With the 9950X3D due to be officially unveiled on Tuesday 7 January 2025, is anyone here contemplating buying it?

A few months ago I bought a 9950X but had issues and returned it, swapping it for a non-3D 7950X processor. However, I used my machine for audio stuff, but also some casual gaming during down time. Therefore, I'm contemplating picking up the 9950X3D to replace the 7950X I currently have.

Anyone know much about it, seen any juicy leaks, or anyone contemplating getting one?

Also, anyone currently using one öf the previous 3D variant AMD CPUs in an audio machine? Any experiences to share, either good or bad?

 

being an early adopter on a CPU sounds risky as hell these days (not to mention expensive)

 

The public are Guinea Pigs when it comes to technology in my view. They put out stuff that costs way over the top knowing there are those who crave it. Then they realise there are mistakes with it so have to reduce prices and introduce fixes/ firmware etc etc.
I learned my lesson several years ago and my philosophy now? Well that is to let technology work for me, rather than the other way around!

Of course, I say each to their own and if you want to keep up to date then go for it. It's just my own personal view!

 

Be patient and wait for the detailed test results.
In a few weeks you will definitely know a lot more about what the new CPU can and cannot do.

 

Well, it all depends, but let me ask one thing: do you play the games, or do you just do FPS benchmarks?

And then: are the games you're going to play actually CPU bound or not?

All I'm saying really that you most likely will not see much benefit, apart from nicer benchmarks on the top end triplequadruplepentuple-A releases.

Worth it? Your money, not mine.

 

I recently bought the 9950x, with no regrets even as I knew that the 9950x3d was coming soon (but still hesitant, wondering if the price would drop once the 9950x3D comes out). The 3D V-Cache technology seems to not be useful for audio workloads. I worked for about a year on a 7950x3D machine, and did some tests with Process Lasso to test the normal CCD and the 3D CCD indepedently. The normal CCD was actually better in most rendering tests, while the 3D CCD was definitely better for gaming. For audio, I didn't see any difference from the tests I ran in Studio One. Both CCDs seemed to dropped buffers with the same amount of plugins. With that in mind, I think the 7950x3D only makes really sense for gamers that also need high productivity performance, and for streaming. You put the game on the 3D CCD, and leave the rest including OBS on the normal CCD.

There is a rumor that the 9950x3D will have both CCDs on 3D V-Cache. I think it makes perfect sense because they made the tech more thermally optimized on this generation, so you can hit high clock frequencies too. The "frequency" and "cache" CCD duo of the 7950x3D won't make much sense anymore.

But this could make the CPU very expensive. Maybe 300$ more than the regular 9950x. So yeah if you play high-level CS2, it could make sense to pay the premium. But for audio workloads ? It don't think it will make sense. Anyway, we'll see the benchmarks when it comes out though.

BTW, I don't know what kind of problems you had with the 9950x, but updates came out that fixed a lot of issues, namely the latency problems between the two CCDs.

 

I play games, but they are mostly VR racing games, so VR means CPU limited unless you have a monster CPU. Even my current 7950X is limited by VR in trying to get to 90Hz.

 

Last edited: Jan 6, 2025 at 12:29 AM

The problems I had were pre 1.2.0.2a microcode where iLok, UAD, SoundToys etc software wouldn't work due to not being able to authorise license and launch, partially due to the latency problems. However, I had some other issues too where the USB ports on my brand new X870E MSI motherboard back panel that were connected to the CPU lane wouldn't work, yet MSI blamed AMD and AMD blamed MSI and I couldn't get a resolution.

 

Last edited: Jan 6, 2025 at 9:28 AM

We all should wait for the specialized reviews. What ScanUK and PugetSys have to say about DAW performance.

Engineering samples have the 3d v-cache on one ccd. It just follows the 9800X3D's architecture by having the cache stack on top. And cpu clock, tdp and the rest follow the normal 9950X.
I don't see how the final product will be any different but if the cache split on both ccds it will be even better i guess.

Yes because thermally and clockwise it's a constrained version of its non 3D equivalent cpu. It does though have an improvement in instruments with high ram utilization like Kontakt for instance. Given that the 9950X3D won't have these constraints, i doubt there will be any other desktop cpu to beat it, other than HEDT cpus like Threadripper which though are better suited in large orchestral projects (ie. film music) due to the amount of ram they can support and many more cpu cores.
Cheers

 

I don't do VR so I can't claim any practical knowledge on this, but how is your GPU, is that the limit?

