AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D review: the new fastest gaming CPU

Counter-Strike: GO, Metro Exodus EE and Black Ops Cold War.

Review by Will Judd Deputy Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on Feb. 27, 2023

We've run our benchmarks at the standard three resolutions: 1080p, 1440p and 4K, but we're focusing the bulk of our attention on those 1080p results, as this is where differences between different CPUs are most visible. (There's an argument for testing at 720p to make these deltas even more visible, but even mainstream PC gaming has long since moved onto 1080p.) We're using an Asus RTX 3090 Strix OC graphics card for these results.

This page is all about the fps you get in FPS games. Our trio of games in this section includes Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. The latter two are RT-enabled benchmarks, as we examine performance in their single-player campaigns.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Counter-Strike remains the gold standard for competitive FPS, and is unique amongst our benchmark suite as it is a DirectX 9 title that can be played on even modest hardware at hundreds of frames per second. Regardless, serious players value a high and stable frame-rate, and going for a modern CPU like the ones we've tested can result in a much better experience when playing on a suitably high-refresh rate gaming monitor.

As we mentioned before, AMD Ryzen CPUs have done well here for the fast few generations, although the 13900K recently claimed the top spot. The 7950X3D isn't able to snag it back, as we're more limited by frequency than cache here - although the 7950X3D is still marginally faster than the 7950X. Of course, all Ryzen 7000 CPUs (and the 13900K) are hitting 230fps or higher in terms of the worst one percent scores, guaranteeing a smooth experience even on esports-grade 240Hz monitors.

CS:GO: DX9, Very High, AF off

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is an RT-only variant of the vanilla game, run here with DLSS engaged to uncouple the GPU and push the strain onto the CPU as much as possible. The test scene we're using comes from the very beginning of The Volga level, with Artyom and Anna discussing their hopes for the future before running into a hostile camp.

The 7950X3D stumbles unexpectedly here, with results a few percentage points behind the 7950X. Regardless though, any Ryzen 7000 CPU delivers an excellent experience, with similar worst one percent frame-rates and about 20 percent higher average frame-rates than Intel's latest models.

Metro Exodus EE: DX12, Ultra, RTX, DLSS Performance

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War comes next. Here, the focus is less on competitive performance and more on the single-player side of things, as we enable ray tracing and hop into one of the first campaign missions, Fracture Jaw. Interestingly, this mission has RT disabled on consoles, even when the option is enabled elsewhere in the game, suggesting that the BVH building process here is particularly tough. The opening scene, as Bell joins Adler on the fields of Vietnam, is heavy on the CPU at the relatively low graphical settings we've chosen.

Black Ops Cold War demonstrates some of the closest margins we've seen yet, with the 7950X3D more or less identical to the 7950X. It still ekes out a five percent lead over the 13900K, for what it's worth.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War: DX12, Low, TAA

We conclude our new standard gaming tests on the next page, where we take on Cyberpunk 2077 and two new editions of Digital Foundry favourites: Far Cry 6 and Crysis 3 Remastered.