Introduction

We have with us the new AMD Ryzen 9 9900X Zen 5 desktop processor, positioned a notch below the flagship 9950X. AMD expanded its Ryzen 9000 Granite Ridge desktop processor series today with the introduction of its two high core-count Ryzen 9 SKUs. We’ve reviewed both chips, so be sure to also check out our review of the 9950X. AMD debuted the Zen 5 architecture on the desktop platform last week, with the mid-thru-performance segment Ryzen 5 9600X and 9700X targeting the bulk of the PC market, including gamers and enthusiasts, and is now entering the segment of the market that’s into heavy multithreaded productivity, without losing out on gaming performance.

The Ryzen 9 series provides you with high core-counts such as the 12-core/24-thread config of the Ryzen 9 9900X we’re reviewing here, or the 16-core/32-thread, but without compromising on clock speeds. So you get to plow through your work, and also unwind with AAA gaming. This is something workstation and HEDT processors tend to skimp on, as their high core-counts are balanced with lower clocks, and hence lower gaming performance than processors from the Ryzen 9 series.

The Ryzen 9 9900X succeeds a legacy of 12-core processors from AMD such as the 7900X, 5900X, and the 3900X. It’s meant to serve as a balancing point between the 8-core 9700X, and the flagship 16-core 9950X, both in price and multithreaded performance, and is really for those that think 8 is too few cores to have in 2024, and 16 is either too many, or the chip is too expensive. The 9900X, like the rest of the Ryzen 9000 Granite Ridge series, is a chiplet-based processor, where the CPU cores are located in 8-core CPU core complex dies (CCDs). The 9700X has one of these, the 9950X has two, and so does the 9900X, but as a 12-core part, it has two cores disabled per CCD without affecting the 32 MB L3 cache size. So this is effectively double the compute muscle of the Ryzen 5 9600X, and at slightly higher clock speeds, too.

Logic dictates that AMD could have carved out the 9900X by enabling all 8 cores on one CCD, and just 4 cores on the other (8+4), but such an asymmetric chip could suffer scheduling problems between the two CCDs, and in any case, our reviews of the 7900X and 5900X show that the 6+6 core dual-CCD configuration isn’t significantly unfriendly to games in any way, being 2-3% slower than the full 8 core models, and the 12-core parts tend to fit in nicely for the clock speeds at their disposal, between the 8-core and 16-core parts in their respective generations.

AMD’s Zen 5 microarchitecture sees the company rework pretty much all key components of the core compared to Zen 4, with a focus particularly on the number crunching machinery. The core comes with a true 512-bit floating point data-path to more effectively execute 512-bit SIMD workloads that use instruction-sets such as AVX-512, VNNI, etc.; when compared to Zen 4, which uses a dual-pumped 256-bit data-path to execute these instruction-sets.

AMD built the CCDs on the newer 4 nm TSMC N4P foundry node, which offers a 22% node-level power reduction over the 5 nm N5 node the company builds its Zen 4 CCDs on. A combination of increased energy efficiency and IPC, is how AMD plans to hold onto its crown in the high core-count segment. The Ryzen 9 9900X comes with a rated TDP of 120 W, which is lower than the 170 W that its predecessor, the 7900X comes with. This, and the 65 W TDP AMD gave the 9700X, are testament to the N4P node’s refinement over N5.

AMD has given the Ryzen 9 9900X clock speeds of 4.40 GHz base frequency, which is the highest in the series (higher than even the 4.30 GHz of the 9950X and 3.80 GHz of the 9700X), and a maximum boost frequency of 5.60 GHz, which is unchanged from the 7900X. You won’t get these kinds of clock speeds with high core-count workstation processors, which is why AMD considers these chips important to the desktop market—these chips grind through your multithreaded work while having great gaming performance. The company is pricing the 9900X at $500, which is $50 less than what the 7900X launched at.