2025-03-17

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Linux Performance

Last week AMD began shipping the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D Zen 5 3D V-Cache desktop processors. We delivered Ryzen 9 9950X3D benchmarks and review for launch day but AMD sadly didn’t seed any review samples of the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D processor. Being curious about its performance for Linux developers, enthusiasts, and technical computing workloads, I bought the $600 USD processor on launch day for delivering some Linux benchmarks. Here is a look at the Ryzen 9 9900X3D against the rest of the Ryzen 9000 series stack, the prior Ryzen 7000 series parts, and the Intel Core Ultra Arrow Lake competition under Ubuntu.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D is a 12-core / 24-thread part with a total cache size of 140MB, down slightly from the 16-core 144MB Ryzen 9 9950X3D model. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D also has a max boost frequency of 5.5GHz compared to 5.7GHz with the 9950X3D. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D does have a 120 Watt TDP for those looking at a lower power alternative to the 9950X3D with its 170 Watt rating.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D is priced at $599 USD compared to the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D at $699 USD. At just $100 more for four more Zen 5 cores makes the Ryzen 9 9900X3D pricing a bit tough, especially with the Ryzen 9 9900X (non-X3D) being listed as little as $409 USD as of writing. Though for those desperate for a new Zen 5 3D V-Cache desktop processor, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D availability does seem better than the 9950X3D with more consumers presumably going for that flagship model. I had no troubles ordering the Ryzen 9 9900X3D retail on launch day. Though several days later at a number of Internet retailers the 9900X3D is listed as out-of-stock but still with an MSRP list price.

Like the other Ryzen 9000 series processors, the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D was working out fine across tests on various modern Linux distributions. If you are running any sufficiently new Linux distribution you should be in good shape for support. If running the Linux 6.13 kernel or newer is also the added benefit of the 3D V-Cache Optimizer driver being merged.

For this launch testing of the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, it was tested alongside other recent AMD and Intel CPUs including:

- Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- Ryzen 7 9700X
- Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- Ryzen 9 7900
- Ryzen 9 7900X
- Ryzen 9 7900X3D
- Ryzen 9 7950X
- Ryzen 9 7950X3D
- Ryzen 9 9900X
- Ryzen 9 9950X
- Ryzen 9 9900X3D
- Ryzen 9 9950X3D
- Core Ultra 5 245K
- Core Ultra 9 285K

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Linux Benchmarks

All of the tests were recently (re)carried out using Ubuntu 24.10 with the Linux 6.13.2 kernel. Let’s see how the Ryzen 9 9900X3D is performing under Linux.

Timed Linux Kernel Compilation benchmark with settings of Build: allmodconfig. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

Like the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, the 9900X3D was slightly faster than its X (non-X3D) variant for code compilation workloads while consuming similar CPU power to that 9900X.

Timed LLVM Compilation benchmark with settings of Build System: Ninja. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

Timed Node.js Compilation benchmark with settings of Time To Compile. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

Timed Godot Game Engine Compilation benchmark with settings of Time To Compile. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

For those frequently compiling code or looking to assemble a low-cost CI/CD box using a desktop Ryzen processor, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D did compile faster than the Ryzen 9 9900X. But you can find the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X for around $545 USD compared to the Ryzen 9 9900X3D at $599. So unless if wanting the 9900X3D for its lower TDP, it would make more sense going for a 9950X for multi-threaded code compilation workloads.

OpenFOAM benchmark with settings of Input: drivaerFastback, Small Mesh Size, Execution Time. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D does perform very well in some technical computing workloads like OpenFOAM CFD where the 9900X3D was faster than the Ryzen 9 9950X (non-X3D). Here at least the Ryzen 9 9900X3D can make sense as a purchase with better performance and lower TDP than the 9950X if not wanting to spend an additional $100 going for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D model.

GPAW benchmark with settings of Input: Carbon Nanotube. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

With the GPAW density functional theory workload was another instance of where the 9900X3D could outpace a non-X3D Ryzen 9 9950X.

Xcompact3d Incompact3d benchmark with settings of Input: input.i3d 129 Cells Per Direction. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

Or Incompact3D is another workload loving AMD 3D V-Cache.

OpenRadioss benchmark with settings of Model: INIVOL and Fluid Structure Interaction Drop Container. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

In other technical computing workloads the 9900X3D can deliver some nice uplift over the 9900X, but again if you are relying heavily on these workloads you would be best off going for the Ryzen 9 9950X/9950X3D processors unless you are just a hobbyist on a tight budget.

