After a month with Ryzen 9 3950X I do not want to go back to Intel. I visited the land of AMD again and I am delighted

I don't remember that there were so many positive opinions about AMD's activities since the time of the first Ryzen. There were voices from all over the world that the new Ryzen chips are destroying Intel's proposals, and Radeons are going head-to-head with GeForce. I decided to check the truth.

Last year I had the pleasure to test a computer equipped with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor and Radeon RX 5700 graphics . For a computer that can be assembled by only 4,000 PLN, it turned out to be more than enough in everyday work, not to mention entertainment.

However, I wanted more. And I got more. Over the last month on my desk stood a computer provided by Actina (for which I thank you!), Equipped with Ryzen 9 3950X, Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Sapphire Nitro +, 32 GB RAM, 500 GB SSD, all closed in the huge but almost silent BeQuiet enclosure! Silent Base 801.

The price of such a set straight from Actina is 10749 PLN. Of course, I tried to configure such a set myself with almost identical components. Naturally, the store price of such a configuration will be slightly lower:

The difference, however, is not extremely high, especially since we are talking about equipment dedicated to work rather than home entertainment. A surcharge of PLN 1,500 for professional installation, computer stress tests and a warranty covering the entire structure is not an excessive amount for a professional.

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X and Radeon RX 5700 XT at work

As a reminder: we are talking about a 16-core processor, costing about PLN 3700. It would seem that this is a huge amount, but ... when we look at a direct comparison with Intel's competing systems, it is clear that AMD offers higher performance not only from the Intel Core i9-9960X costing the same, but also from the much costing Intel Core i9-10980XE.

At Spider's Web, we do not deal with benchmarks, so I can refer the hungry numerical comparisons to synthetic test specialists, e.g. to the following video:

Out of curiosity, I compared the performance of Ryzen 9 3950X to two other machines that I have at home: a PC with Intel Core i7-8700K and MacBook Pro 16 with Intel Core i9-9880H.

The results of the synthetic tests in the Geekbench 5 benchmark were so overwhelming for my private machines that it wasn't even funny.

However, we all know that benchmarks are one thing and practice is another. Usually such a saying heralds a small catastrophe, but ... this time the practice surpassed my wildest expectations, let alone the results of benchmarks.

Ryzen 9 3950X is a monster. During monthly tests, consisting mainly of regular 4K video processing and many hours of work with 100+ MB RAW files and TIFF files weighing several GB, I was not able to reach the end of this processor's performance.

I could at the same time:

• start rendering a 30-minute 4K video (which took 12 minutes in DaVinci Resolve),
• export over 100 RAW files from 42-megapixel Sony A7rIII in Adobe Lightroom,
• retouch a photo in Adobe Photoshop.

I can say directly that for the photographer Ryzen 9 3950X is a real miracle of nature. Adobe Lightroom is surprisingly good at using its processor's potential. A typical export of 20-30 JPEG files to an article on Spider's Web, which takes about 2-3 minutes on my private computer, it took several seconds here.

The same was true for video processing, although here a lot depends on the program used. Adobe Premiere is Adobe Premiere - I suspect that even on a 32-core Threadripper NLE from Adobe will work on average, tugging and spilling at every step.

Why DaVinci Resolve? Another miracle of nature. Ryzen 9 3950X in tandem with the Radeon RX 5700 XT allowed me to work perfectly smoothly when preparing movies for Spider's Web TV.

I didn't have to limit anything, use a proxy or pre-render effects. With a project consisting of three video tracks, with full color, transition effects and imposed graphics, playback never fell below the nominal 25 FPS recordings, ergo: it offered full fluidity.

Speaking of Radeon RX 5700 XT, I have great news for everyone who has avoided AMD cards so far because of problems with the Adobe package.

Back in October last year, an attempt to use Lightroom / Photoshop / Premiere Pro ended with numerous error messages and problems resulting from incompatible drivers. Now you can see that something has changed.

For a month of testing and several iterations of AMD drivers, I haven't seen a single problem with the Adobe package (not counting typical Premiere Pro crashes).

Lightroom and Photoshop easily use GPU acceleration, and looking at the resource monitor while working, both programs actually use the graphics card's computing power, e.g. when using content aware fill.

Throughout the month, the only problem I encountered on the AMD GPU side affected me in Google Chrome. After updating the software, the browser looked like this:

Reinstalling the old version of the drivers, restarts or reinstalling the browser did not help. Chrome tango down (which was interesting because based on Chromium Edge and Opera worked flawlessly).

I was about to throw thunder at AMD, but it took a week for the company to release the appropriate patch and the situation returned to normal.

When finishing the section on working with AMD components, I must also commend Actina's decision to enclose them in a BeQuiet enclosure! Silent Base 801. Although it is not the most expensive and best soundproofed casing of this manufacturer, even under the greatest load the machine remained almost silent.

