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Surprisingly no one noticed or reported that the memory is heavily overclocked by +29% in this specific benchmark. Here is the direct link to the detailed results: http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/13495867

Officially Ryzen 9 3950X supports up to DDR4-3200 (1600 MHz) according to the published specs https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-3950x however in this benchmark the memory was overclocked to 2063 MHz:

  Memory: 32768 MB DDR4 SDRAM 2063MHz
Memory overclocking heavily impacts Geekbench multi-core scores. For example the old Threadripper 2950X sees a score boosted by +18% (39580 vs 46908) with a +9% overclock (1466 vs 1600 MHz): http://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/13400527?baselin... Although to be honest comparing random Geekbench scores in their database is not exact science because too few system details are reported (for example we don't know if the user systems are running dual or quad-channel DDR4) and we don't know what other hardware mods users make.


> Officially Ryzen 9 3950X supports up to DDR4-3200 (1600 MHz)

No, it supports "4200+ with ease, 5133 demonstrated".

From official slides https://www.anandtech.com/show/14525/amd-zen-2-microarchitec...


While AMD claim it can be overclocked to 4200 or 5133, it doesn't invalidate my claim that officially it is spec'd for DDR4-3200 according to the product page: https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-9-3950x

Note I am not playing down the 3950X's performance. It is overall a processor superior to Intel's counterparts in most aspects.


Because officially ddr4 is only up to 3200. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR4_SDRAM

Every ddr4 module beyond that is officially a 3200 module with overclock option. That's why you need to enable Extreme Memory Profile in your bios to use speeds beyond 3200.


I wonder if G.Skill will release new RAM targeted for Zen 2. Their 3200 MHz FlareX works pretty well with Zen+.


It's G.Skill. They'll release ~100 new SKUs for it, as long as they can get enough well-binned modules from samsung.


That's... literally the opposite of what "supports" means... It works with overclocked memory some of the time, but they don't promise that it will.

The point being that this is a tricked out rig, not an official reporting of the CPU's performance. And that makes the headline essentially a lie.


Geekbench doesn't compare stock rigs, it compares benchmark results - commonly used by overclockers, even those who go to extremes like liquid nitrogen. The benchmark results this is being compared to are also heavily overclocked and tuned systems.


Cite for that? All I see are numbers with an Intel CPU model next to them. I don't see anything reporting the hardware configuration except for the one AMD system, which as noted is very significantly tweaked.


The model name with a number next to it is some sort of average (they don't say but I think it's geometric mean?) computed from all scores submitted from that particular model. It's not terribly useful because you have no idea how many of them are overclocked, by how much, the memory configs, etc. without reading through every entry and a lot of them are missing info anyway.

You can see all 9980XE Geekbench results here: https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/search?dir=asc&page=1&q...

This 3950X result is definitely not faster than the top overclocked 9980XE, but it is faster than something like 3/4 of them. Given the base clocks of each I would expect the stock 3950X will end up at least slightly faster than the stock 9980XE though.


What could be a cite for this. PC builders worldwide like to build their computers and then benchmark them on geekbench. Naturally the top most benches will be the heavily tuned ones.


See Geekbench database. The ones with high scores seem to have memory around 2100/4200

For example : https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/13481225

Single-Core Score Multi-Core Score 6178 56017

Memory 65536 MB DDR4 SDRAM 2101MHz

Name Intel Core i9-9980XE




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