After a long wait, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has finally been officially launched, serving as a strategic product in AMD's flagship X3D CPU series. "Team Red" confidently advertises this as the most comprehensive processor for both gaming and work. This statement is not without basis because in some early third-party tests, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has achieved a score of 9/10 thanks to its impressive overall performance.
AMD also discussed new features added to its latest chipset driver, including a utility that eliminates the need to reinstall Windows after changing CPUs. The driver also fixes a VBS-related issue on Windows 10.
Speaking of VBS, this setting is one of the main highlights in CPU benchmarking guides in general. AMD recommends third-party units test the Ryzen 9 9950X3D with VBS enabled, as this is also Microsoft's recommendation:
“To comply with Microsoft guidelines, AMD recommends enabling VBS (which is enabled by default). The benchmarks published in this guide were performed with VBS enabled, so please enable VBS if you want to use this data for testing. While not recommended, if you choose to disable VBS, it is best to disable it in the BIOS, not in software.”
It's worth noting that AMD's test OS required Windows 11 version 23H2 or 24H2, and VBS is not enabled by default nor is it recommended to be enabled on Windows 10. However, the feature is known to cause performance degradation, and in a new test, both the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and the previously released Ryzen 7 9800X3D performed worse on Windows 11.
What is VBS?
VBS (Virtualization-based Security), also known as Core Isolation, is a Windows security feature that uses the Windows hypervisor and hardware-based virtualization to create an isolated environment, protecting against malicious code that could potentially harm the system kernel. Security is also the reason why Microsoft recommends users upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 via a clean install.
Performance testing
The test was conducted by YouTube channel Tech YES City, and the results show that the settings recommended by Microsoft are not the most optimal for gaming. For example, in Fortnite, performance on Windows 10 is 18% better than on Windows 11 (with VBS enabled).
What's even more interesting is that Windows 10 still has the advantage even with VBS disabled on Windows 11. Although the gap has narrowed, Windows 10 still leads by about 9.25%.
A similar trend is observed in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and other titles, although not at the same demanding level as in Fortnite.
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