Yes, I've been running 3.25 on my X670E Steel Legend since it came out, and it's still running that just fine with my old 9800X3D. No, no scorch marks or discoloration at all. The SOC voltage was the same 1.190 as my 9800X3D and the same 96GB RAM kit running at 6000C30. Already requested RMA replacement from Newegg.

I got the 9950X3D in about 5 hours ago. Installed it and got it running properly with CPPC set to driver and the AMD Chipset Driver reinstalled. I saw that the X3D cores would often drop down to 5300 to 5400 in a game that I play (Star Citizen) instead of being pegged at 5500 or so. So, I figured that I'd try out Game Mode to see if the X3D cores would stay locked at a higher frequency like my 9800X3D does.

It never booted again after setting Game Mode. The BOOT LED segment would remain on after the initial CPU and DRAM lights would flash.

Cleared CMOS (unplug power, bridge CLRCMOS jumper for 20 seconds) didn't work (BOOT LED solid after initial flashing LEDs on CPU and DRAM).

BIOS flashback to 3.25 didn't bring it back.

Installed my 9800X3D and got it to boot after a CMOS clear.

Reinstalled the 9950X3D and was unable to get it to boot after a CMOS clear (BOOT LED solid after initial flashing LEDs on CPU and DRAM).

Reinstalled the 9800X3D yet again and got it to boot after a CMOS clear, and it's running with all the old settings just fine.

Just a WAG, but since my defunct 9950X3D wasn't holding a ~5500MHz CCD0 clock speed in games, and instead dropping down to 5300 to 5400 a lot (60 to 63C temps, cache cooler by ~10C)... I think that I got a weak 9950X3D that shit itself super early. But if that's the case it doesn't speak well for AMD's QA on these, but it's nice that it did so almost immediately.

EDIT - I think the batch number is CF 2518PGY, because the top number looks like a numerically low serial number (less than 1000 at the end with a whole bunch of 0s in front). Manufactured in Malaysia, 2024 apparently week 18 of 2025.

EDIT 2 - PBO was not on, so the EDC/TDC changes that Asrock made for PBO settings in BIOS 3.25 should have had no effect on my 9950X3D.

REPLACEMENT EDIT 3 - The replacement came in today (11 June), another CF 2518PGY with an ever so slightly lower serial number. I'll be installing it later tonight and trying Game Mode (non-X3D CCD turns off) to see if it has the same problem.

EDIT 4 - Set BIOS defaults before installing the replacement 9950X3D. Also tried a CMOS clear later.

Having a hell of a time getting DRAM training to work. Both sticks in, it sits with CPU light on and DRAM light flashing for more than 20 minutes.

One stick in B2, as per my manual, and it does the same thing.

One stick in A2 and I got it to boot within 3 minutes.

Put the second stick back into B2 so that A2 and B2 are populated, and loosened the AIO cooler a tad. 30 minutes later, the DRAM light is still flashing with the CPU light solid.

I don't get it, and won't run a 9950X3D with one stick of RAM when my 9800X3D works just fine with this kit.

EDIT 5 - It takes less than 2 minutes to boot with my 9800X3D and two sticks of RAM. I've swapped between my 9800X3D and this 9950X3D four times, and the 9950X3D never boots with two sticks of RAM (BIOS defaults, JEDEC 5600). Looks like the memory controller is shot on this one, and I'll just seek a refund because I'm tired of this.

EDIT 6 - Newegg apparently doesn't allow for a refund after a replacement is sent the first time. Third time is the charm?

EDIT 7 - I forgot to add that while it boots with one stick of RAM in A2 (JEDEC default 5600 shown in BIOS and is the only speed this 9950X3D ever saw), when I disabled my onboard 1G ethernet, onboard WiFi, onboard audio, and onboard Bluetooth, this 9950X3D will then get stuck with the CPU light on with the DRAM light flashing for more than 20 minutes - when it had initially booted in under 3. This reinforces my conclusion that it's just a bad CPU from the factory, since neither the original 9950X3D nor my 9800X3D had/has this issue with the RAM or with disabling onboard devices.

