AMD RYZEN 9 3900XT XT
Is Team Red’s third--gen refresh worth it?
THE AMD RYZEN 9 3900X was released exactly a year ago today, and we loved it. Loads of cores and decent gaming performance made it one of our favorite processors. On paper, this brand new Ryzen 9 3900XT takes that impressive chip and squeezes just a little more power out of it. The base clocks are unchanged at 3.8GHz, but the boost goes from 4.6GHz to 4.7GHz. Yup, a whole 100MHz.
You may be wondering how AMD has managed to squeeze an extra 100MHz out of this chip, even if it is only at boost, and apparently it’s down to a better understanding of the 7nm production process. There are no other changes, though. The core and thread counts are the same, the cache levels are unchanged, and there are no tweaks to the underlying architecture.
What is different, compared to the existing 3900X, is that you don’t get the Wraith Prism cooler with the 3900XT. So essentially you gain 100MHz to the boost clock and lose a cooler for the trouble. While there is certainly an argument for the 3900XT being at the limit of what the Wraith Prism can handle, and that plenty of builders will want to go down the AIO route for such a high-end chip, having the option of doing so is very different to being forced to.
The Ryzen 9 3900XT, like the 3900X before it, is a beast of a mainstream processor. 12 cores and 24 threads gives you lots of raw power if you’re a content creator that needs to produce videos and/ or dabble in some 3D rendering. The only problem here is the 3900X, which really isn’t that far behind. You’re looking at a four percent difference in video encoding, and three percent in the multi-core result from Cinebench R20. So, not a lot.
For testing we used a Corsair iCue H115i RGB Pro XT all-in-one cooler to keep the chip chilled, and the 3900XT did manage to hit its rated boost speed, topping out at 4.725GHz, with the overall CPU temperature topping out at 79°C. It tends to hit its maximum frequency only very briefly though, and for more threadconscious loads the chip operates at around 4.2GHz.
The good news with the Zen 2 architecture is that it’s a competitive chip in the gaming arena as well. It’s true that Intel still has the overall lead, but the delta is slight, especially when working with higher resolutions.
The other factor that works against the 3900XT, and against all of these new chips, is that though there has been no official price drop from AMD for the 3900X, 3800X, and 3600X, they can generally be picked up for less if you scout around a bit. In the case of the 3900XT, this is more keenly felt. The chip it is aiming to replace can be picked up for $419, and that comes with the Wraith Prism cooler.
Which all adds up to make the 3900XT the least exciting of AMD’s new XT chips. It isn’t a bad processor—far from it— but this latest spin is not particularly interesting either. It arguably represents a drop in value compared to the chip it is replacing due to the lack of cooler, and brings very little extra performance to the table. If you’ve already got your mind set on serious cooling, and you need this many cores, then it’s a consideration, but given the drop in price of the 3900X, we don’t see this as an extra $80 well spent for essentially the same performance.
Then there’s the spectre of Zen 3 that is set for release before the end of the year. With only a few months to go until that drops, is this really a good time to pick up a high-end Zen 2 chip?
VERDICT 8 AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT
PINNACLE Strong overall performance; solid architecture.
INCREMENTAL No bundled cooler; poor value proposition.
$ 499 www.amd.com