AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-core, 24-thread Unlocked Desktop processor with Wraith Prism LED Cooler

I absolutely love this CPU (3900X), having come from an old I7-2600K that served me well OC'd way over it's spec. I've got plenty to say about it. It's great at gaming and productivity. Intel can push individual cores higher, but their low core counts and larger process makes them very hot and bottle-necked at multithreaded applications. Be sure to read the warning below about the socket and swapping heatsinks.ThermalsWhen I first got this, I noticed it ran very warm! I read all kinds of complaints on forums of people that couldn't run this cool, or that couldn't OC it. I've been fortunate on both fronts. I went into the UEFI and brought the CPU VCore down to 1.298V while also overclocking to 4.3GHz (all cores). I've never had stability issues with these settings, although I may have simply won the "silicon lottery." The stock cooler is very aesthetic and works pretty well for a stock cooler, but I swapped out the CPU cooler for a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition, which brought the top temps down by ~10C under load, which I think is pretty respectable.WARNING!!! If you apply a heatsink to this CPU, and then remove it, there's a very high chance that the CPU will pop right out of the socket, glued to the heatsink and in the process bend pins. Bent pins on this processor are *VERY HARD* to fix (at least tedious to bend back without breaking off). The socket retention system on the AM4 socket compared to Intel's is complete garbage!!! I had bent about 3 pins pulling my heatsink off after just a little wiggling of the heatsink on the surface of the CPU by pulling off the heatsink while the CPU was still stuck to it. Yes, the retention arm was still down, and yes, I ensured it was installed correctly before putting on the heatsink. This is just a quirk of this socket. If removing the heatsink, very carefully wiggle it around side to side to try and get air in-between the CPU and heatsink so it doesn't rip out the CPU from the socket. If you're impatient, you probably could just pull the heatsink straight up with the full intention of taking the processor with it, and then lay the heatsink with the processor straight up for removal, but I really wouldn't recommend it (unless that was a last resort).Over ClockingI wouldn't say I'm an expert over-clocker, but I've overclocked my systems for sometime, so I can at least give some starting advice. First, two things kill your CPU faster than anything else: heat, and over-voltage. There are a dizzying array of settings that can be played with in today's UEFIs. The ones to pay attention to are: VCore, CPU ratio, DRAM FCLK, and DRAM voltage. This is a CPU review, so let's stick to VCore and CPU ratio. My advice is to try lowering the voltage on this chip first! This is to reduce the heat put out by this blazing hot blowtorch. I dropped my to VCore 1.298V. Once you've verified that you can boot at whatever voltage you've dropped it down to, now try and overclock by changing the CPU ratio from the stock 3.8GHz to something a bit higher, like 4.3GHz. That's what I've been running with great stability. If you're going for pure performance, then you're going to want to stick with the normal VCore voltages and then push your CPU ratio, but you'd better have a great cooling solution that can handle the extra heat this will produce. Good luck!

So I have stuck with AMD since they released their Ryzen series CPUs. Back in the day (pre 2000 and into early 2000s) I used the Athlon processors exclusively. Eventually switched to Intel processors, and since about 2016 have stuck with AMD Ryzen exclusively. Every time I upgrade I am happy I decided to stick with them.I overclocked this Ryzen 9 3900x which I overclocked to 4.2ghz (able to go to 4.5 but haven't tested that out yet).Just as with my last Ryzen 7 2700 that was overclocked for the 1.5 years I used it it has been incredibly stable. I do not use the wraith cooler, I have a dual chamber water cooler as these CPUs run a bit hotter than the Ryzen 7 (8 core) CPUs - of course I used a water cooler with that as well due to overclocking.You could get away with the cooler and overclocking possibly but it is best just to use the water cooler just in case.The processing power is incredibly. I have it coupled with a 2080ti and 32 gigs of 3200mhz ram. I do video editing, graphics, and sound editing for work. Heavy CPU and graphics card usage in those processes and this computer runs perfectly. I would stack this against any intel chip in the same range... this one beats it in speed and price.In Ryzen Master software currently it is fluctuating between 36 degrees C, and 38.6 degrees. With my Ryzen 7 2700 which was overclocked to 4 ghz and with my other water cooler (single chamber) it was usually between 24-30 C. so we added 4 more cores, and more power per core. I have not noticed a significant increase while running games/software but the limit is 95 degrees C so it is not really something you need to worry about.I highly recommend this CPU. This is expensive when looking at CPUs like the Ryzen 7 2700x and similar, but 430 dollars or whatever it was is well worth it. My old PC (which has been rebuilt and still has a GTX 1070) is still a modern PC that is capable of a lot and this current one will be for several years really. Short of upgrading the video card to the 3090 within the next year (maybe) I do not foresee any real need to upgrade the CPU for at least 3-4 years.As far as money goes - sometimes we need to be reminded of perspective. My fiance was getting a laptop the other day and wanted to spend 500-650 max. She is a traveling medical worker. So a laptop will be very important to her and used a lot as she goes from city to city. So I explained that we drop upwards of 1000 dollars or more on our phones every 1 to 2 years without much thought at all. yet when we are buying electronics that will need to have a lot of power and hold up and be used as much or more we get very cheap. I spent 2000 dollars on a laptop back in 2012 and have upgraded it here and there (ram and hard drive) and it still runs extremely well. I use it for a lot of things. Had I spent 500 dollars it would have been useless by now.So if you have the means, do not cheap out and buy a 300 dollar option for your CPU - you will end up spending that much or more very soon. Always buy beyond what you need when building a PC if it is doable for you. I have had systems that ran flawlessly for many years, and ones that played the latest games at high settings with decent FPS, and ran adobe software wonderfully.I will update this review when I test an OC of 4.5 ghz and give you the details on cinebench for both the 4.2 and 4.5 OC.