GROMACS benchmark with settings of Implementation: MPI CPU, Input: water_GMX50_bare. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

ACES DGEMM benchmark with settings of Sustained Floating-Point Rate. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

ASKAP benchmark with settings of Test: tConvolve OpenMP, Gridding. Ryzen 7 9800X3D was the fastest.

ASKAP benchmark with settings of Test: tConvolve OpenMP, Degridding. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

nginx benchmark with settings of Connections: 1000. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

Apache Cassandra benchmark with settings of Test: Writes. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

ClickHouse benchmark with settings of 100M Rows Hits Dataset, First Run / Cold Cache. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

ClickHouse benchmark with settings of 100M Rows Hits Dataset, Third Run. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

SVT-AV1 benchmark with settings of Encoder Mode: Preset 8, Input: Bosphorus 4K. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D is in a bit of an odd position… It does provide nice uplift over the Ryzen 9 9900X in a number of workloads, but it’s also much more expensive than the 9900X. At $599 USD it’s just $100 less than the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D. In some workloads the Ryzen 9 9900X3D does outperform the Ryzen 9 9950X where the 3D V-Cache is really beneficial, but the rest of the time you’re better off going for the Ryzen 9 9950X in costing $545~550 USD.

TensorFlow benchmark with settings of Device: CPU, Batch Size: 64, Model: ResNet-50. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Person Detection FP16, Device: CPU. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Person Detection FP16, Device: CPU. Ryzen 7 9800X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Weld Porosity Detection FP16-INT8, Device: CPU. Ryzen 9 9950X was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Weld Porosity Detection FP16-INT8, Device: CPU. Ryzen 7 9800X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Machine Translation EN To DE FP16, Device: CPU. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Machine Translation EN To DE FP16, Device: CPU. Ryzen 7 9800X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Road Segmentation ADAS FP16-INT8, Device: CPU. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Road Segmentation ADAS FP16-INT8, Device: CPU. Ryzen 7 9800X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Noise Suppression Poconet-Like FP16, Device: CPU. Ryzen 9 9900X3D was the fastest.

OpenVINO benchmark with settings of Model: Noise Suppression Poconet-Like FP16, Device: CPU. Ryzen 7 9800X3D was the fastest.

AMD Zen 5 with 3D V-Cache does perform very well for OpenVINO… The 120 Watt TDP could make the Ryzen 9 9900X3D an interesting choice for some edge inference type deployments along with achieving lower latency.

Those wanting to go through around 400 benchmarks for all these processors can see this result file for all of my raw data in full.

Geometric Mean Of All Test Results benchmark with settings of Result Composite, AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Linux Benchmarks. Ryzen 9 9950X3D was the fastest.

On a geo mean basis for this wide span of hundreds of benchmarks, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D is slightly faster than the 9900X and still around 7% faster overall than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Arrow Lake desktop processor. Compared to the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, is 1.25x the performance as a nice generational improvement.

CPU Power Consumption Monitoring Overview benchmark with settings of Accumulated CPU Power Consumption Monitoring.

The Ryzen 9 9900X3D power consumption on average was 124 Watts with a recorded peak of 168 Watts, similar to the Ryzen 9 9900X and below the CPU power levels of the Ryzen 9 9950X series.

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Linux Benchmarks

Generationally going from the Ryzen 9 7900X3D to 9900X3D were some very significant gains across a wide variety of workloads… Lots of areas where this Zen 4 to Zen 5 3D V-Cache upgrade provides very meaningful improvements while retaining compatibility with AM5 motherboards and DDR5 memory.

AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D Linux Benchmarks

Similarly, a lot of areas where the Ryzen 9 9900X3D performance is a big improvement over the Ryzen 9 9900X. HPC / technical computing workloads like ASKAP, CloverLeaf, easyWave, Pennant, OpenFOAM CFD, srsRAN, Incompact3D, and others were all big winners with the Ryzen 9 99000X3D over the 9900X. Plus AI workloads like OpenVINO. Some conventional server workloads like the ClickHouse database benefited nicely. But the Ryzen 9 9900X3D priced at $599 USD makes it a tougher proposition where as the Ryzen 9 9950X3D can be had for just about $100 more and in some workloads like the Ryzen 9 9950X is faster than the 9900X3D with its 16 cores while costing around $50 less.

One of the areas where the Ryzen 9 9900X3D can make sense would be for some local/edge AI inferencing workloads where the Ryzen 9 9900X3D did outperform the Ryzen 9 9950X while having the lower TDP than the 9950X/9950X3D can be practical for thermal/power purposes. Again, see this result page if wanting to dig through the hundreds of individual benchmarks and power data for helping to make a more informed Ryzen 9000 series purchasing decision depending upon your Linux workloads of interest.