The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900X Review: Flagship Zen 5 Soars - and Stalls

Power Consumption

Our previous sets of ‘office’ benchmarks have often been a mix of science and synthetics, so this time, we wanted to keep our office and productivity section purely based on real-world performance. We've also incorporated our power testing into this section.

The biggest update to our Office-focused tests for 2024 and beyond includes UL's Procyon software, the successor to PCMark. Procyon benchmarks office performance using Microsoft Office applications, with other web-based benchmarks such as Jetstream and timed runs of compilers, including Linux, PHP, and Node.js.

Below are the settings we have used for each platform:

• DDR5-5600B CL46 - Ryzen 9000
• DDR5-5600B CL46 - Intel 14th & 13th Gen
• DDR5-5200 CL44 - Ryzen 7000

Power

The nature of reporting processor power consumption has become, in part, a bit of a nightmare. Historically the peak power consumption of a processor, as purchased, is given by its Thermal Design Power (TDP, or PL1). For many markets, such as embedded processors, that value of TDP still signifies the peak power consumption. For the processors we test at AnandTech, either desktop, notebook, or enterprise, this is not always the case.

Modern high-performance processors implement a feature called Turbo. This allows, usually for a limited time, a processor to go beyond its rated frequency. Exactly how far the processor goes depends on a few factors, such as the Turbo Power Limit (PL2), whether the peak frequency is hard coded, the thermals, and the power delivery. Turbo can sometimes be very aggressive for TDP that are, broadly speaking, applied the same. The difference comes from turbo modes, turbo limits, turbo budgets, and how the processors manage that power balance. These topics are 10000-12000 word articles in their own right, and we’ve got a few articles worth reading on the topic.

• Why Intel Processors Draw More Power Than Expected: TDP and Turbo Explained
• Talking TDP, Turbo and Overclocking: An Interview with Intel Fellow Guy Therien
• Reaching for Turbo: Aligning Perception with AMD’s Frequency Metrics
• Intel’s TDP Shenanigans Hurts Everyone

Looking at the peak power of both the Ryzen 9 9950X and the Ryzen 9 9900X, we can see that they both overshoot their TDP because AMD has another power target called Package Power Tracking (PPT). Interestingly, the Ryzen 9 9950X pulls less power at peak than the Intel Core i5-14600K, even when the Intel chip is set to Intel's recommended specification. Both the Ryzen 9 chips stack up exactly where we would expect to see them, with around 30 W more at peak due to PPT on the 9950X, and it still pulls less power at peak than the Ryzen 9 7950X that it replaces.

Looking at the difference in power between the Ryzen 9 9950X and the previous Ryzen 9 7950X it replaces, we can clearly see that the Zen 5 16C/32T chip is more efficient power efficient at full load. The Ryzen 9 9950X within the Cinebench 2024 multi-threaded benchmark is consistently pulling around 200 W, which, although 30 W higher than its rated TDP, is still well within the 30% uptick that PPT allows it to hit. Despite both Ryzen 9 chips having the same 170 W TDP., AMD's Package Power Tracking and the 7950X pull more power at full load and for less performance overall, as can be highlighted in the rendering results section of our testing.