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The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is Team Red's latest 12-core chip for gamers. The processor has been filled to the brim with the latest Zen 5 hardware to deliver strong single-core performance gains, which directly translates to much better framerates in more demanding titles. On top of that, the chip is now available for $50 cheaper than the last-gen 7900X's launch MSRP, making it more worthwhile.
I spent a week testing the chip in a variety of workloads, including video games and synthetic stresses. Here's my review of the Ryzen 9 9900X.
The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is filled to the brim with Zen 5 hardware
The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X has been designed for enthusiasts who are looking for the best performance from their gaming setups and a bit more — like overclocking headroom and future-proofing. It sits a rung below the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X, with four fewer cores and slightly tighter clocks.
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Here's a look at the specs sheets of the chip, compared to the last-gen 7900X and the flagship 9950X.
The 12-core chip has gotten $50 cheaper. While the $499 price tag is still pretty steep, it makes the CPU more approachable for gamers building high-end rigs. Let's look at the kind of performance you can expect from the chip and if that's justifiable.
Testbench
We used the following setup for all of our benchmarks with the 9900X:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
- Motherboard: Asus ROG X870-A Gaming WiFi
- RAM: 2x G.Skill Trident Z DDR5-6000 16 GB
- Storage: 1x Gigabyte Gen 4 NVMe 1 TB, 1x Patriot P300 M.2 PCIe Gen 3 x4 128GB
- Cooler: Cooler Master Atmos 240mm liquid cooler
- Storage: Cooler Master MWE 1050W 80+ Gold
- GPU: Nvidia RTX 5080 16 GB Founder's Edition
Read more: Nvidia RTX 5080 review—Can AI replace gen-on-gen improvements?
Synthetic benchmarks
Synthetic benchmarks give us a good base for comparison against other CPUs that the 9900X aims to replace. They are homogeneous workloads, which gives us a better idea of what to expect, unlike video games.
The 3DMark CPU Profile benchmark is a gaming-oriented test of chip performance. Since many video games have no use of the extra cores packed with high-end processors, it's important to quantify how the chips perform in various thread combinations.
As evident, the 9900X pulls off an impressive lead over Zen 4 processors scoring 1,288 points in a single-threaded test. The last generation remains around or under the 1,100 margin. Moreover, this IPC gain helps the 12-core 9900X beat the 16-core flagship-grade 7950X3D.
The Cinebench R23 benchmark gives us a larger pool of chips to compare the IPC gains against. The 9900X takes the first position in this test, beating the Ryzen 9 7950X by a 7% margin, which is pretty impressive for gen-on-gen improvements and a cheaper price point.
The Cinebench R23 multi-core benchmark makes the comparison more level as the Ryzen 9 9900X's smaller 12-core budget doesn't let it outperform the 16-core offerings from the last generation. However, when compared to the 7900X, we're still looking at a healthy 9.25% gain.
The file compression test shows different results, however. The 9900X scored about as much as the last generation 7900X, which isn't consistent with the numbers we logged above. To avoid weird outliers, we ran the test a few times and the 9900X's score was quite reproducible.
Now, there can be multiple explanations for this: saturation in the 7-zip test which hasn't been updated in the last seven years is one of them.
Gaming benchmarks
The gaming benchmarks are more relevant for someone looking to invest in a high-end gaming setup. In this regard, the Ryzen 9 9900X is a considerable option. There aren't any graphics cards in the market that will get bottlenecked by this behemoth of a chip.
Let's look at numbers scored by our RTX 5080 at 1080p, the most CPU-bound resolution out there today. At this resolution, all games in our test played smoothly with 120+ FPS guaranteed across the board. This is pretty impressive as the 9900X is capable enough to allow the graphics card to perform to its fullest.
At 4K, the performance is more GPU-bound. We log significant performance downgrades across the board as the titles were limited by how much the 5080 can deliver. CPU performance stays around 10-20% at this resolution, proving that the chip is more than capable of handling even the most capable GPUs comfortably.
The Ryzen 9 9900X is a powerful chip. However, it could feel a bit too much if you don't have the correct graphics hardware to utilize the extra computing prowess of the 12-core offering. Users who want their gaming rig to double as a workstation are the ideal candidates for this chip.
Power draw and temperatures
Coming to power draw and core clocks, the 9900X's characteristics have much in common with what we observed with Zen 4 chips. In gaming, the core clocks stabilize at around 5 GHz with certain bumps past 5.4 GHz.
We recorded the graph below while running Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with the highest visual settings turned on.
In synthetic stress with AIDA 64 torture, the clock speeds are more stable. We consistently logged 5.0 GHz on average across the 12 cores with a few of them boosting past 5.4 GHz.
CPU temperatures in gaming remained around 70°C on average with occasional boosts to 80+ degrees. This is pretty normal given our ambient temperatures of 21°C. The chip was cooled by a Cooler Master 240mm liquid cooler, which gives us respectable numbers for its capacity. Better temperatures can always be recorded with 360/420 mm radiators.
The temperatures crossed 90 degrees, peaking at 94.9°C when stressed with AIDA 64's torture test. This makes it about 73°C above ambient. 95°C is the Tjmax of the chip, which explains the 5.0 GHz curve that we observed in the graph above. The conclusion: parts of the chip have been limited by the available thermal headroom. However, this torture test isn't representative of real-world performance and only serves as a theoretical maximum.
In terms of power draw, the Ryzen 9 9900X is well-behaved in gaming workloads. During our Cyberpunk 2077 test, the chip recorded a maximum of 115.6W and stabilized around the 75-80W mark. Since the workload is mostly GPU-bound at 4K resolutions, this characteristic is respectable.
Under synthetic stress with AIDA 64, the Ryzen 9 9900X drew up to 138.8W, which is higher than its 120W TDP. Most high-end motherboards, like the Asus ROG Strix X870-A Gaming we used, are more than capable of delivering the extra power. The Zen 5 platform is also designed to effortlessly scale up to 170W if the workload demands it. The observed characteristic isn't a surprise.
The Ryzen 9 9900X is pretty well-behaved for a high-end 12-core processor. Of course, it's quite demanding and needs high-end liquid cooling hardware and a premium motherboard for a balanced experience. However, if you get the components correct, the chip won't disappoint you.
Value and conclusion
The Ryzen 9 9900X is one of the most capable and expensive CPUs out there. It is designed for enthusiasts, overclockers, and professionals who need extra single-core performance capabilities for advanced file compression, rendering, and multitasking workloads.
If that's you, this Zen 5 processor won't disappoint you. From a usability perspective, the CPU has been a delight. Flying between multiple apps and games was a breeze. With the extra system RAM, even 100 Opera GX tabs weren't a problem.
However, given the diminishing returns some more casual users would encounter with a flagship-grade chip, you might not feel any difference with this Ryzen 9 chip if you don't have a proper use for it.
