AMD Ryzen 9 5900X + Ryzen 9 5950X Dominate On Linux

Of the 217 tests run, the Core i9 10900K managed to lead in just 11 tests, or about 5% of the time. AMD CPUs led in the remainder of the benchmarks. The cases where the Core i9 10900K did win tended to be scenarios just where they are real-world workloads albeit not as demanding on today's processors -- like 1080p video encoding in different scenarios. But if you are past 1080p, when looking at the 4K video encode performance with the same encoders the AMD performance has hefty advantages.

If taking the geometric mean of all 217 tests, the Ryzen 9 5900X is 17.7% faster than the Core i9 10900K on Ubuntu Linux. Or going from the Ryzen 9 3900X/3900XT to Ryzen 9 5900X is a nice 20% generational improvement. Going from the Ryzen 9 3950X to Ryzen 9 5950X in these initial Linux benchmarks yielded 17% uplift from Zen 2 to Zen 3. It was really great seeing 16~20% performance improvements so broadly across the many workloads tested.

Those wanting to see all 217 benchmark results in full as well as performance-per-dollar figures (and can be adjusted based on your local pricing) and other metrics, head on over to OpenBenchmarking.org to get overloaded with all of the benchmark data so far.

Due to the AMD Energy Linux driver not yet providing Zen 3 desktop CPU support, there isn't the ability for reading the CPU package power consumption under Linux besides looking at the AC wall power consumption with the WattsUp Pro. The full AMD line-up wasn't done for time purposes today and the lack of Intel data is just over the motherboard differences and not wanting to skew those results.

But long story short, the Ryzen 9 5900X/5950X AC power consumption monitored via the WattsUp Pro under a variety of different workloads yielded similar results of 143~146 Watts on average under load for this system and a peak of 230~235 Watts. The minimum power draw was also similar at 62~65 Watts. Thus given the performance gains squeezed out of Zen 3, the power efficiency is equally great. Those wanting to see all the power data on a per-test basis and the performance-per-Watt metrics can see this OpenBenchmarking.org result file.

Simply put, the Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 9 5950X pack a hell of a punch. Within the same power budget the Ryzen 9 5900 series is delivering a consistent 16~20% uplift as shown by the 217 tests today with similar power consumption and with only a few (light workload) exceptions these Zen 3 CPUs outperform the Core i9 10900K often by wide margins. While some initially voiced concerns over these new CPUs costing slightly more, the generational performance uplift certainly seems justified in this case. Of the 200+ tests for this launch-day testing there wasn't a single legitimate area where the Core i9 10900K offered better performance than the Ryzen 9 5900X/5950X on Ubuntu Linux... There are 600+ test profiles available via the open-source Phoronix Test Suite and with further testing I have yet to find any other workloads really favoring Intel at this point over AMD Zen 3.

In case you missed it, see our launch-day AMD Ryzen 9 5900X/5950X Linux gaming tests to complement all of the data in this article.

Stay tuned for plenty more AMD Zen 3 CPUs on Phoronix in the days ahead including of some different Zen 3 models and benchmarks with optimized binaries once AMD publishes their Znver3 compiler support.