzen 9 5950X ta this resolution. 

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 1080p Gaming Builds

For 1080p gaming that isn’t as serious as the aforementioned example, the Radeon RX 6800 XT provides the highest framerate of all GPUs in the market – even surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090, despite costing less than half its price. For 1080p gaming, the best combination is the Ryzen 9 5900X with the Radeon RX 6800 XT.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 1440p Gaming Builds

Going a step above, and into the 1440p range, it appears that the Radeon RX 6900 XT is the most powerful GPU available; even surpassing the GeForce RTX 3090, while costing 50% less (if AMD’s benchmarks are to be trusted). Of course, the Radeon RX 6800 XT still holds better value for its price at 1440p, but if you are aiming for the highest possible performance, the Radeon RX 6900 XT is the way to go. In terms of processors, both Ryzen 9 CPUs have nearly identical single-core performance (benchmarked by Tom’s Hardware), so the Ryzen 9 5900X is the smarter choice.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X 4K Gaming Builds

For the highest gaming resolution, the GeForce RTX 3090 reigns supreme in framerate output – and holds a considerable advantage to its competition. That being said, the Radeon RX 6900 XT does seem promising, though chances are it will not outperform the GeForce RTX 3090 at 4K game processing. Do note, that the Radeon RX 6800 XT, once again, does have the better cost per frame ratio for this resolution as well.

Best GPU for 5900X/5950X Workstation Utility Builds

Finally, for workstation builds that require high multi-core performance – or for gaming and streaming + content creation PCs – the additional cores and threads of the Ryzen 9 5950X will certainly pay for their extra cost in the long run. When it comes to graphics, the GeForce RTX 3090’s 8 GB of extra GDDR6X – and its 45% faster bandwidth compared to the Radeon RX 6900 XT – make it a more appealing option for dedicated workstation setups, even at its $1,500 price tag.

The post Best Graphics Cards for Ryzen 9 5900X & 5950X Builds appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs have stormed onto the scene with impressive performance. The top tier offering is the Ryzen 9 5950X – Taking the last generation 3950X’s formula of 16 cores in a consumer CPU and adding Zen3’s state of the art individual core performance to make a CPU that can truly do it all. This processor dominates gaming and productivity benchmarks making it the most versatile CPU available today. To ensure you get the best out of it you need a motherboard with the connectivity and features that meet your demands. Whether you’re going to explore the limits in an overclocking rig, use it as the core of a productivity workstation, or simply want to game with the best chip available today we’ve got recommendations for the best X570 motherboards you need to ensure that the Ryzen 5950X performs at its best. 

The Ryzen 5950X is remarkable not only for its capabilities but also because of its efficiency: AMD quote a thermal Design Power of just 105W whilst peak loads see it consume around 140 Watts. The consequences of this are twofold when considering your PC build. Firstly most CPU coolers are capable of dissipating this heat, giving you a wider choice of coolers for your PC and any cooler compatible with the AM4 socket will fit. Secondly, almost all B550 and X570 motherboards have voltage regulation circuity (VRMs) that are more than up to the task of providing power to this chip. Again this frees up your choices amongst the options despite pairing them with this top tier CPU. All in all, this is an excellent coup for AMD, vs current Intel Comet lake CPUs that cannot match the performance but approach 250 Watt power draw whilst trying.

Without further ado, here are the best motherboards to pair with the Ryzen 9 5950X – with options for a variety of builds – such as gaming, overclocking, micro-ATX. ITX and enthusiast Zen 3 builds.

Best (X570 & B550) Motherboards for Ryzen 9 5950X – Our Recommendations

Award	Design	Model
Best Overclocking Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X		MSI MEG X570 Unify
Best Enthusiast Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X		ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
Best Gaming Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X		Gigabyte X570 AORUS Elite
Best 5950X Motherboard for Videographers		Gigabyte B550 Vision D
Best Mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X		ASUS ROG Strix X570-I Gaming
Best Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X Productivity Builds		MSI MEG X570 ACE

Best Overclocking Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X

MSI’s MEG Unify boards have long been overclocking stalwarts and this X570 motherboard, the MSI MEG X570 Unify, is no exception. It has serious provenance, holding overclocking records on Ryzens Zen 2 CPUs. There’s a host of overclocking features including power and reset buttons on the board itself and a full debug panel for faster troubleshooting as you explore the limits of your CPU and RAM. It uses a pair of 8 pin EPS connectors to ensure sufficient power to the 14 phase CPU VRM, and those VRM’s are extensively heatsinked with a heat pipe to keep temperatures in check. The only overclocking feature missing is a dual BIOS. However the flexibility of the MSI X570 BIOS and power limits not being a problem owing to the efficiency of the 5950X mean you will have no problems extracting the full potential from the CPU without needing to switch between BIOSes. Beyond that, there’s 2.5Gbps LAN courtesy of a Realtek LAN controller, a host of USB ports and the high-quality ALC 1220 audio chip. Its network connectivity is enhanced with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth. Two of the three PCIe 4.0 slots are PCIe 4.0 capable, whilst all three M.2 Slots offer PCIe 4.0 compatibility with one routed direct to the CPU and two via the X570 chipset. Finally, there’s a host of RGB headers (although the board itself does without RGB in keeping with its restrained design) and five system fan headers in addition to a CPU fan and pump header. This feature-rich board is all you need to extract maximum potential out of your Ryzen 5950X.

Best Enthusiast Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X

The ASUS ROG Crosshair VIII Dark Hero is a high-end X570 motherboard with a ridiculously long name and an even longer specification list. Taking the already impressive original X570 Crosshair VIII’s features and building on it, the ‘Dark’ version of this board has uprated 90Amp power stages and does away with the much-derided chipset fan. It has features including Dual LAN (2.5 Gbps and 1 Gbps), exceptionally strong 14+2 phase VRM and extensive heat sinking, as well as onboard power and Clear CMOS buttons and a debug panel. It’s one of a handful of boards to include water loop monitoring sensors making this board an excellent foundation for your perfect enthusiast build. The Aesthetic of the board is clean and mature with brushed aluminum and the ROG logo in RGB. ASUS make a big play of the high-end audio solution with premium Audio components and a SupremeFX S1220 sound chip and high-end capacitors in the output stage. Overall this board has an extensive feature set and desirable aesthetic, combined with the capacity to run a Ryzen 5950X to its limit without issue. It’s an excellent all-round choice for the discerning enthusiast building with the Zen 3 5950X.

