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The AMD's Ryzen 9000 series was announced today, June 3, 2024, at Computex 2024. The new CPUs' performance is around what I talked about earlier in a comparison of Ryzen 9000 Zen 5 and Ryzen 7000. If you read that and waited for the new processors to launch, you are in for a treat.
The new Zen 5-based chips have brought decent improvements in Instructions Per Cycle/Clock (IPC), faster DDR5 RAM speeds natively, and significantly increased AI performance over the Ryzen 7000 series.
In this article, we will analyze how much performance improvements the Ryzen 9000 CPUs have brought over the previous generation and at what prices.
Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and solely reflect the writer's opinions.
Ryzen 9000 vs Ryzen 7000 series
The Ryzen 9000 series is the successor to its 7000 series. The new CPUs are based on the Zen 5 architecture, which brought an average IPC improvement of 16% compared to the previous generation. However, in some applications that use the AVX-512 instruction set, the performance improvements can be as much as 56%.
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Specs comparison
Before we move on to compare the actual performance improvements, let's compare the specs of the two flagship CPUs from both generations, Ryzen 9 9950X vs Ryzen 9 7950X.
The specs of the two CPUs are almost identical even though they are from two different architecture generations. Despite having the same specs and boost clock speeds, the new Ryzen processor managed to achieve a decent 16% IPC increase.
AMD claims it was able to pull it off by doubling the front-end instruction bandwidth, improving the data flow from L2 to L1 cache and L1 cache to floating point unit (FP), and AVX-512 throughput.
These changes to architecture led to an improved branch predictor, lower latency, and wider pipelines, among other things, and it led to the 16% average IPC improvements.
A new piece of information just dropped from @FritzchensFritz on X. The new Zen 5 die size is 3.46 square mm, and the Zen 4 die size is 2.74 square mm. According to this user, the L3 cache area of the new Zen die looks narrower than the previous gen die. The resolution of the images is too low for a closer in-depth look, but it does look that way.
However, I believe this supposed L3 cache shrink could also be due to a node shrink. The new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs are manufactured on a smaller 4nm TSMC node as opposed to the 5nm TSMC node of the previous Ryzen series.
Performance comparison
The Ryzen 9000 series brought improvements across major productivity applications. At Computex 2024, AMD compared its Ryzen 9 9950X CPU to its competitors' flagship Core i9-14900K in many productivity benchmarks. The new AMD CPU managed to lead ahead by a significant margin in several applications, including Blender, Handbrake, Procyon Office, and more.
Even in games like Hitman 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and F1 2023, among others, the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X beat the Core i9-14900K by an average of 16%. In Mistral, an AI large language model, the new CPU was 20% faster than its Intel counterpart.
Price-to-performance ratio
Unfortunately, AMD hasn't mentioned anything about the price of the new AMD processor. According to a leaker, @wxnod at X, the Ryzen 9000 series pricing will be the same as its previous 7000 series, which is a piece of great news.
@wxnod often posts leaks of PC hardware at X, but this user doesn't have a long history of presenting the most accurate leaks, so take it with a grain of salt.
However, the prices of AMD's older 7000 series have had significant price cuts since its release. The Ryzen 7950X was originally launched at $699 but is now available at $489.98, which is around 30% cheaper. So, let's assume the new Ryzen 9950X is launched at its rumored $699 price tag, which was the launch price of the flagship 7000 series CPU.
With that assumption, you will be paying around 30% more for a 16% higher performance. Now, that doesn't sound right, does it? You will essentially pay way more for a slightly higher performance. A new generation of processors is supposed to bring a better price-to-performance ratio, but that's not the case here. But keep in mind that AMD hasn't officially announced the pricing of the new CPUs yet.
On top of that, there's no increase in core/thread count. It was five years ago when AMD launched its 3000 series processors with a core count of 6, 8, 12, and 16 as the Ryzen 5, 7, and 9 series CPUs. The new 9000 series has no increase in core count, whereas Intel already provides 24 cores with its flagship Core i9-14900K.
So, while the announcement of the new Ryzen processors was great, it wasn't as exciting as people were hoping it would be.
Is the new Ryzen 9000 series worth it?
If the rumors are true about the Ryzen 9000 series processors launching at the same price as its 7000 series, then they are not worth it. I don't think I can call it an improved CPU generation at the rumored pricing, but I hope AMD officially releases the new Ryzen generation at lower prices.