Only when using the graphics card at work and in games could you hear the Sapphire windmills. In addition, most of the time at my workplace there was blissful silence, although the computer is on the desk, just 40 cm from my ears.

Of course, silence is a compromise of size. BeQuiet housing! Silent Base 801 seems to be in the Middle Tower category, but just look how huge it is in comparison with my private Phantex P400S (also Middle Tower):

AMD Ryzen 9 3950X and Radeon RX 5700 XT in games

Man does not live by work alone, and while Ryzen's advantage in professional applications is obvious, so about gaming I had slightly more desperate expectations.

As it turned out: absolutely wrong.

When it comes to gaming, there is no need to invest in Ryzen 9 3950X. Not only does it not give any increase in performance compared to the previously mentioned Intel Core i9 systems, but also loses even with the much cheaper Intel Core i7-9700K. In fact, the game achieves results so close to the much cheaper Ryzen 5 3600 that for strictly gaming purposes it is not necessarily worth investing in it. What else, if games are to be just an addition to work - then Ryzen 9 3950X provides absolutely amazing quality in productive applications, and completely sufficient in entertainment applications.

The graphics turned out to be a great surprise - again, because I was equally surprised by the Radeon RX 5700.

Here again I will refer to a comparison made by a man who professionally deals with numbers and synthetic tests:

Radeon RX 5700 XT goes head to head, and in some productions it even wins with the similarly priced GeForce RTX 2060 Super. Nay. according to Computer Base website measurements, the Radeon RX 5700 XT is almost head to head with the GeForce RTX 2070 Super costing much more in the new The Division 2 or Call of Duty: Warzone:

It also has the advantage of FreeSync technology, which can be found in much cheaper monitors than the competitive G-Sync from Nvidia. Dynamic adaptation of the refresh rate to the number of FPS in the game is a great way to get smoother gameplay on less powerful equipment and in AMD cards, this technology is available at a much lower price shelf.

Personally, over the past month I have not found any reason to complain about the strongest consumer Radeon. I spent several dozen hours in total in productions such as Forza Horizon 4, Control and The Witcher 3, and each of them allowed me to play smoothly in 1440p resolution.

In the case of Forzy and Control, I obtained results above 60 FPS on high graphic settings. In the case of Wedźmin 3, however, it was necessary to either lower the resolution or lower the graphics settings to achieve the desired fluidity.

Of course, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT has one drawback compared to the competitive RTX 2060 Super - no support for Ray Tracing. I know those who think that this technology does not change much and it is not worth bothering with it, but personally I appreciate the additional visual layer that allows RTVs from Nvidia.

So everything is a matter of needs and what titles we play the most. However, it is impossible to underestimate the pace of AMD's development and how great value their graphics systems offer at the same price as comparable Nvidia systems. Just a few years ago, the distribution between the offer of both companies was huge. Today, AMD is panting in Nvidia's neck and not only catching up on the medium shelf, but also challenges more expensive systems.

After a month of working with Ryzen 9 3950X, I don't want to go back to Intel.

My two-year PC works on a nice, but insufficiently Intel Core i7-8700K. I admit, I planned to do a small upgrade this year and using the same chipset on the motherboard to put some Core i9 variation there, probably 9900K.

After testing the Ryzen 9 3950X machine, I can see that investing in an Intel processor would now be a bad investment. Yes, I realize that Ryzen 9 is more expensive than the mentioned Core i9, but also offers so much higher performance that only a fool would not pay extra. The increase in efficiency in the programs I use every day and the resulting improvement in work efficiency is worth the extra money.

If I were to answer the question at the moment, who is such a machine for, I would say simply: for those who are looking for a machine primarily for work, and then for games.

I (unfortunately) play relatively little myself, usually on weekends or evenings. I spend most of my time in front of the computer at work. And it is in this application that the Ryzen 9 3950X in tandem with the Radeon RX 5700 XT turns out to be the perfect combination, because it offers amazing performance during photo and video processing, while maintaining decent gaming capabilities.

Such a tandem is worth the 10,000. zł.

For players, however, such a combination would be - at least in my opinion - an unnecessary expense. Similar or better results in games can be achieved by choosing a much cheaper processor, such as Ryzen 5 3600. Then there is a lot of cash left for a better GPU chip, though ... Radeon RX 5700 XT for a graphics card costing PLN 2,000 really surprises.

Personally, I am enchanted and after this test I am no wonder why PC hardware specialists sing hymns in honor of AMD. Intel really has a lot to catch up on here.

* Thank you Actina for providing the computer for testing

After a month with Ryzen 9 3950X I do not want to go back to Intel. I visited the land of AMD again and I am delighted