Forget Threadripper 3 and an Intel i9, it’s all about the Ryzen 9 3950x – OPINION

All the headlines may be about AMD’s latest Threadripper 3 CPUs, but for us here at Trusted Towers the day was stolen by a less flashy bit of news.

We speak of course of AMD’s latest Ryzen 9 3950, which with the company finally having unveiled its specs and price, looks like a better bet for most users and candidate for chip of the year – on paper…

True enthusiasts, the type who buy Nvidia Titan GPUs to play Overwatch, might be rolling their eyes at this statement, but we have some pretty good reasons why we’re more excited about Ryzen 9 3950x.

The Ryzen 3950 was soft unveiled earlier this year. It’s the current top dog in AMD’s regular CPU line. In layman terms this means it targets PC gamers and regular creatives, not prosumers and researchers – which are being served by AMD’s new Threadripper 3 family.

Despite this,  AMD claimed the Ryzen 9 3950x is “a no compromise product that offers all the features a power user could want,” that “punches pretty hard at content creation performance”, and will “probably be the fastest gaming CPU we offer by a hair.”

Related: Best gaming CPU 2019

On paper there’s plenty of evidence to suggest this will be the case. Let’s start with the specs. The new CPU will feature 16 cores and 32 threads, which could give it a clear advantage on its Intel arch-rival Intel i9-9920x when it comes to content creation and creative workloads. The Intel chip has 12 cores and 24 threads, by comparison.

A few years ago this core count wouldn’t ever appear on a consumer grade chip and as AMD’s spokesperson claimed to Trusted Reviews is “blurring the line between specialist and regular CPUs”.

Threadripper does have a higher core count, but seriously unless you’re doing running ridiculous computational workloads for things like AI research, you won’t need more. Short of something goes drastically wrong, this CPU should be fine for pro-level 3D modelling and 4K video editing.

Then let’s talk about gaming, the area AMD chips always play second fiddle to Intel at. Here again things look pretty competitive. The 3950x has a 4.7GHz boost and 3.5GHz base clock speed, a 72MB Cache and 105W TDP.

Sure, Threadripper offers higher specs, but with an added higher TDP, but again, these specs should let you game to your heart’s content. Especially if AMD’s performance claims and quoted benchmark results are to be believed. You can see a breakdown of its performance claims, including how it stacks up against its Intel rival, in the picture below.

Related: What is the Intel X-series?

If that’s not enough to get you tempted, it’s also pretty darned competitively priced. The chip’s set to sell for $749 (roughly £580) when it launches on November 25th. That makes it hundreds less than the Intel competition and is a key reason we’re more excited about it, than Threadripper.

Hopefully the Ryzen 9 3950x will make good on its opening promise when we get it into our test bench. Check back later for a full review of the Ryzen 9 3950x.