Best Gaming Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X

If you’re looking to build the ultimate Gaming and streaming Rig around the Ryzen 5950X then the Gigabyte X570 AORUS Elite offers a wallet-friendly but fully-featured motherboard. The specification is solid across the board with strong Voltage Delivery circuitry and a 12+2 Phase design. The Audio codec is the workmanlike ALC1200 chip, perfectly good for gaming sound output whilst there’s a pair of NVMe compatible M.2 slots for fast boot drives and six SATA ports for extensive storage options. The BIOS has a ‘Q-flash’ option so you can update BIOS without a compatible CPU – important if you want to buy the board now whilst you wait for a 5950X to become available as you’ll be able to update the BIOS if it’s not compatible out of the box. It has a full array of monitoring and overclocking options in BIOS so you can optimise your system. The Gigabyte X570 AORUS Elite is a motherboard with all the features you need to get the most out of a Ryzen 5950X, without spending money that is best put towards the best GPU you can afford to make the most powerful 5950X gaming PC possible.

Best 5950X Motherboard for Videographers

It may seem odd to include a B550 motherboard in the lineup to pair with AMD’s highest-end CPU but the Gigabyte B550 Vision D has features that make it ideal for video production: This board features 2 Thunderbolt ports and dual LAN ports. This allows you to connect a plethora of high-speed drives and enjoy fast data ingest and transfer. This is vital in optimizing the workflow of a content producer working on high-resolution footage.

The rest of the board specification isn’t compromised, with dual PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots and a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot to allow a powerful GPU to assist in rendering. It’s also Quadro QVL tested for Nvidias professional graphics cards. The CPU power delivery is up to the task of running the Ryzen 5950X at full speeds with 12+2 phases, whilst this board has passed Puget Systems stringent qualification process for use in their high-end systems.

This board is a very interesting option from Gigabyte and fuses high end looks with features vital to content creators, whilst keeping costs and complexity down through use of the B550 chipset. It’s an excellent choice for a videography workstation built around the Ryzen 5950X.

Best Mini-ITX Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X

It’s become a point of pride for Small Form Factor enthusiasts to squeeze the latest and most powerful CPUs into the smallest form factor cases available. To support this desire there are very few X570 Mini ITX motherboards but the ASUS ROG Strix X570-I Gaming takes our pick as the one best suited to the Ryzen 5950X. It uses an innovative design integrating a small fan into the IO plate heatsink, and using a heat pipe to draw heat away from the chipset. All of this helps in ensuring the Chipset and 8+2 Phase power stages can adequately cool themselves under the demands of the 5950X. Given the limitations of the ITX platform Asus have crammed as much as possible into this motherboard, including a pair of M.2 PCIe 4.0 x4 slots for high-speed NVME storage drives, 8 total USB ports including 4 USB 3.2 Gen 2 with one of those being a Type C. Audio output is managed by the high-quality S1220A SupremeFX Codec chip, and there’s Wifi6 and Bluetooth onboard as well.  Asus has given a good deal of thought to heatsinking, given the limited space on the board, the power mosfets have a heatpipe and heatsinking and the rear IO plate is vented to help hot air escape. The M.2 slots and Chipset utilise a compact stacked heatsink design and a low noise fan to keep them at comfortable operating temperatures. Overall the board has a slick anodised aesthetic with an RGB ‘ROG’ logo and a strip of RGB LEDs down the edge. This board represents the pinnacle of the X570 chipset in a small form factor motherboard.

Best Motherboard for Ryzen 9 5950X Productivity Builds

X570 is the domain of content creators: From video rendering to 3D content generation, the Ryzen 5950X is unrivalled in power. The MSI MEG X570 ACE has all bases covered. It has a strong 12 phase VRM design which will happily power the Ryzen 9 CPU to its full potential. There are 3 M.2 slots so you can run a combination of PCIe 4.0 NVME drives and the lower speed but still very useful PCIe 3 drives as your needs develop. One oddity of this board is that it has just 4 SATA ports: If you’re planning an array of SATA drives you’ll want to look to the ASROCK X570 Creator or consider a PCIe to SATA expansion card. Dual 2.5G  and Gigabit LAN allows fast networking for file ingest and delivery, whilst WiFi 6 adds a useful networking option. The Rear I/O panel includes four high-speed USB 3.2 Gen2 ports with one of them being USB-C. Overall this board has a great balance of performance and features for a content creators build without using too much budget that could go towards other essential components.

The post 6 Best Motherboards for Ryzen 9 5950X Builds in 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

We’ve had a few days with our Zen 3 Ryzen 5800X and the bulk of that time has been spent investigating the impact of RAM speed on this new architecture. Since its inception, the Zen design has shown impressive performance scaling with RAM Speed. This a function of the design of the CPU itself.

In short, the CPU cores are connected to the rest of the PC via an interconnect chip known as ‘infinity fabric’. The speed this chip is running at is instrumental to the overall performance of the CPU. Luckily, AMD has an open attitude towards allowing users to tweak settings to their heart’s content, so all of this is adjustable in BIOS. The optimum settings involve ensuring that the RAM speed matches the Infinity fabric frequency 1:1. With these two clock speeds in sync, memory access latency is reduced and you enjoy a performance boost.

Previous Zen 2 RAM Investigation Summary – will Zen 3 continue the trend?

In our previous Zen 2 Ram Speed article we demonstrated the clear performance benefits of increased RAM speed with optimum performance at 3600 and 3733Mhz, and infinity fabric at 1800 and 1866Mhz respectively (note that DDR ram being Double Data Rate, it reports speeds at twice the actual clock frequency). Once you exceeded the ability of the Infinity fabric to match RAM speeds 1:1 however things broke down with increased latency costing performance despite the improved speeds.

The benchmark tests that showed clearest scaling were 3DMark Timespy, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Rainbow 6 Siege’s FPS also showed strong correlation with RAM speed. 

RAM Speed Scaling on a Zen 2 CPU, the Ryzen 3600. 

In this investigation we focussed on the following questions: 

• Firstly, does Zen 3 improve our ability to lift Infinity Fabric speeds to match faster RAM?
• Secondly, does Zen 3 performance scale with RAM speed in the same way we’ve become accustomed to?
• Finally, can we use this information to make any recommendations about the best RAM for your Zen 3 system?

