AMD promises its Zen 5 core architecture can deliver large generational performance improvements without needing substantially higher boost clocks. In fact, Ryzen 9 9950X and 9900X are identical to their predecessors in this regard. Thankfully, these CPUs are overclockable. Sure enough, someone’s leaked out Geekbench results that give us some idea of how far we can push these already powerful processors.
As a reminder, Ryzen 9 9950X is the best CPU that AMD has to showcase what Zen 5 is capable of when faced with multi-threaded workloads. It’s packing a whopping 16 cores and 32 threads, with a stock boost clock of 5.7GHz. So far, it’s a match for Ryzen 9 7950X, right down to the 170W TDP. Don’t let their similarities fool you, though. The gap between these two chips is suitably wide, compounded all the more with a little overclocking thrown into the mix.
Over on Geekbench, two sets of results for an AMD engineering sample have recently appeared from user domdtxdissar. While the listed name doesn’t betray its hidden identity, its specs do. However, this isn’t a processor running its stock configuration. Instead, the benchmarker has overclocked the chip to run up to 5.95GHz. In doing so, they achieve impressive respective single and multi-core scores as high as 3,704 and 26,013.
It’s unclear what wattage the processor is running at, but previous benchmarks demonstrate Ryzen 9 9950X needs far fewer watts than Core i9-14900K to turn in awesome performance. With this in mind, we suspect it’s sipping rather than guzzling power and keeping its cool, thanks to Ryzen 9000 thermal improvements.
Sadly, there’s no baseline to compare these results to. This makes quantifying how much of a difference the overclock is making impossible. However, with AMD launching its Curve Shaper add-on for Curve Optimizer, we doubt we’ll have to wait long to find out. Even so, for those too sheepish to overlock, there’s plenty to look forward to if prior Ryzen 5 9600X Geekbench results are an indication.
Recently, AMD delayed the launch of its Ryzen 9000 and will now stagger the release of processors. Ryzen 9 9950X will be arriving alongside 9900X, but only after Ryzen 7 9700X and 5 9600X hit the scene. We’ll have thoughts on the entire lineup ready for launch day, but in the meantime give our Ryzen 9 7950X review a read.