Now, this is just me guessing, but for VR games to be rendered you do geometry once on CPU then stick it to the GPU to do the rendering twice to do the stereoscopic view.

But I'm far out of game tech these days... 3D cache makes sense for ECS systems handling but not really for GPU shader shit (which I'm bad at).

That said, top of the line VR is hard on all subsystems for sure. But before we get benchmarks we don't know.

 

I treat computer parts like cars .. never buy the new model . You can buy new but atleast needs to driven off the lot a few times

 

Before I replaced my 3900XT with a complete new platform (AM5) and looking for a board that would allow me to feed it with 192GB of ram running at it's intended value 3799Mhz that is, was troublesome enough. Please read forums in regard to bios firmware that presumably fix or break support. I managed to get my rig working, both as a Windows DAW and as Hackintosh. In regard to your 3D question, when I browsed through all the info, not a single article spoke of any pro's for getting the 3D AMD processors because it's simply not intended to speed up any audio driven feature. Maybe things changed but tbh I don't think so.

You even can dispute if a 12-core/24 thread CPU is needed. What are your intentions? Are you using CPU intense projects that need alot of power/threads? If your projects consist of moderate tracks the best thing you can do is choose the processor with the highest single core speed. When you choose to use plugins that performs better due to GPU power then maybe it's best to invest in a good graphics card. nVidia cards work best if you want to extract stems from flac/wav/etc sources. If you want have yourself a Hackintosh (for as long as it's possible that is) then focus on Vega till 6600/6650(XT), 6800/6850(XT) and 6900/6950(XT) AMD series cards. 6700/6750 and the 7XXX are a different platform and unsupported, nVidia is supported but these card aren't sold any more for a very long time. Oh, not every brand of AMD cards is compatible so be careful. This is also the case for NVME drives, I believe the Samsung 970 series are incompatible, I use WD SN850X drives for my OSX drive and for larger sample files, UVI, Kontakt, etc..

The folowing sources are normally your first stop, it can even give answers to anything related to AMD processor or platform questions, even if the forum is intended to get MacOSX running:

https://forum.amd-osx.com/
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/

I know I gave a bit too much Hackintosh info but eventually I got lots of my answers on these pages. There are lots of people there with great technical knowledge, knowing the architecture and its caveats. Hope you can find your answers, happy hunting

 

Last edited: Jan 6, 2025 at 12:59 AM

Were I really to want it, I'd buy something appropriate long since. Thus I'd have a good processor by now. And what would I have to contemplate then? 10-20-30% of performance rise? Jesus man, that's so stupid...

I contemplate the setup that I planned, and many other things I cannot afford right now. But being so much engaed in "the current thing" is contraindicated to me - it's simply harmful. It's like an addiction, similar to plugin-trying dissease.

 

Not yet, but the default Windows Core Parking management for the 7950X3D/7900X3D/9900X3D/9950X3D sucks!
https://hwbusters.com/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-7950x3d-core-parking-problem-solution/3/
Much, much better to use with Process Lasso https://bitsum.com/ and be free from
Windows complications and limitations.

 

I've been doing some research for you and found rather than you keep upgrading processors to something you CLEARLY are not happy with, why not go out and buy something that will serve you a great many years.. the AMD Threadripper 7970X

 

Wouldn't do it. You get a 10% performance boost in a very theoretical, best circumstances outcome.
Would be a waste of money. Wait until your upgrade brings at last 25%. Even that is not as much as it sounds.

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-amd_ryzen_9_7950x-vs-amd_ryzen_9_9950x3d

Disclaimer: These are unverified benchmarks because it's only press samples. There is a good chance you won't even get that 10%

 

Last edited: Jan 6, 2025 at 2:10 AM

that got resolved like two weeks later iirc

 

Perfect for 4K gaming but i'm sure it would be fun with Blender or 4K video editing too. A suitable GPU would be RTX4080 and upwards, forget any existing Radeon cards, they will bottleneck.
9950X3D works great for DAW use too, aside from it being obvious, total, complete and utter overkill for that purpose :p

 

i always push the chipset voltage just a bit more than stock and in all of the cases it fixed the issue, i started doing that on all computers i own...

 

My GPU is an RTX 4080 Super 16GB and OpenXR'd advanced stats overlay says I have around 20-30% headroom but am CPU bound.

The 3D cache CPUs are killing the non-3D in VR gaming, with cache allowing for better Hz/FPS and pushing thing further before being CPU bound, where even things like the 7800X3D appears to out performs a 9950X in VR gaming, for example.