Overclocking RAM on Zen 3

Overclocking on the Zen 3 platform proved relatively straight forward. Using our Patriot Viper 4400Mhz memory kit, which comprises Samsung B-Die Ram with CL19 timings, we were quickly able to establish that our Ryzen 5800X was stable at 4000MHz with Infinity Fabric (Fclck) at 2000MHz. 4066MHz was not stable. We were able to tighten timings down to CL 16-16-16-34 at 4000MHz. From there we established representative RAM profiles across a spectrum of speeds to emulate widely available RAM kits. 

Zen 3 RAM Synthetic Test results: CineBench R20 and Timespy

Honing in on the benchmarks that matter we again showed that Cinebench is not a reliable indicator of performance linked to RAM: Our scores varied little with RAM speed. 

Note that the scale starts at 5000 Points: The difference between these results is small enough not to cause concern, and it’s not possible to consider this a ‘trend’ in performance owing to the marginally lower scores at higher speeds. Cinebench R20 appears almost oblivious to the RAM speed of the System with even 2133MHz not causing a significant performance deficit.

TImespy is a Dx12 based benchmark with a portion dedicated to CPU performance in isolation. It’s those scores we’re concentrating on here.

In Zen 2 we saw a strong positive trend with RAM speed from 2133MHz to 3733MHz, and we observe the same here on Zen 3: Slower RAM is a serious detriment to performance, with 3600MHz yielding much higher results. However, increasing speeds into the realms of 3800 and 4000MHz sees little if any improvement in performance with 4000MHz CL18 close but slightly behind 3600MHz and 3800MHz. Tightening timings to CL16 sees performance slacken to just under 12000 points: A very interesting results given what we thought we knew about infinity fabrics speed and its relationship to CPU performance. We don’t know the reason for this given that all things being equal these tighter timings should increase performance, or at the very least not harm it. 

Moving onto key gaming benchmarks, we looked at Rainbow 6 Siege and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Both of these titles demonstrated the benefits of faster RAM on Zen2 and again showed the negative impact once the 1:1 infinity fabric to memory clock ratio was broken.

Zen 3 RAM Gaming Benchmarks: RAM Speed vs FPS

1. Rainbow 6 Siege

Here we again see the same performance scaling to 3800MHz, followed by a slight tailing off as RAM speed climbs higher. Tightening timings at 4000MHz helps a little. Despite maintaining a 1:1 infinity fabric ratio throughout, we’re seeing a similar but less pronounced softening of performance past 3800Mhz just as we did on Zen 2.

2. Shadow of the Tomb Raider

This game again uses DX12 and has a comprehensive benchmarking tool which gives us interesting insight into the factors affecting the game’s performance. Specifically, it breaks down performance into ‘CPU game’ and ‘CPU render’ as well as GPU performance and indicates how GPU limited the benchmark is. All tests were conducted at 1080p medium on a GTX 1080 Ti but even that induced a GPU limitation due to the prodigious speed of the Ryzen 5800X. Due to the benchmark independently reporting CPU frame rates it can be eliminated as a factor.

We once again see a similar trend here with peak performance at 3800Mhz, and then a slackening at 3933Mhz and 4000MHz. From 3600-4000Mhz performance is in the same ballpark with variances that aren’t going to be material in the real world. Note that none of these will impact gaming at normal settings: You will be GPU limited at FPS below these numbers in this detailed AAA title. 

Conclusion: 3600MHz is still the best RAM for AMD’s Ryzen CPUs

We can now set about answering the questions we posed at the outset:

Zen 3 does allow us significantly higher Infinity Fabric clocks, and with it higher viable memory overclocks. This is exciting for overclockers because of the potential performance gains it brings.

However moving on to the second question, we do not see straight forward linear scaling until the break down of infinity Fabric Clocks as we did with Zen 2: In this instance, performance tails off even with a 1:1 infinity fabric ratio despite faster ram with tighter timings and lower latencies. In the real world, these slight variances won’t be noticeable, but similarly, we are not seeing anything like the scaling from 3600MHz-4000MHz as we get from raising Ram speeds from 3200MHz – 3600MHz.

Finally, we can now make confident recommendations on the basis of these results, which are in line with those obtained by experienced overclockers: 3600MHz RAM is still the best option for Ryzen CPUs. To arrive at this conclusion we can consider firstly that performance plateaus or even tails off after that. Secondly, there is the cost and availability of RAM. Since 3600MHz became the ‘sweet spot’ for Zen 2 Manufacturers have produced a number of fantastic RAM kits and prices have dropped due to a glut of RAM supply. To obtain RAM significantly faster than 3600MHZ prices jump from around $80/16GB for 3600MHz CL16, to $100 or more for 4000MHZ CL18 which as our investigation above shows will be marginally slower on Zen 3. Finally, investigations by Gamers Nexus indicate that dual-rank DIMMs may be slightly faster, making a 32GB kit in 2x16GB Configuration at 3600MHz likely to be ideal for most people.

With all of this in mind, we make the following recommendations for RAM for Zen 3 builds in 2021:

RAM Recommendations for Zen 3 Builds

Award	Design	Model
Best All-round RAM Kit for Zen 3 Builds		G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB DDR4-3600 CL16
Best RAM for Zen 3 Gaming Builds		Crucial Ballistix 16GB DDR4-3600 CL16
Best Enthusiast RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3		G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-4000 CL16
Best RGB RAM for Ryzen Zen 3		G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL18
Best 64 GB RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3		Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x32GB DDR4-3200 CL16

Best All-round RAM Kit for Zen 3

Combining all that we have learnt so far about Zen 3 Memory performance, the G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB DDR4-3600 CL16 kit hits all the bases. Using 2 dual-rank 16Gb Sticks with 3600MHz frequency and tight 16-19-19-39 timings mean you’ll be as close to optimized as one click can get you just by enabling the A-XMP profile. 32GB RAM provides ample for productivity, the most demanding games and light creative work such as video editing. At $150 it’s reasonably priced for 32Gb, exactly double the cost of the 16Gb equivalent. This is the RAM kit we’re confident meets the needs of almost everyone looking to take advantage of the prodigious power of the Zen 3 CPUs for gaming and general use. 

