AMD Updates on Ryzen 9000 Gaming Performance, Revised Testing See Parity With Intel’s 14th Gen CPUs, Optimized Branch Prediction Update To Boost Games

AMD has published an update for its Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" Desktop CPUs in gaming applications & promised a new branch prediction code patch.

AMD's Revised Ryzen 9000 Game Benchmarks Showcase Performance Parity With Intel's 14th Gen Chips, Fine-Tuning Performance Through Windows 11 Branch Prediction Code Update

Following the kind of lackluster gaming performance that several reviewers including us saw in our test results, AMD has published a new blog to clear the air with its community. This all comes down to the disparities between AMD's official gaming performance numbers and the ones that we saw in actual reviews.

• Ryzen 9 9950X & Ryzen 9 9900X CPU Review
• Ryzen 7 9700X & Ryzen 5 9600X CPU Review

So going back to the official figures, AMD claimed that the Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" CPUs had a 9% average performance uplift at 1080p versus the Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" CPUs and a 6% average performance uplift at 1080p versus the competition (Intel 14th Gen). The tests were averaged from 30+ games. The company confirmed that most of the games were tested using the in-game tool for benchmarking purposes which isn't always the best representation of game performance. It might be suitable for a specific scene but in areas where more action or gameplay is involved, that might be a different story as more processing is required on the CPU and GPU side.

AMD also discloses the internal testing hierarchy it used for its Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" CPUs. Both Intel and AMD chips were tested with DDR5-6000 while Intel's chips were set to the "Default" profile and that's ok considering that Intel itself recommended the use of default profiles before the release of its "0x129" BIOS patch which addressed stability issues. The BIOS patch launched on the 15th of August which is the same day AMD launched its Ryzen 9 9950X and Ryzen 9 9900 CPUs so they had only the initial "reference" performance to showcase for the competition.

In the latest performance testing, AMD says that it has used DDR5-7200 memory for Intel's 14th Gen CPUs and also enabled the maximum power profile "Extreme/Performance" mode which when put up against the Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" CPUs, shows performance parity. AMD also states that it had turned on VBS (Virtualization-based Security) which is set to enabled by default in Windows but that can impact performance too.

The result of all of this is that AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs deliver a 10% performance bump in creative & productivity workloads, a 25% improvement in AI workloads, and a 5-8% bump in gaming applications versus Ryzen 9000. Versus Intel's 14th Gen chips, the Ryzen 9000 CPUs deliver a double-digit lead in productivity and creative applications (no specific figure mentioned), a 30% lead in AI workloads & parity in gaming across the most popular games tested by reviewers.

Following is the full update from AMD:

• The AMD gaming test suite includes a broad set of esports, AAA, and popular older games, which are a combination of CPU- and GPU-bound titles. Game performance conclusions can be influenced significantly by the makeup of the test suite.
• AMD tested Intel configurations using comparable DDR5-6000 memory as well as Intel default settings-baseline power profile which can have a small impact on gaming performance.
• AMD also tests with Windows Virtualization-based Security (VBS) enabled.  This is the default Windows behavior and Microsoft recommends activating VBS to improve security, however it can affect gaming performance.
• The “Zen 5” architecture incorporates a wider branch prediction capacity than prior “Zen” generations. Our automated test methodology was run in “Admin” mode which produced results that reflect branch prediction code optimizations not present in the version of Windows reviewers used to test the Ryzen 9000 Series. We have a further update on accessing this performance for users below.

The last most important but from AMD is the new Branch Prediction patch. AMD states that they have seen some issues with the Branch Predictor not working as intended within Windows 11. The company says that it is now working with Microsoft to roll out a new code soon (Release Preview Channel - Build 26100) which can enhance performance in games by up to 13%.

	Ryzen 9 9950X 24H2	Ryzen 9 9950X 23H2	Performance Delta
Far Cry 6	183	162	+13%
Cyberpunk 2077	200	188	+7%
Hitman 3	358	347	+3%
Watch Dogs: Legion	165	165	No change
Cinebench 2024 Single Thread	140	140	No change
Procyon Office	10,288	9,829	+6%

AMD states that the Branch Prediction update only works as intended when running Windows 11 in "Admin" mode but that option isn't used by the majority of gamers who run Windows in standard mode so the update will enable the working of the new code within the standard Windows 11 OS mode too. AMD is also working on new chipset drivers to address the "Core Parking" concerns. The new performance update will not just improve Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" CPUs but will also apply to Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" and Ryzen 5000 "Zen 3" Desktop CPUs.

Some reviewers also reported that a fresh install of Windows led to higher performance but that is just one thing to expect from a clean Windows. A fresh Windows installation can not only yield better performance with AMD CPUs but will also improve the performance of Intel CPUs as there is less overhead from various apps and installations.

Overall, it's good to see this update from AMD that they are working to make not only their own internal testing better which should lead to more "actual" and "representative" performance figures in the future but also working to tune their newly launched chips so that they perform to their fullest potential.

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