At the E3 2019, AMD has revealed their flagship CPU – the AMD Ryzen 9 3950X, dub as the world’s first 16-core gaming CPU. AMD CEO Lisa Su announced the CPU together with the Radeon RX 5700 XT and RX 5700 graphics cards. The Ryzen 9 2950X features 16 cores and 32 threads; with a base clock speed of 3.5 GHz and a boost clock speed of 4.7 GHz. It also has a 72MB total cache and a 105W TDP, slightly similar to the Ryzen 9 3900X. However, the Ryzen 9 3950X won’t be released this July 7, unlike the first wave of the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs. It will become available starting September 2019 with an MSRP of $749. This is going to be a power house CPU. I don’t think it will have a huge advantage when it comes to gaming, but those 16 cores and 32 threads will definitely benefit other workloads such as streaming, rendering, video editing, and other content creation. Check out more details below.
UPDATE: AMD Ryzen 9 3950X is now available on Amazon.com here and Amazon UK here
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X – “Ultimate Desktop CPU for Gaming”
AMD also previewed the ultimate member of the new 3rd Gen Ryzen desktop processor family, the flagship AMD Ryzen 9 3950X processor. With 16 cores and 32 threads running up to 4.7GHz, the leadership CPU has already set multiple performance records. With the aid of liquid nitrogen, the AMD Ryzen Overclocking Team managed to push the AMD Ryzen™ 9 3950X processor to 5.375 GHz, achieving record-setting performance with a Cinebench R20 multi-thread score of 12,167.
The Ryzen 9 3950X processor now holds the crown in two important dimensions: highest performance for any 16-core processor and highest performance in a mainstream CPU socket. A new and improved AMD Ryzen Master Software utility was also revealed, including a redesigned user interface and new enthusiast-first overclocking features, offering users an easy way to squeeze every drop of performance from their AMD Ryzen desktop processor powered system.
AMD Ryzen 9 3950X Specifications
| Model | Cores/Threads | TDP (Watts) | Boost/Base Freq. (GHz) | Total Cache (MB) | PCIe 4.0 Lanes (processor+AMD X570) | SEP (USD) | Expected Availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 9 3950X | 16/32 | 105W | 4.7/3.5 | 72 | 44 | $749 | September, 2019 |
| Ryzen 9 3900X | 12/24 | 105W | 4.6/3.8 | 70 | 40 | $499 | July 7, 2019 |
| Ryzen 7 3800X | 8/16 | 105W | 4.5/3.9 | 36 | 40 | $399 | July 7, 2019 |
| Ryzen 7 3700X | 8/16 | 65W | 4.4/3.6 | 36 | 40 | $329 | July 7, 2019 |
| Ryzen 5 3600X | 6/12 | 95W | 4.4/3.8 | 35 | 40 | $249 | July 7, 2019 |
| Ryzen 5 3600 | 6/12 | 65W | 4.2/3.6 | 35 | 40 | $199 | July 7, 2019 |