Best RAM for Zen 3 Gaming Builds

Crucial is Microns commercial brand and the Ballistix 16GB DDR4-3600 CL16 kit uses Micron E-Die RAM chips to deliver the performance sweet spot at a very attractive price. 16GB is still ample for almost all games and general use and multitasking. It’s been available for some time at the $75 price point making it a very worthwhile purchase and the best value of all the popular 16GB kits. The 3600MHz speed enjoys widespread compatibility with Zen 3 CPUs, whilst the quality of the E-Die chips lend themselves to tweaking and overclocking for even more performance if the mood takes you. If not the embedded A-XMP profile will ensure reliability and stability at the rated speeds. It is a 2x8GB stick for dual channel operation and any RAM kit you consider should be a dual-stick kit because of the large performance benefit that brings. The kit ships with discreet black anodized heat spreaders that integrates well with most builds but it is also available in white or red if that better suits your preferences. With this kit just $10 more than the most basic of RAM kits from less well-established brands we see no reason to opt for anything else. 

Best Enthusiast RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3

If you want to explore the limits of memory overclocking on Zen 3 then there’s no substitute for the Samsung B-Die RAM that makes up this kit, the G.Skill Ripjaws V 16GB DDR4-4000 CL16 – our recommended RAM kit for enthusiast Zen 3 builds. It’s very fast RAM with tight timings at the speed, and whilst it may not work optimally with the A-XMP profile applied there’s huge scope for manually tweaking timings and exploring optimizations. B-die kits can range from $100 to $500 or more depending on binning but it’s certainly not worth getting a top tier binned kit unless you’re intent on challenging world OC records. If you want to find out for yourself exactly what makes Zen 3 run sweetest, this is the kit for you. 

Best RGB RAM for Ryzen Zen 3

We’ve got a soft spot for a set of four RAM sticks with synchronized RGB here at Premiumbuilds and the G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 CL18 kit certainly scratches that itch. The core specifications are solid with 3600MHz and CAS latency of 18 so your CPU will operate with a near optimum 1800MHz infinity Fabric Clock. G.Skill offer a very useful reverse QVL list so it’s easy to ensure compatibility with your chosen motherboard. The RGB can be controlled via any of Gigabytes RGB Fusion, Asus Aura Sync, MSi Mystic Light or Asrock Polychrome software so it integrates well with the rest of your RGB and doesn’t require stand alone software. The RGB elements are beautifully detailed and this kit will lend some real visual flair to your build. 

Best 64 GB RAM Kit for Ryzen Zen 3

If your primary concern is the quantity of RAM – be it for a video edit workstation or scientific computation – then the Corsair Vengeance LPX 2x32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 kit is an excellent choice. Our benchmarks show minimal performance penalties at 3200MHz – RAM latency simply doesn’t impact tasks like rendering in the same way as it does gaming – but this is still 3200MHz RAM with CAS latency of 16 and performs well enough for AMD to showcase their new top tier GPU’s using RAM of this specification. Corsair are a long-standing brand and their LPX line is ubiquitous so obtaining matched RAM for future expansion won’t be a problem. Corsair also offer a 3600MHz LPX kit but supply is patchy and with a CAS latency of 18 the actual memory latency is nearly identical to this kit. If you need to pack as much RAM as possible then sacrificing a little speed for cost and capacity makes sense which is why this kit is a great buy. 

Benchmark Notes

The tests were conducted using the Premiumbuilds test bench, which comprises a Ryzen 5800X, MSI B550 Mortar Motherboard using AGESA 1.1.0.0 Patch C BIOS. RAM used was the Patriot Viper PVS416G440C9K 4400Mhz Samsung B-die Kit. PBO was activated but no manual CPU overclocking was undertaken. Timings under test were as follows

The post Zen 3 RAM Speeds: An Analysis of the Best RAM for Zen 3 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Today, this one is for the window shoppers and 1%. There might be a handful of builders in the world that genuinely need this level of performance out of a machine, but there’s not a soul who wouldn’t appreciate it.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we must mention the fact that the RTX 3090 can’t yet claim the title of best high-end GPU until the world can get its hands on AMD’s new RDNA 2 cards. Regardless, the RTX 3090, especially our choice today, is guaranteed to sit amongst the top of any and every benchmark you can throw at it. Starting at $1500, the RTX 3090 manages to be even more jaw-dropping than the last generation’s FPS king, the RTX 2080 Ti. However, even with the RX 6000 purportedly achieving boost clock speeds of up to 2.5GHz, those with enough patience or disposable income won’t have many other options for absolutely top-tier performance from their next GPU.

Here at PremiumBuilds, we pride ourselves on maximizing price-to-performance for every curated build we present. However, as evidenced by Jon’s recent RTX 3090 Gaming Build, that doesn’t mean we shy away from systems with a more premium price tag. Further, all of our parts lists are made to be completely modular. So, if you have more or less money to play with, you can pick from some of the alternatives we offer or decide on your own upgrades/downgrades.

Now without further ado, let’s examine one of the most powerful consumer desktop configurations possible (courtesy of this exciting new age in gaming performance)!

Ultimate $5000 Ryzen 9 5950X + RTX 3090 Command Center – The Parts List

CPU

One of our centerpieces today is the Ryzen 9 5950X, available starting November 5^th of this year.  The 5950X is a shoo-in for this generation’s performance champion based on some recently leaked benchmarks and AMD’s internal testing. The generational improvements coming with Zen 3, including a reworked L3 cache to allow each CPU core direct and simultaneous access, should roughly translate to a 20% instructions per clock (IPC) improvement over Zen 2 while maintaining the same 105W TDP (thermal design power)!

Zen 3’s power efficiency and relatively tame thermal performance are a testament to AMD’s engineering, and the genius of the Zen architecture. Opting for a chiplet design, opposed to monolithic CPU dies, developing improvements to Zen, and manufacturing the physical product is easier and faster for AMD and TSMC. This is the biggest reason AMD can deliver on their promises of significant upgrades with each new generation of the Zen architecture.

With sixteen cores, thirty-two threads, 64MB of L3 cache, and default boost clocks of up to 4.9GHz, the 5950X aims for the CPU summit this generation. If Zen 3 has also managed to hide some significant overclocking headroom, where Zen 2, by and large, did not, then AMD is almost guaranteed to take home the trophy for workstation and FPS performance.

CPU Cooler

Today’s build is brought to you by the colors black and white, and our first component is Noctua’s legendary NH-D15 Chromax.Black dual-tower heat sink.