Link to replacement 9950X3D thread, 12 June 2025, which only booted with a single stick of RAM in A2 (and not B2 like the manual states) - https://www.reddit.com/r/ASRock/comments/1l9fqkp/replacement_9950x3d_faulty_in_a_different_way/

EDIT 8, June 20th 2025 - Seems like the third time was indeed the charm. CPU has the same CF 2518PGY batch number, and is about 170 higher for the serial number of the second. This 9950X3D, completely stock other than 6000C30 RAM, pulls more wattage in the game that I like to test (Star Citizen) at 140 -150W vs the 117 to 124W that the first one would pull - and it's keeping high 5400 to 5550MHz (with the rare dip into the 5300 range) on the X3D cores even with the frequency cores fully engaged. Core voltage is a tad lower as well, 1.39V max observed while the original (that never booted again after switching to Game Mode) would hit 1.41V.

Here's hoping that it remains solid!

EDIT 9, June 23rd 2025 - The PC had no video and the keyboard was unresponsive this morning after leaving it idle overnight. Hibernation and sleep are disabled. I did lower the VSOC to 1.18V yesterday, so I've reverted it back to the XMP default of 1.2. Hopefully that was the issue and this one isn't going out as well.

EDIT 10, July 5th 2025 - I've had around 5 or 6 more instances of the PC hard locking during idle. Usually I find it that way after checking the PC in the morning, but last night it happened after walking away for 5 minutes. A reset always brings it back, so I've been reducing the core offset (down to -10 now) to see if stability returns. No CPU overclock beyond running 6000C30 on the RAM.

Just for my peace of mind, I've got an MSI MEG X670E ACE on order because it's on sale at Newegg (shipped and sold) for $370. It's got parity for what I need with regards to PCIE connectivity as it has built in 10GbE and an electrical x4 bottom slot. Worst case, I've got the beginnings of an upgraded backup PC.

Newly built workstation/gaming machine. Running the latest BIOS, from MSI.

Can any one please suggest the best Bios settings to change for best performance?

Thanks in advance

Just wanted to post my results and some general observations and questions, if anyone wanted to give some feedback on some theoretical questions about RAM speed and Ryzen 9 processors.. Oh, and even though my SSD speeds are good enough and it won't make the tiniest bit of difference when it comes to real world performance, if anyone knows how I could improve my peak benchmark speeds, I'd be interested to know.

ASUS ROG Crosshair Hero X870e
AMD Ryzen 9 9950x
Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5 2 x 48GB 6400Mhz (96GB Total)
MP700 Pro Gen 5 SSD (12,400MB/sec) x 2 in RAID 0

I built a workstation purely for the work I do. I honestly feel like the 9950x was made for me. It's been fantastic at for what I wanted it for. I understand, it's not for everyone. It's no where near the best gaming CPU and it's expensive. But, I don't even have a graphics card in this machine. The fact that I now have integrated graphics that are actually quite impressive for just being on-chip was a wonderful bonus. My last machine I had to pick a cheap GTX 1650 just so I could run multiple monitors.. With USB to HDMI, I can run multiple monitors off this machine just fine, even at high-res using the 40gbps ports.

Anyway... I saw/read a bunch of reviews talking about the 9950 out-the-box multicore benchmarks in, say, R23 being around 41,000 points. Which is pretty awesome in itself. I was getting around those scores as well.

After MUCH tweaking, learning about infinity fabric and RAM speeds, undervolting, curve optimiser and setting my thermal limits.. it took a lot of reboots! But I finally cracked 47,000 points with NO overclocking whatsoever.

I recon I could go higher with actual overclocking, but I'm totally happy with this result.

Couple of weird issues with all this though. Firstly, I really wanted to underclock my memory so that I could try and get a 1:1 ratio with the infinity fabric, however, I can't get it stable at all. Second, I can't find any better timings than the ones I have at the moment. It doesn't seem to affect performance, as I'm obviously getting excellent benchmarks, but I really wonder if I could find memory timings that are stable and I also wonder what would happen if I could get a 1:1 ratio..

Cpu-z says my current ratio is something really weird like 1:33 ? Which doesn't sound exactly ideal..

The other crazy thing is.. even though I'm running RAID-0 using the motherboard RAID array controller, it seems like my SSD speeds are tied completely to the speed of my processor. So, I'm running 2 x MP700 Pro Gen 5 SSDs.. I've been down a 2 week rabbit hole trying to work out my motherboard claims of GEN5 PCIe lanes, it can run 1 x SSD at Gen 5 speed, then it does some super weird bifurcation, despite the fact I don't have a graphics card. So, my SSD Read Speed is supposed to be 12GB/s. The best I've gotten in RAID-0 in 3 weeks of changing every setting that exists related to PCIe lane speed, splitting, bifurcation, forced Gen type etc. is 15GB/s total.

