R9 3900X offers a significant improvement over the 5960X.
R9 3900X offers a significant improvement over the 5960X.
I own an i7-5960X clocked at 4.2Ghz for five years now, and I’m noticing newer Ryzen models appearing. The R9 3900X offers more cores for a lower cost compared to what I originally bought. Should the 5960X still be capable of handling modern tasks, or is the R9 3900X now the better choice? Or should I hold off until the 3950X becomes available again? It’s tough to decide because direct game performance differences aren’t clear. I don’t see any solid reason to switch from the 1080Ti, do I?
You're playing on a 5960x resolution? I'd say it's better than a 9900k with a slight overclock myself. To be honest, "no" would be more accurate. You should be okay for a while. Just remember you've already invested in your setup.
It would only be a modest gain—around 50%. At least you'd prefer a 3950X, which is closer to an 80% boost. Still, it's hard to say if it makes sense. I usually don't upgrade the CPU unless it at least doubles performance, ideally triples it. For example, moving from my 5960X would likely mean switching to a Threadripper 3960X. My 5-year-old 5960X OCd with 4.4 cores is performing quite well, matching the stock 9900K fairly. A newer CPU could save on power usage if that matters to you.
I chose to raise the CPU speed from 4.2Ghz to 4.4Ghz at a voltage of 1.396V... Foolish chip design but alright.
What are you working on? The 5960Xs keep being strong, it depends on how much the single-core performance shines versus the extra cores it offers. Oof. I made sure to pick a specific j-bin when I bought mine from eBay—it runs at 4.5Ghz at 1.2v. It's really strange how these j-bins behave differently from most other 5960X models. Time to sell your one and get another that’s a j-bin since they don’t cost more.
I'm also in the same range as mine—around 1.37, aiming for about 1.39 with an LLC...
I'm handling a mix of tasks—gaming, virtual machines, audio mixing, video editing, etc. More cores usually help with VMs. I compared my Geekbench 5 to 9900K and it's still a big gap. I plan to try a 4.5Ghz processor soon; power consumption won't exceed 1.4V. Should I skip the investment and go for a Threadripper instead? From a gaming standpoint, the 3970X doesn't seem much better.
You have the funds, right? The TR 3000 options are solid choices. Since you're planning to use more cores, it outperforms the 5960X significantly unless you require PCIe lanes (it has 24 vs 40) and quad channel RAM (unless those memory demands are high). It also runs cooler than your 5960X, which gets very hot at higher voltages. I’m curious how it performs at 1.4V—probably worth testing for 5GHz soon.
Even at 1.35V the 5960X continues to trigger CLOCK WATCHDOG TIMEOUT BSOD repeatedly. It starts normally but becomes unstable when CPU reaches full capacity (not Prim95 stress test, just light benchmarks like Geekbench 5 or certain games). I’ll hold off on investing until AMD releases any updates at CES next month. My outlook for the coming month leans toward mobile processors, though I’ll keep an eye on things.
I continued receiving more BSDO, but performance dropped at 4.3Ghz with 1.401V... Ugh, that’s a drop in the bucket. Still outperforms i9-9900 on multiple cores, though it doesn’t match the K-series. Makes sense this model is still holding up.