By no means is the NH-D15 the only option for premium air-cooling performance, but it is still one of the best even after so many years. Noctua sets itself apart by almost always opting for function over form, and immaculate build quality, which is why it came as quite a surprise when they finally yielded to popular demand and created the Chromax variants for their most popular models. For the longest time, Noctua held fast against criticisms of their notorious brown color scheme until finally offering blacked-out versions of heat sinks like the NH-D15, NH-U12s, and NH-L9a. Now, anyone who may have used the “ugly” brown color scheme as an excuse to stay away from Noctua products essentially has no reason to snag one of the best CPU coolers of all time.

Aside from the slick new color treatment, the Chromax NH-D15 brings the same 240mm AIO level cooling performance with six heat pipes, two 140mm fin stacks, and two of their renowned NF-A15 140mm fans. Considering the unchanged 105W with Zen 3 compared to Zen 2, even if Zen 3 ends up capable of serious overclocking, there’s virtually no reason to opt for liquid cooling outside of a completely custom open-loop. Air coolers will forever remain a preferable option for most builders with better noise performance, roughly equivalent cooling performance, and minimal points of failure. If you’re excited about liquid cooling, then by all means, but if all you care about is performance and reliability, there is no better alternative to a premium air cooler.

Motherboard

Today’s motherboard is the embodiment of the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and it keeps with our black and white theme! The MSI MEG X570 Unify returns, as it has been a staple in mid to high-end AMD builds ever since its initial release. The X570 chipset has seen few options as well-rounded and well-designed as the Unify, hence how prolific it’s been as a top-tier pick regardless of who you ask.

The X570 Unify boasts 60A Power Stages, a 15 Phase VRM (12+2+1), support for up to 128GB of DDR4-5000MHz memory, 3x M.2 slots, Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 + Bluetooth 5.0, Realtek 2.5G LAN + ALC1220 Audio CODEC, 4x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (1 is Type-C) + 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 + 2x USB 2.0 ports, an internal USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header, 4x SATA III 6Gb/s ports, an integrated I/O shield, rear Clear CMOS + BIOS Flashback buttons, onboard Power and Reset buttons, and a POST code readout, all of which are stylishly blacked out.

If Zen 3 can be overclocked, a stellar pick for Zen 2 will be even better! The X570 Unify already has incredible VRM performance; thus, with virtually no change in TDP for Zen 3, $300 even will ensure you extract as much power from the new 5950X as possible!

Memory

AMD’s Zen 2 CPUs performed remarkably well in games, but they were really intended to provide unparalleled productivity performance for consumer desktops. This time around, Zen 3 is coming in guns blazing to not only retain their superior workstation performance but shoot for the top spot in gaming as well. With this in mind, we’ve chosen the G.Skill Ripjaws V 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 memory kit to ensure you’ve more than enough memory for gaming and tasks like photo/video editing and rendering.

However, if you’re not interested in anything other than gaming, feel free to pick up the 32GB version (2x16GB) to leave an upgrade path for yourself, still have ample memory for gaming and multi-tasking, and save some money!

Storage

Everything keeps getting smaller, and thanks to solid-state drives, all of your data can now fit on something near the size of a pack of stick gum! Enter the $300 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 SSD, our OS drive of choice. M.2 SSDs are some of the fastest storage devices available outside of even pricier PCIe 4.0 options. They eliminate the cable management that comes with 2.5” and 3.5” drives, are incredibly easy to install and replace, and thanks to the X570 Unify, you have the option to expand with up to two more down the road.

Additionally, we’ve selected a 2TB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5” SSD for our bulk drive. Our build today is an exceptional workstation, but AAA games are getting more and more storage-intensive. More assets need to be retrieved and faster than ever before. Meaning, unless we see some incredible breakthroughs in spinning drive technology, and soon, SSDs will quickly become a requirement for your favorite new games to run at peak performance. That’s precisely why the next generation of game consoles have chosen to include SSDs as their default storage devices. Sony and Microsoft have each developed proprietary technologies to facilitate the transfer of textures and assets from high-speed solid-state drives to the GPU. This means that consoles might be the best way to experience certain games until developers finally start to take advantage of technology that’s been available to PC gamers for years.

Graphics Card

The EVGA GeForce RTX 3090 24GB FTW3 Gaming; our other centerpiece for today’s build. As with most aspects of enthusiast builds, the RTX 3090 is extravagant, it’s overkill, and it’s supremely expensive.

The base price of an RTX 3090 is $1500, but EVGA offers its signature performance, over-engineering, and design flair to bring the FTW3 up to nearly $1750. With a monster-sized heat sink, triple cooling fans, and stylish RGB shroud, this triple-slot beast will be just as ridiculous as and right at home with the rest of our system.

With boost clocks up to 1740MHz, 24GB of VRAM, and a gargantuan 350W TDP, it’s a good thing EVGA has a rich history of high-performance GPU cooling because this guy will surely need every bit of cooling performance EVGA can muster. Alas, our theme isn’t quite perfect due to the RGB fan shroud, but if you genuinely hate the idea of any lights interrupting the pure black aesthetic we’ve chosen, you can turn them off with EVGA’s LED Sync software as part of their Precision X1 overclocking tool.

It remains to be seen just how competitive the next generation of AMD’s cards is. Still, the performance offered by the RTX 3090 allows for astronomical FPS below 4K resolutions and absolutely remarkable performance at and above it, and with every setting cranked as high as possible.

PC Case

For the sake of contrast, we’ve chosen an incredible black and white case from Fractal Design, the Meshify S2.

The Meshify S2 is a hybrid of their incredibly popular Meshify C mid-tower and Define S2 full-tower cases. With the Define series’ internal design and the airflow centric features of the Meshify, the Meshify S2 is essentially a stretched out Meshify C with enough room to accommodate the chunky RTX 3090 and NH-D15.

With three excellent 140mm PWM fans included (two front intake, one rear exhaust), you can rest assured that your parts are getting enough airflow without having to spend any extra money. The Meshify S2 also sports a tempered glass side panel to provide an unobstructed view of our blacked-out internals and the signature angular Meshify front panel to keep things looking attractive on the outside.

Power Supply

In the interest of efficiency, and considering those of you prone to never turning off your PCs, we’ve chosen to power our build with an EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 T2 80+ Titanium PSU. While you could get away with an 850W PSU for a machine like this (which should draw around 615W under load), we want to make sure we’re as close to the “sweet spot” for PSU efficiency (50-60%) while retaining as much headroom as possible for overclocking and external device connections.