I've seen RAID0 better speeds if Windows is running the RAID array.. although, its a bit late for me to want to format everything and try that out. Maybe one day, if everything goes horribly wrong, I can give Windows control of the RAID array and see what the results are.

As you can see from the picture of the max speeds of the RAID0 2 x GEN5 SSDs when everything is not running optimally, speeds completel tank down to 1.7GB/s across the board.. and I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA why that is.. ?!

In order to get both SSDs running full speed on Gen 5 Pcie lanes without splitting or sharing. Apart from waiting 5 years until gen 5 is standard everywhere, then the only motherboard capable of doing this today, as far as I'm aware, is the MSI Godlike - a mere snip at around £1,300 GBP (about $1,600 in freedom dollars) .... for a motherboard..

I am about to do a new build and have bought everything except the processor. The motherboard is the ASRock X870e Taichi Lite, and RAM is the Kingston Fury Beast 64GB (2x32GB) 6000MT/s DDR5 CL30 (on the QVL list). I am trying to decide between the 9950X and the 9950X3D.

The primary uses of the computer are h.265 video encoding, 3D modelling work (blender/maya) and gaming at 2160p. I would like to maximise performance, but if getting the computer stable requires some sacrifice in performance, I'd rather take that path. From reviews, it seems for productivity, the processors are very close in performance. For gaming, there are large differences at 1080p, which shrink as resolution increases, and by 2160p, they are minimal but present. On that basis, and given my use case, it seems like the 9950X might be the better choice?

The only thing that makes me hesitate is that there are some differences at 2160p today, and I would like to keep this computer for at least 3, preferably 5 years. Is it reasonable to assume processor driven differences are more likely in the future, meaning that for gaming at least (question over productivity?), that gap will increase over time?

I'm coming from only ever using intel, I recently upgraded from
12700k to 9950x3d
32 GB DDR5 5800Mhz CL 38 to 64GB DDR5 6000Mhz CL 26
and I got an MSI X870E Edge Ti

I have project Lasso, am I supposed to restrict games to the 0-15 cores? And other programs to the rest?
Also there's the bios settings I have set it to Expo 1 and it matches the speed of what my RAM is designed to be.
There's also the X3D Gaming mode, which I did a quick search and decided NOT to enable.

Also PBO auto or Enable? I did Enable based off a quick search but honestly this is all new to me (AMD stuff) and wondering if I messed up or should do some extra steps.

Sorry for multiple questions. I'm currently installing windows 11 on my upgraded 9950X3D using a ASRock b650 steel legend and was wondering which BIOS settings i should run with. •Already activated EXPO and PBO was set to "auto" I saw a setting to allow up to 105W TDP but didn't touch it as I was a bit scared it might over volt the CPU. (Very novice at PC building) I've seen something about core parking. Unsure where I configure that if it's even needed for the 9950X3D.

Thanks in advance.

I know the 9950x is not primarily for gaming, but i plan to be doing gaming and compiling, hence the 9950x chosen over the 9800x3D.

I've ordered a X870E Nova WiFi and a 9950x, while i know the X3D's are the primary culprits of CPU's burning up there has at least been one case of the 9950x burning up by a youtuber.

I've ordered ram from the QVL Kingston FURY Beast RGB DDR5-6400 64GB

I plan on using PBO, if AMD expects reviewers to do so, then it's deamed safe enough from their end.
I plan on using EXPO
I plan on using sleep
I plan on using virtualization
I also plan on upgrading the bios to 3.25 before inserting the CPU.

All the posts i seam to find are focus'ed on the x3d's SOC voltage, would it be the same for the regular 9000x's ?

which BIOS settings should i also look into ? some state changing the LLC would be a good idea to change to help reduce the chance of a degraded CPU ?

I've bought a new cpu and a new motherboard from MSI. What settings I need to enable in my bios of this cpu generation in combination running Windows 11 Pro?

I have RAM, I need enable RAM speed Xmp mode to run the specified settings. But what else need to be turned on to be run smooth? Also what powerplan needs to be configured in Windows 11?

In Windows 10 I've had it always on "high", but don't know what is recommended to do?

