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AMD introduces Ryzen 9 3950X, 16-core and 32-thread "monster" CPU for $ 749

AMD is not holding the cards in the mage, and Ryzen 9 3950X has become official at E3 2019. While the Ryzen 7 3900X has introduced a 12-core processor to the mainstream market, the 3950X will enable all cores of the two of these new models Ryzen 3000, combining the total of 4 CCX sets and reaching 16 cores and 32 threads.

Based on the Zen2 microarchitecture, built in 7-nanometer lithography, the model has a greater number of cores thanks to the ability to put more structures in less space, which enabled two dies to be placed in the same processor and reach a high core count. This product will also introduce higher operating frequencies, based on 3.5GHz and boost up to 4.7GHz. In ugly presentations for the press, overclockers were able to achieve 5.3GHz, however using liquid nitrogen in the cooling and electrical voltages in the home of 1.7V.

Today during its E3 2019 press conference, AMD announced it's pushing gaming beyond 8- or 12-cores, with a new "best of the best" CPU. The "World's first 16-core gaming CPU" is the Ryzen 9 3950X, which will be available in September for $749. Outdoing Intel's 8-core gaming CPU, CEO Dr. Lisa Su said this chip has "the highest boost frequency in our stack" that goes up to 4.7Ghz with 72MB of cache.

Continuing AMD's theme of trying to beat Intel on the combination of performance, value and efficiency, the Zen 2 hardware operates at 105 watts. Of course, there's more to the world than gaming CPUs and cores don't always translate to an advantage in raw performance. Still, this latest addition to the Ryzen line is a powerful challenge, and keeps up the pressure following the introduction of its 12-core sibling, the 3900X, just last month at Computex.

The Ryzen 9 3950X arrives with the advancements of Zen2 as 15% more IPC (instructions per processing cycle), double the cache and also double the performance in floating points. This combined with the evolution of the new lithography brings gains on two fronts: the chips based on this microarchitecture can consume half of the energy in the same workflow, ideal for ultrathin products and devices where heating and power consumption are critical, but if the optimizations are invested in performance enhancements, performance gains are around 25%. An example of this efficiency is that despite bringing 16 cores, the Ryen 9 3950X has a TDP of 105W while the Threadripper 2950X has TDP of 180W and Core i7-7960X, 165W, for example.

Chips Navi (left) and Ryzen 3000 (right)

The Ryzen 3000 line also gained a boost in the memories section. The 3950X brings the impressive amount of 72MB of cache, the result of a new memory hierarchy that brings important advances mainly in latencies, since there is a greater amount of data already available to the processor to start processing. Due to the great impact that this specification brings on games, AMD will now use the "Gaming Cache" nomenclature to tell consumers how important this feature is to achieve higher frame rates in games.

The Ryzen 9 3950X will be available for purchase on the international market starting in September at a cost of $ 749. Putting it in perspective, the Core 16-Core model, the 7960X, is sold for $ 1,500.

Full specs

Thanks to the 7nm process, the octacore Ryzen 7 3800X is able to boost to a max clock speed of 4.5GHz from 3.9GHz base, and the 12-core Ryzen 9 chip up to a whopping 4.6GHz from 3.8GHz. But, somewhat surprisingly, the fastest chip also seems to be the one with the highest core-count too, the Ryzen 9 3950X with a Turbo speed of 4.7GHz.