AMD might have kept their high-end CPUs at a reasonable 105W TDP, but the RTX 3090’s 350W is no joke, and overclockers who win the silicon lottery might be able to squeeze another 100W out of it thanks to EVGA. Finally, knock on wood, should anything go wrong, EVGA has you covered with their tremendous 10-year warranty and customer support.

Display

Before capping off our crazy command center, another quote seems fitting, “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” The RTX 3090 and Ryzen 9 5950X CPU-GPU combo are more than able to demolish plenty of gaming benchmarks at 4K resolutions, but not all of them. Titles with insane graphical fidelity like Jedi: Fallen Order, Red Dead Redemption 2, Flight Simulator 2020, and Horizon: Zero Dawn still cannot break the 100FPS barrier at Ultra 4K settings even with the RTX 3090. So to guarantee 144Hz+ gaming in nearly every game out there, we suggest you pick up a ViewSonic ELITE XG270QG 27” 1440p 1ms 144Hz (165Hz OC) IPS Nano display.

Despite the insane numbers that are possible nowadays, the most popular resolution is still 1080p. 1080p’s continued dominance is due, primarily, to the performance overhead, hence why we’ve chosen a fantastic middle-ground with 1440p. With 1440p, you still get to enjoy more pixels and screen real estate over 1080p, but without hampering yourself in the most GPU intensive games. Because the RTX 3090 is capable of pushing 4K resolutions so hard, 1440p ensures you’ll hit the refresh rate cap of 144Hz/165Hz, and stay there.

A final note, we recommend not using the OC feature to push the refresh rate of the ViewSonic ELITE to 165Hz. Not only is there a point of diminishing returns in perceived smoothness for the majority of gamers between 120-144Hz, but overdrive/overclocking functions for most displays increase the refresh rate at the cost of additional motion blur, visual artifacts, and “ghosting.”

Closing Thoughts

To sum up this generation’s hardware? Just, wow. If this is the sort of machine we can build today, then we cannot wait for whatever tomorrow holds. As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading!

The post Ultimate $5000 Ryzen 9 5950X + RTX 3090 Command Center for 2021 appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

AMD has announced the new Zen 3 CPUs and at the top of the tree sit the Ryzen 5900X, which they tout as their high-performance Gaming CPU, and the 5950X which with 16 cores is the ultimate consumer productivity CPU. 

In this article we’ll recommend the best CPU coolers to ensure that these two CPUs – the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X – perform at their absolute best.

What kind of cooling do these Zen 3 CPUs need?

Zen 3 is a continuation and refinement of the Zen Architecture and will be based on TSMC’s 7nm process. One of the key features of Zen CPU’s is their power efficiency, and doing more with less wattage means that despite their incredible performance they’re not excessively hard to cool. Combined with AMD’s continued support of the AM4 Processor socket, there’s already a wealth of coolers capable of keeping temperatures and noise to a minimum. Lower temperatures allow the CPUs to boost to higher frequencies and sustain them for longer, ultimately increasing the amount of work they can do. The Ryzen 5900X and 5950X both have stated ‘TDP’ or Thermal Design Power of 105W, indicating the sustained power that they are designed to handle. This is, therefore, a bare minimum for the cooling capacity of any cooling solution and a cooler should be able to dissipate much more heat than this to keep temperatures as low as possible. A more capable cooler also means less fan noise since it won’t be struggling to dump the CPUs heat to the atmosphere. Thermal headroom also allows for overclocking meaning you can get the absolute best from your CPU. AMD don’t supply cooling solutions with either of these processors so you’ll have to find an option that meets your needs and budget. We’ll look at Tower coolers which use heat pipes to draw heat out of the CPU and dissipate it via fin stacks – these coolers tend to be ultra-reliable and can be very quiet as well. There are also ‘All in one’ (AIO) water cooling solutions which combine a pump usually in the cold plate on the CPU, a radiator, and fluid sealed within that is circulated to move heat away from the CPU. These coolers have more parts to potentially fail but they are ultimately very reliable as well, and can use a large radiator to dissipate even more heat than even the largest tower coolers. 

Let’s move on to the CPU cooler recommendations for the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X:

Best CPU Coolers for 5900X & 5950X – Our Recommendations

Award	Model	Design	Warranty
Quietest Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X	Dark Rock Pro 4		3-year
Best Air Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X	Noctua NH-D15		6-year
Best Low Profile Cooler for 5900X and 5950X	Noctua NH-C14S		6-year
Best 360mm AIO for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950	Alphacool Eisbaer LT360		3-year
Best 280mm AIO for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X	ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 280		2-year

Quietest Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X

The BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4 combines sleek black looks with the cooling capacity of a twin fan cooling design. A pair of 135mm fans drive air through the fin stacks to deliver maximum cooling with minimal noise. Rubber dampeners, low RPM high airflow fans, and shaped fins that channel the air allow this cooler to operate virtually silently even under load. Fitting isn’t the simplest owing to the coolers bulk but the supplied fitting kit including a long reach screwdriver makes the job possible. You also need to check RAM height carefully as the front fan overlaps ram taller than 40mm. This cooler boasts exceptional 250W Cooling capacity and whisper-quiet operation. There’s a 3-year warranty for your peace of mind, but with dual fan redundancy and no other moving parts, this cooler will see years of trouble-free operation. 

Best Air Cooler for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X 

Noctua has been industry leaders in their fan and cooler designs for a long time now, and with the attention to detail, they demonstrate with their products it’s easy to see why. This large tower cooler, the Noctua NH-D15 uses a pair of fans nestled into two separate fin stacks and this affords the NH-D15 a 220W TDP rating comfortably above the requirements of the Zen 3 CPUs. Its reliability is ensured with a 6-year warranty, whilst the redundant dual-fan designs mean that if a single fan should fail the cooler still operates, meaning your system isn’t down until you can get a replacement. This cooler provides the ultimate cooling for a system in heavy use and performing demanding workloads over extended periods, the kind of workloads the Ryzen 5950X excels in. If you’re not sold on the Noctua Beige and Brown, there also the ‘Chromax’ version in black. 

