AMD explains why its Ryzen 9000s run faster than yours

AMD has responded to community concerns about underwhelming gaming performance of its Ryzen 9000 Series desktop processors by attributing disappointing results recorded by independent testers to the vagaries of their system and software setups.

One factor in the complex interplay of technical variables is that AMD conducted tests of its Zen 5-based hardware, which features broader branch prediction capabilities, in Admin mode.

“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 Ryzen 9000 Series,” the chip giant explained in a Wednesday post.

(Because who doesn’t run every app and game in continuous Windows administrator mode?)

AMD also said it tests with Windows Virtualization-based Security (VBS) enabled. That’s the default behavior and is recommended by Microsoft but can affect performance. Testers would be likely to disable VBS to remove an unnecessary processor burden.

Additionally, the chip biz pointed out that its gaming test suite includes a variety of titles, some of which are CPU-bound and while others are GPU-bound. Measuring the performance of a processor therefore depends upon the games considered and how they interact with testing software and hardware.

“In light of this, the Ryzen 9000 Series delivers leadership performance across content creation, productivity and AI applications,” AMD wrote. “On a generational basis, Ryzen 9000 Series delivers a ~10 percent improvement in productivity and creative workloads, ~25 percent improvement in AI workloads, and 5-8 percent improvement in gaming over the Ryzen 7000 Series.”

Tests conducted by Hardware Unboxed reported that the 9950X was on average just three percent faster than the Ryzen 7950X. Echoing these findings in a TechSpot report, Steve Walton wrote, “It’s astonishing that AMD officially claimed the 9900X provides gaming leadership over Intel’s Core i9-14900K, with a 12 percent margin on average … Yet, in reality, the 9950X is 6 percent slower than the 14900K across the 13 games we tested.”

Walton attributes the lackluster gaming results to Zen 5’s design which focuses on server and software development workloads rather than gaming.

AMD says that optimized AMD-specific branch prediction code will be available in Windows 11, version 24H2 via the Windows Insider Program (Release Preview Channel – Build 26100) or through the downloaded ISO. This may help gamers achieve results closer to those AMD has advised are possible with the Ryzen 9000.

“The optimizations are already a part of 24H2,” an AMD spokesperson told The Register. “We’re collaborating with Microsoft to roll out this optional update to all Windows 11 users soon. Neither requires running in Admin mode.”

Another initiative to deliver a better experience for reviews is extra work on chipset drivers.

“We are working on a better implementation of the chipset driver to make transitioning between CPUs easier,” the AMD spokesperson explained. “Reducing the friction to switch between CPUs and update the chipset driver is about improving the user experience – especially for reviewers who switch CPUs often during a review cycle.” ®