[Hardware] AMD Ryzen 9 9950X Engineering Sample gets a full suite of Blender benchmarks at various TDPs, showcasing major efficiency improvements

[Shyloo]

 

Starting on July 7, AnandTech forum member Igor_Kavinski began posting Ryzen 9 9950X engineering sample Blender benchmark results courtesy of an unnamed source — starting at a super-slim 60W TDP. Over the course of the following week, 90W TDP, 120W TDP, 160W TDP, and finally, max-capacity 230W TDP results were also posted. The results give us a comprehensive idea of how power efficiency will improve with next-gen Zen 5 AMD CPUs.

Before proceeding, it's evident that the newer Ryzen 9 9950X would outperform the older chip when given a more generous power budget. We didn't test our Ryzen 9 7950X at 230W TDP, but reports from other users in the thread point toward a ~20% performance improvement still present in that scenario. The interesting results here start at 170W and below.
 boost. Additionally, the Ryzen 9 9950X ES is liquid-cooled.

At 170W, the Ryzen 9 7950X achieves a cumulative Blender score of 599.2. The Ryzen 9 9950X scores 678 at 160W, which outperforms its predecessor by about ~11% when both operate at more standard CPU TDPs.
The performance differentials between Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 7950X start to narrow down when the newer chip is put at 120W. It is still within about ~5% of its predecessor's performance despite running with a 50W deficit in comparison.

These engineering sample benchmarks aren't the only insight we've received into AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9000 Series of CPUs. Earlier this week, Ryzen 9 9900X Geekbench results appeared that seem to have the new architecture pinned to take the crown in single-core performance, far outstripping the last-gen Ryzen 9 7950X3D and even the Intel Core i9-14900K.

Overall, we have to say that these emerging benchmarks are looking quite favorable for the future of AMD desktop platform users. However, some salt is required with pre-release benchmarks like these. Beyond raw performance gains, the power efficiency gains here also bode well for the eventual arrival of Zen 5 laptop chips, and should generally be nice for anyone trying to limit their power consumption. Even the 60W TDP results make this CPU look pretty usable since those scores align with an Intel Core i9-10980XE, per Blender's benchmark database.
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Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.