Best Low Profile Cooler for 5900X and 5950X

When cooling CPUs of such high power and capability, ‘low profile’ is of course relative. All of the popular options such as the Cryorig C7 or Noctua NH-L9x65 SE-AM4 fall short in cooling capacity for these CPUs, and whilst it’s tempting to fit ever more powerful processors into ever-smaller cases you do have to give due consideration to heat loading. The Noctua NH-C14S, our pick for this category, is a unique design using six heat pipes and a 140mm fan to lower the overall cooler height to just 115mm. This opens up a wide variety of cases with reduced space over the CPU. Another advantage of the horizontal fan orientation is that the outwashed air helps cool VRMs, RAM and other components on the motherboard. The fin stack is offset to provide clearance for the GPU in the standard PCIe Slot. This isn’t a ‘fit and forget’ cooler, you’ll need to give careful consideration to case layout, RAM height and configuration of the GPU if you do choose this cooler. For a cooling solution with lower space requirements than almost any other option, it gets our recommendation. 

Best 360mm AIO for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X

If your case and layout lends itself best to a 360mm AIO, this unit from Alphacool, the Eisbaer LT360, gets our recommendation. It’s not just a traditional closed loop cooler. Alphacool see this as the first step to a more comprehensive liquid cooling solutions. Whilst it can simply be installed right out of the box, it includes standardised fittings that allow you to open up the loop and add more components. This means that you can add more radiators or a GPU cooling block as your system and demands grow over time. The pump is an ultra low noise unit with insulation to dampen noise and vibration and the square pump head also contains the reservoir, which has a window so you can see that it’s properly filled and operating correctly. The polished copper cold plate is optimal for heat transfer. Meanwhile, the 360mm radiator provides unsurpassed surface area for the dissipation of heat, and Alphacool supply 3 120mm fans with the unit. Looks-wise there’s a discreetly lit ‘Alphacool’ logo and functional looking pipework. Given the upgradeability of this system, and it’s excellent cooling capacity we consider it the best 360mm option for cooling the Ryzen 5900X or 5950X.  If you’re looking for a little more show, there’s also an RGB version with Aphacools own RGB fans – the Aurora 360 for $30 more. 

Best 280mm AIO for Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X

The Liquid Freezer II 280mm all-in-one from Arctic has a couple of features that make it especially suited to cooling the Zen 3 CPU’s. First it’s unique in that arctic have provided a small fan in the cold plate to move air over the Power stages of the motherboard. This feature addresses one of the concerns of AIO’s in that they don’t move much air over the VRMs, so they run hotter. With the Zen 3 CPU’s being adept at continuous workloads like rendering, cooling the VRMs becomes a concern. Arctic claim that the VRM fan cools VRMs by up to 15°C, but it can be deactivated if you don’t feel it’s necessary and wish to reduce noise.  It also has a PWM Pump leading to minimal noise and vibration, designed by Arctic rather than bought off the shelf – most other AIOs use pumps manufactured by Asetek. There are also long hoses so it will fit into larger cases. It uses Arctics own PWM ‘P-fans’ which have high static pressure to push air through the radiators, and operate with low noise. Overall this 280mm AIO is a great option for reliable comprehensive cooling of these new top tier CPUs from AMD. 

The post 5 Best CPU Coolers for the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

From the long-awaited announcement of the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs, to being less than a month from away from their release, PC gaming enthusiasts that love to strive for building the most powerful rig possible have much to look forward to. In fact, with the DDR4 memory type having reached its peak in terms of performance, the PCIe 4.0 NVMe interface also seeming to have reached its peak with the Samsung 980 Pro and Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, the recent release of the Nvidia GeForce Ampere RTX 3000 series GPUs, and now the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs that maximize the power of the AM4 chipset, building a high-performance rig is no longer just a means for bragging rights, but it is also a wise investment to make, as it can easily last through the entire next generation of consoles, or until the optimization of the next generation DDR5 RAM type.

In order to maximize the performance of the existing cores, threads, and cache of the previous generation Ryzen processors, AMD increased the size of the CCX (Core Complex), which results in reducing inherent inter-core latency by a significant amount. Each CCX that is situated onto the CCD (Core Chiplet Die) can now hold eight cores and 32 MBs of L3 cache – effectively doubling the capacity of each CCX compared to the Zen 2 CPUs. Of course, the cores within each CCX can communicate, but do so through AMD’s IF (Infinity Fabric). This adds an extra layer of processing that increases the inner communication latency.

Only two of the four announced AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPUs will actually have to make use of multiple CCXs: The Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 9 5950X. These two flagship Ryzen 9 CPUs were also the only processors that AMD chose to show benchmarks for, displaying their superiority to their competitor’s Intel’s i9-10900K in single core performance, gaming applications, and energy efficiency. Additionally, they also showed how the Ryzen 9 5950X fairs against the previous generation Ryzen 9 3950X, and the i9-10900K, in terms of content-creation applications like CAD and Adobe Premiere – ultimately asserting their dominance over the Intel CPU competition in all aspects of PC performance. It must be said, that despite the impressive metrics of the Ryzen 9 5000 series CPUs, it does appear that the Ryzen 7 5800K should be almost identical in gaming performance to both these processors, as games do not utilize more than eight cores and 16 threads currently, nor will they in the foreseeable future. Therefore, a demand in inter-CCX communication may end up being redundant.

Additional criticism that AMD is facing following their presentation of these new Zen 3 CPUs, is in relation to their launch prices, with are arguably unjustifiably high. The Ryzen 7 5800X, the Ryzen 9 5900X and the Ryzen 9 5950X all cost $50 more than their Ryzen 3000 series counterparts – and no longer include a stock cooler – while the Ryzen 5 5600X costs $100 more than the Ryzen 5 3600X: a 50% price increase.

On the other hand, it can also be argued that this extra $50 is a small price to pay for now having both the best content creation, and the best gaming CPUs available in the consumer market. Additionally, the Ryzen 5000 series CPUs have two sets of motherboards to choose from: The X570 and the B550, with two more becoming available in early 2020: The X470 and the B450. This is hardly a luxury that the 10^th gen Intel CPUs can claim of having, as they are only compatible with Z490 motherboards. Ryzen CPUs also have a far better TDP than their Intel counterparts, ranging from a 20 W advantage for the higher end models (120 W vs 105 W), to a borderline bizarre advantage of 60 W for the R5 5600X against the i5-10600K which required nearly double the power supplied to the Ryzen 5 (65 W vs 125 W). Therefore, these Ryzen 5000 series CPUs do hold some value for their price, especially when compared to Intel’s 10^th generation processors.

