According to rumours, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Core i9-13900K have already engaged in a single-core and multi-core task duel. The Ryzen 9 7950X, however, behind the Intel Core i9-13900K in latest Cinbench R23 results for multi-threaded activities. Now, a couple of Tweets from trustworthy leaker Greymon55 seek to allay Ryzen 9 7950X’s performance and heat issues.
OneRaichu discovered that the Ryzen 9 7950X experienced thermal throttling on the first Cinebench R23 run. The CPU was only able to attain a score of 37,452 points with a 360 mm AIO water block since the chip may reach 95°C. Serial leaker Greymon55 rejects these findings and blames the BIOS for the Ryzen 9 7950X’s subpar multi-core performance in comparison to the Core i9-13900K and high temperatures.
According to Greymon55, the Ryzen 9 7950X can complete Cinebench tests with more than 38,100 points without the need of 360 mm AIO water cooling. In a subsequent tweet, the leaker says the CPU can get 38,300+ points with a 240 mm AIO. Greymon55 believes that the Zen 4 flagship will “very simply” achieve more than 40,000 points in Cinebench once the BIOS and voltage are improved.
According to these figures from Greymon55, the Ryzen 9 7950X would outperform the Core i9-13900K in Cinebench when the latter is limited to 250 W of power.
The leaker said “Yes, at least high-end air cooler” when asked if the CPU functions well with a premium air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15.
In conclusion, the Ryzen 9 7950X does seem to generate a lot of heat, but it appears to be manageable, and you may be able to prevent thermal throttling by using either a 240 mm AIO or a premium air cooler. A 360 mm AIO will probably be needed to maintain the temperatures below the thermal threshold for more demanding applications when you need to push the CPU to its maximum or perhaps overclock it.
Finally, until genuine retail hardware is available, nothing concerning the Ryzen 9 7950X’s performance and heat output can be claimed with certainty. So, proceed with a little care while reading the Cinebench results and temperature output provided here.