Overclocking

Increasing the voltage to 1.3825V, we overclock by going as high as we can on the all-core multiplier, increasing it in 25MHz increments every time the machine runs our Blender test without failure. To this end, we achieved 4.55GHz for the Ryzen 9 5950X and 4.7GHz for the Ryzen 7 5800X. Here is how that plays out on the intensive Blender test.

Performance Analysis and Conclusion

The sample Ryzen 9 5950X operates at an all-core 3.85GHz and boosts to 4.9GHz in many light-load environments. The benefits are particularly evident in gaming as it leads the charts more often than not. Multi-core rendering numbers are unsurprisingly range-topping. Our Ryzen 7 5800X runs at an all-core 4.6GHz to fully differentiate itself from older models, and its multi-core prowess is such that it gets pretty close to the 10-core Intel Core i9-10900K in the relevant tests while matching it for gaming. That's no mean feat.

AMD therefore comes out swinging with the Zen 3-based Ryzen 5000 Series CPUs. Building on the significant momentum of the previous generation, these new processors keep the same core-and-thread count but increase overall computational ability thanks to a heady combination of an average 19 percent IPC uplift and smarter arrangement of L3 cache.

Two things happen as a result. General performance and rendering speed goes up a notch or two, which was already at least as good as rival Intel, and gaming framerate jumps from solid to excellent.

It used to be the case that desktop Ryzen, for all its innate abilities, fell short of outright recommendation due to relatively lacklustre gaming performance at lower resolutions. Intel, frankly, was just better, and by 20 percent in certain cases.

AMD has fully remedied just that issue with Ryzen 5000 Series. This family of chips has no obvious weaknesses that Intel Core can prey on, and it's very easy to recommend the latest Ryzen processors as a great base on which to build a performance PC upon.

Quite simply, the latest Ryzens make a commanding and compelling case as the CPUs of choice for anyone coming from older mainstream platforms.