But which one of the two flagship CPUs is better worth its increased price tag? Is the Ryzen 9 5950X’s performance upgrade, in relation to the Ryzen 9 5900X, one that excuses its $250 price difference? Let’s take a look at their respective specifications and benchmarks, in order to decipher which of the two CPUs is better worth investing in.

Ryzen 9 5950X vs 5900X: Specifications

	Ryzen 9 5900X	Ryzen 9 5950X
Design
Architecture	Zen 3	Zen 3
Process	7nm	7nm
Cores/Threads	12/24	16/32
Base clock	3.7GHz	3.4GHz
Boost Clock	4.8GHz	4.9GHz
L3 Cache	64MB	64MB
TDP	105W	105W
RRP	$549	$800
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

Ryzen 9 5950X

The higher-end Ryzen 9 5950X comes equipped with 16 cores and 32 threads, with a 64 MB level three cache and AMD’s TSMC 7 nm FinFET fabrication process. The Ryzen 9 5950X is the only processor that contains two maxed out CCXs, both in core count and cache. These cores operate at a base clock speed of 3.4 GHz and can be boosted up to a 4.9 GHz frequency. Like all Zen 2 and Zen 3 processors, this CPU is PCIe 4.0 and AM4 chipset compatible, supporting a DDR4 system memory type of up to 3,200 MHz in speed. Considering its specifications, the fact that the Ryzen 9 5950X has a TDP of only 105 Watts is quite impressive. A stock cooler is not provided with the purchase of this CPU, which will launch with an MSRP of $800.

Ryzen 9 5900X

Going a slight step below the R9 5950X, we have the first announced Ryzen 5000 series CPU: The Ryzen 9 5900X. This processor includes 12 cores and 24 threads, and a large 64 MB level three cache. These cores operate at a base clock frequency of 3.7 GHz, that can be boosted to up to 4.8 GHz. The processing node, the RAM, the PCIe 4.0 compatibility, the chipset, and even the TDP are all identical to its more powerful Ryzen 9 5950X counterpart. Its price, however, is much lower, as the Ryzen 9 5900X is set to launch on November the 5^th for $550, but will also not include the Wraith Prism stock cooler found in the previous generation Zen 2 processors.

Ryzen 9 5950X vs 5900X: Specification & Benchmark Comparison

Specification wise, the two CPUs are fairly similar, the only differences being the core and thread count, and the clock speeds. The Ryzen 9 5950X has four cores and six threads more than the Ryzen 9 5900X, completing a two-CCX setup to its maximum capacity. Still, the Ryzen 9 5900X also accomplishes this task, but only when it comes to the capacity of level 3 cache in its two core complexes. The Ryzen 9 5900X trades a 0.1 GHz boost clock speed for an increase of 0.3 GHz in base clock speed – an easy trade to make.

Now, what we have to work with in terms of benchmarks are the slides that AMD released during their Zen 3 announcement presentation, showing us the Cinebench R20 single-threaded 1T run, and the gaming benchmarks which compare the R9 5950X and R9 5900X to the Intel’s i9-10900K.

In terms of the Cinebench results, the Ryzen 9 5900X achieves a score of 633, while the Ryzen 9 5950X achieves a score of 640 – not a very sizeable difference, but still one to take into account. The gaming benchmark results are what appear to be a bit strange. The titles where we can see how both, the Ryzen 9 5950X and the Ryzen 9 5900X, fare against the Core i9-10900K include: Ashes of the Singularity, Far Cry: New Dawn, Shadows of the Tomb Raider, and Total War: Three Kingdoms. The differences in their comparison to the Intel i9-10900K are very minor, but some games seem to do better with the R9 5900X than they do with the R9 5950X. Far Cry: New Dawn shows a 2% increase in FPS for the R9 5900X, when compared to the i9-10900K, whereas the R9 5950X it is tied to the i9-10900K in framerate achieved. Shadow of the Tomb Raider also shows a 1% increase for the R9 5900X. The other two titles, Ashes of the Singularity and Total War: Three Kingdoms, have the R9 5950X leading the R9 5900X by 6% and 4% respectively.

Verdict

If you are excited for the release of these new Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs, then chances are you are looking to build a gaming PC, or you work with single-core performance-dependent workstation applications like CAD. If you are not interested in either of these two types of applications, then the Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs offer far better value for their price than the Zen 3 processors.

When it comes solely to gaming, or perhaps even gaming related content creation like streaming or video editing, then the Ryzen 9 5900X has a much more competitive price than the Ryzen 9 5950X. The gaming benchmarks for the two CPUs show us a difference that can even favor the Ryzen 9 5900X, so the Ryzen 9 5950X is definitely not worth the extra $250 it demands.

Other than for the bragging rights, very few PC user-groups would benefit from the Ryzen 9 5950X enough to justify its price. For workstation builds, the Ryzen 9 5950X hold much more value for its price, especially when it comes to multi-core performance. Only those that need both multi-core and single-core performance, for multiple different types of applications, at a higher level than what the Ryzen 9 5900X can offer, will benefit enough from this CPU to warrant paying $800.

In fact, when it comes purely to gaming, even the Ryzen 9 5900X seems to be overkill and may ultimately not be worth its price. For $100 less, the Ryzen 7 5800X will most likely have identical gaming benchmarks to both Ryzen 9 CPUs – which may also be the reason why AMD opted not to show any of its benchmarks during their presentation.

With the specifications and price of the Zen 3 CPUs, it is apparent that AMD chose to go a different route with the Ryzen series than what we’re used to. Instead of offering performance for both workstation and gaming, AMD instead chose to take a page from Intel’s book and focus purely on gaming, while also increasing their prices disproportionately. The CPUs that will be impacted the most from this decision are looking to be the Ryzen 9 variants, as they will hold less value when it comes to gaming than the Ryzen 7 5000 series models, and an even lesser value for the majority of workstation applications to the previous generation Ryzen 3000 CPUs – due to the increase and price, while still maintaining identical core, threads, and cache counts.

Hopefully the release of these CPUs will show us more analytical benchmarks that prove these early assumptions wrong, but it certainly looks like AMD chose to only advertise the Ryzen 9 series CPUs in their initial presentation for a reason.

The post Ryzen 9 5950X vs 5900X: What Are The Key Differences? appeared first on PremiumBuilds.