AMD Ryzen 9 5900X CPU Review Roundup

The 5900X from AMD has finally been announced, and reviews are finally surfacing for the hotly anticipated CPU, and with them, people are finally seeing how these CPUs fare against the major competition found within Intel chips. 

These are only the latest major pieces of PC technology to launch as well. So far in the last few months, we have seen the release of the Nvidia 3000 series graphics cards, and soon enough we are going to have the 6000 GPUs from AMD to enjoy as well – that’s not to mention that the new consoles releasing this month!

Anyway, here you can find out all of the latest impressions of the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, how it’s fared in reviews, and how benchmarkers across the web have found the chip to use!

Before we look at other people’s reviews, let’s give you a quick rundown of what the Ryzen 9 5900X is like, and what you can expect from the newest CPU from the AMD camp.

The main thing to take away here is that if you are looking for the best CPU for gaming on the market today, that means you are going to be looking for the Ryzen 9 5900X. Finally, Intel has produced a chip that beats out Intel, with the closest offering from team blue (the i9-10900K) falling far short of AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X in nearly any benchmark that can be performed.

So, single-threaded performance is good in this chip – but how good is it? Well, in POV-Ray tests, there was a 34 point lead in how many paths per second the 5900X could handle in comparison to the 10900K, as well as a Cinebench score that indicated an over 100 point lead in how the 5900X handles single-threaded performance in comparison to the AMD Ryzen 9 3800X – AMD’s Zen 2 CPU that acts as the counterpart to the Zen 3 5900X.

So, single-threaded performance is much higher – and so is multi-threaded capability. In that same Cinebench test, the Ryzen 9 5900X showcases an ability to give over 1000 points of performance over the last generation 3900X. it’s not just themselves that AMD are outstripping when it comes to multi-threaded performance either. In the same POV-Ray tests as before, multi-threaded performance indicated that the 5900X was capable of producing nearly 2000 extra paths-per-second in comparison to the 10900K by Intel, and that’s seriously impressive.

Obviously, all of this demands real-world application, and outside of telling you that this CPU is going to be the best on the market for things like video editing, programming, music recording, and all the other applications that often require a multi-threaded workload found in AMD Ryzen CPU’s – except for maybe the 5950X. But if you are only interested in gaming performance, then this is the CPU for you.

In games like Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, Microsoft Flight Simulator, GTA V, and CS:GO, the Ryzen 5900X was entirely capable of reaching a higher FPS count than its Intel i9 10900K counterpart – up to 142 frames more in some circumstances, which means one thing: Intel has finally been knocked off of its throne when it comes to the title of ‘The Best CPU For Gaming.’

Of course, some will claim that the price of this chip is high – and the 5900X does come to shelves with a price tag $50 higher than its Zen 2 counterpart. However, with the performance that this CPU is capable of producing, that should be no worry to those who want the very best from their PCs.

Video Reviews:

Linus Tech Tips – Positive
Gamers Nexus – Positive 
JayzTwoCents – Positive 
Hardware Unboxed – Positive 
Hardware Canucks – Positive

Written Reviews: 

Kitguru – Positive 
‘Given the productivity and gaming performance on offer from the £510 Ryzen 9 5900X, the Core i9-10900K becomes even more irrelevant at its higher price point. And even the competitive Core i9-10850K will struggle to show its worth versus the new Zen 3 chip thanks to AMD’s improved gaming performance and excellent all-round productivity capacity.’
Luke Hill – Kitguru

Techspot – Positive
‘For now Intel looks to be out of the game at the high-end, and we suspect things are only going to get worse for the blue team as we work down the Zen 3 product stack. The Ryzen 9 5900X is a mighty good CPU and for the 10900K to be considered an option, in our opinion it’d need to be priced at no more than $500’
Steven Walton – Techspot

Eurogamer – Positive 
‘From our perspective Ryzen 5000 has already done enough. AMD has effectively eliminated the largest single advantage enjoyed by its closest competitor, and that’s an achievement well worth celebrating.’
Will Judd – Eurogamer

AnandTech – Positive
‘We’re really impressed with what AMD has achieved here. After the disillusionment of years of weaker generation-on-generation performance uplifts from the competition, AMD set a goal to beat the average ~7% IPC year-on-year gain. With +19% IPC on Zen3, Intel has no equal right now – not even Tiger Lake at 4.8 GHz – and has lost that single-threaded crown.’
Dr. Ian Cutress & Andrei Frumusanu – AnandTech

Hexus – Positive 
‘The Ryzen 9 5900X naturally brings the same goodness to the table. Excelling in gaming thanks to Zen 3, it’s much faster than rival Intel’s premier 10-core processor for rendering tasks. Pricing is more key for this second-rung chip as it will go into a wider range of enthusiast systems, and £510 seems a fair outlay for a rudely capable processor.’
Tarinder Sandhu – Hexus 

Hot Hardware – Positive
‘Whether for gaming, content creation, productivity tasks, or just tooling around on-line, with both single and multi-threaded workloads, the Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 series processors rock…The Zen 3-based AMD Ryzen 5000 series is a big winner with us, and easily earns an Editor’s Choice Award.’
Marco Chiapetta  – Hot Hardware

Guru3D – Positive
‘Never has single-threaded performance been this fast, never has multi-threaded performance been this fast, never (for AMD) has gaming performance been this fast.’
Hilbert Hagedoorn – Guru3D

PCWorld – Positive 
‘It’s the best CPU for heavy multi-core loads. It’s the best CPU for single-core loads. It’s the best CPU for gaming. Add to it support for PCIe 4.0, compatibility with many existing AM4 motherboards, and actually reasonable prices, and you get what is undoubtedly the best CPU we’ve ever seen.’
Gordon Mah Ung – PCWorld

Tech Critter – Mostly Positive
The Ryzen 5000 series is definitely the best upgrade you can get for now if you’re currently using the first-gen Ryzen and 2nd-gen Ryzen processors, but make sure you’re using it on a 500 series chipset motherboard to take full advantage of what the Ryzen 5000 series has to offer.’
Low – Tech Critter

Overclock3d – Positive 
‘Are you okay, AMD? Because we honestly thought you’d squeezed all the juice there was to squeeze from your Ryzen cores on 7nm? For many workloads, the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 9 3950X are both absolute triumphs of their craft; and yet, here we are again, with another new set of CPUs that once again move the goalposts. It’s okay to take a breather now and again.’.
Tom Logan – Overclock 3d

TechPowerUp – Positive
‘looking at what Intel is offering right now, and at which pricing, the Ryzen 9 5900X is the definitely the best choice if you run a mix of games and applications.’
W1zzard – TechPowerUp

Tom’s Hardware – Positive
‘Zen 3’s gaming performance is nothing short of spectacular…AMD could reside at the top of the desktop PC game for at least a year, if not longer’
Paul Alcorn – Tom’s Hardware