Hi everyone,

So after reading recent threads on 9***X3D chips being cooked from AsRock and ASUS mobos, I’m wanting to ask what I should be configuring my BIOS settings to reduce the chances of this happening. Disclaimer: Newbie here on this stuff, I was always afraid to tinker with the BIOS, with the exception to fan curves and enabling EXPO/XMP. So please be gentle!

I’m running a 9950X3D on an ASUS Crosshair HERO X870E, 32GB 6000 CL36 RAM.

The BIOS has EXPO I on, PBO disabled, with BIOS on 1201 (March 2025 - planning to update this week to 1401 when I get a new memory stick)

SOC voltage seems to be kept static on 1.250V at all times on HWinfo (didn’t configure this myself, automatic from BIOS), but apparently max value recorded after a gaming session yesterday spiked to 1.262V (probably for like a minisecond, didn’t see it happening, just noticed max value after a while). I don’t know if this is normal behaviour or not.

Question here is, am I supposed to simply adjust the CPU SOC Voltage value from auto to something like 1.1V and do nothing else? Or is there something else I also have to do to undervolt and keep it CPU from cooking itself (if the above isn’t normal behaviour). I know anything below SOC 1.3V should be fine, but I rather have a bigger buffer. I’ve also read about Curve Optimiser as another undervolt method, (something about doing -20 offset on each CCD), but being a newbie here, I’m unsure of how to approach that.

Thanks in advance for helping a newbie out!

My system specs are:
Ryzen 7 7800x3d
MSI B650 tomahawk wifi
Rx 7900 GRE (undervolted)
32GB ram ddr5 6400 mhz

I recently did a bios update and I then i saw some new options in the bios. And x3d gaming mode looked like one i should enable, so i did. Thinking i gained some extra performance... Well this is far from the case. I recently booted up some games like HUNT showdown 1896 and benchmarked it a bit and noticed the cpu was sitting at 100% at all times where i didn't think it would normally do that. I forgot since the game still ran fine. But then I booted up Star citizen with their 4.0 update. As you may know star citizen is a very cpu heavy game. And boy, it was running like shit, thought i was crazy cuz i swore i had higher fps before the update. So I thought it was the update or something else wrong with my pc. So tried everything, updated all drivers. Nothing worked. And then there is this stupid option called 'x3d gaming mode' that sounds like it would only improve performance, but it does not. It apparently halfs the amount of CPU cores or smth like that, it's not visible in task manager but it does some real funky shit. So I disabled it and got more that double the fps in star citizen. So for the people noticing that their system is not living up to hopes, please disable this setting.

So today I'll get the ryzen 9950x and the x870e asus proart. I want to know if I need to set on bios something (a must have ) for running smother the pc or with the performance. tnk you in advance

I understand that there’s been many issues particularly with AsRock boards killing 9000 series AMD processors. Specifically it’s speculated that PBO auto settings with ASrock boards are to blame

May I ask if there’s any concern in setting PBO to AMD ECO MODE? will this also submit my CPU to voltage spikes? Should I just set PBO to disabled at all?

So sorry I’m a noob but I want to protect my board and AMD processor

Thanks !

Hey guys, so I've just upgraded to 9950X3D, and I love how big of a gain I got in games compared to my previous CPU. I just have a quick question - I ran the CS2 benchmark, and I get somewhere between 300-400 frames on max settings 1080p, but I've seen multiple benches online and 9950X3D should be going somewhere between 600-800 and I just wonder if I have to set it up somehow to get the most out of it.

Just in case, here is the list of my PC components:

• 9950X3D

• MSI X870E Carbon

• MSI RTX 3080 10G

• Corsair 64GB DDR5 6400MHz

• Also, I have 2 M.2 SSDs installed, the main one (for my Windows) is in M2_1 Slot and the second one (Mostly for work files and software) I have it in the M2_4 slot. From what I've read from the manual and forums this setup doesn't affect the GPU, doesn't go from 16 lanes to 8, but maybe I'm wrong.

I'm wondering if I have to set up something in BIOS to reach those numbers above, I know that this CPU is pretty hot (not extremely of course, not something to worry about), but I just want to be safe with it as I will be using it for the next 5-6 years - I want to make sure I get good performances in games and software I use (just in case, I use Adobe Suite and Figma, on extremely rare occasions I use 3D rendering software - maybe once a year), and make sure the CPU is not stressed.