The launch of the Ryzen 9000 CPUs was marked by performance that fell short of AMD’s promises. Recently, AMD addressed concerns regarding the below-expected performance of its new Zen 5 desktop processors, particularly in gaming, as highlighted by various reviews from the press. The company has committed to investigating and improving the performance of these processors.
In an official statement, AMD acknowledged that the gaming performance of the Zen 5 processors did not meet expectations. However, in their own tests, the company observed an average improvement of 9% over the Ryzen 7000 processors when running games at 1080p.
Contributing Factors to the Performance Differences in Ryzen 9000
In AMD’s tests with more than 30 games, the Ryzen 9000 processors showed an average gain of 6% compared to the “main competition,” likely referring to Intel’s 14th-generation Core CPUs. The discrepancies in the results observed by the global press led AMD to consider the following factors as possible causes:
- Test Suite Composition: AMD’s test suite includes a broad range of games, including e-sports titles, AAA games, and popular older games, which vary between CPU-bound and GPU-bound workloads. This diversity in the tested games can significantly influence conclusions about performance.
- Intel Test Configurations: In AMD’s tests, the Intel processors were configured with DDR5-6000 memory and set to the standard power profile, which may slightly impact gaming performance.
- Virtualization-Based Security (VBS): AMD conducted tests with VBS enabled, as recommended by Microsoft to enhance security on Windows. However, this setting can negatively affect gaming performance.
- Branch Prediction in Zen 5 Architecture: The Zen 5 architecture includes an enhanced branch prediction capability compared to previous generations. AMD’s automated testing methodology was conducted in “Admin” mode, which may have produced results that do not fully reflect the branch prediction code optimizations that were not yet present in the version of Windows used by reviewers.
AMD announced that it will release an update for Windows 11, version preview 24H2, through the Windows Insider Program, which will bring performance optimizations for the Ryzen 9000 processors in games. This update will also benefit the Ryzen 7000 and 5000, although the Zen 5 processors will see the most significant improvements. With these enhancements, AMD expects the Ryzen 9000 to achieve up to 13% more performance in games like Far Cry 6 and 7% in Cyberpunk 2077.
