Today, specialized media published reviews of the “best gaming processor in the world,” as AMD itself calls it, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The new product is designed to correct the situation in which AMD found itself after the release of the Ryzen 9000 chips: they brought almost no increase in gaming performance compared to their predecessors, although AMD promised growth. Will history repeat itself with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D?
Image Source: The Verge
First, a quick recap of the specs: The Ryzen 7 9800X3D offers eight Zen 5 cores with support for 16 virtual threads. The base frequency is 4.7 GHz, the maximum is 5.2 GHz. The new product has 64 MB of additional second-generation 3D V-Cache cache memory, which differs in that it is located under the CCD (Core Complex Die) crystal with computing cores, and not on top of this block, as was the case with Ryzen X3D chips of previous generations. In total, the new product has 104 MB of cache memory (8 MB L2, 32 MB L3 + 64 MB 3D V-Cache). The nominal power consumption of the processor is 120 W.
Image source: TechPowerUp
«Gaming is what the Ryzen 7 9800X3D was made for, and the results are impressive,” writes TechPowerUp. The new AMD processor came in first in every game frame rate (FPS) test in almost every game, which can be considered an outstanding result!
At 1080p resolution, the performance increase compared to the Ryzen 7 9700X, which is similar in characteristics but lacks additional cache, is as much as 11%, writes TechPowerUp. Compared to Intel’s new flagship, Core Ultra 9 285K, the gap is 13%. Also, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is 7% faster than the Core i9-14900K. Compared to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 1080p, the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D has a 3.4% advantage. In the case of 4K resolution, the system’s dependence on the GPU is stronger, so the difference between the flagship processors is minimal.
As for performance in applications, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is also fine here, writes TechPowerUp. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is on average 18% faster than its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, with gains of 25 to 30% in some applications. Compared to the Ryzen 7 9700X, the new product is 6% faster, and only 12% behind the Ryzen 9 9900X. Flagships with more cores are expectedly faster: Ryzen 9 9950X – by 25%, Ryzen 9 7950X3D – by 16%, Core i9-14900K – by 20%. The latest Intel Core Ultra 200 processors also look good in workloads compared to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D: the cheaper Core Ultra 5 245K is only 4% slower, the Core Ultra 7 265K is 13% ahead, while costing almost $100 less, and the more expensive Core Ultra 9 285K is up to 22% faster.
Other observers confirm the points made by TechPowerUp. For example, Computer Base writes the following: “The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is not only the fastest and still extremely efficient gaming processor, but also the most powerful eight-core processor in AMD’s application portfolio—faster than the 105W TDP AMD Ryzen 7 9700X . Customers of this X3D processor will no longer have to accept significant performance degradation in applications, quite the opposite.”
«The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the fastest gaming chip on the market, far ahead of competing Intel processors,” Tom’s Hardware concluded.
The only thing that the new product is criticized for is its rather high price of $480 in the USA and €529 in Germany. It’s expensive, which leaves room for alternatives with a more balanced performance-to-price ratio. This is also a considerable amount for only eight cores, and those who need a computer not only for games, but also for work, will be more likely to be interested in chips with a large number of cores for about the same price.
Finally, a few words about power consumption and overclocking. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D consumes an average of 88 W in applications, which is 25 W more than the 9700X and 9600X, and almost double the 7800X3D. Compared to the Core Ultra 200, in which Intel focused on reducing power consumption, it succeeded, but the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is still more effective in gaming scenarios. However, the 7800X3D still consumes less than the 9800X3D: in games they consume an average of 46 and 65 W, respectively.
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, unlike all predecessors of the X3D series, has an unlocked multiplier, that is, it supports manual overclocking. Colleagues from Computer Base managed to overclock the new product to 5.6 GHz, and at 5.4 GHz the chip was able to reliably pass the test in Cinebench 2024. In turn, TechPowerUp overclocked the chip to 5.4 GHz.
Sales of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D will begin tomorrow.
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