AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Two-minute assessment

This technology of processors has been a combined bag at perfect (and disappointing at worst), so it is smart that Team Red would pass all out to make sure the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivered one thing that exceeded expectancies.

In that regard, the 9800X3D is a smashing luck, turning in considerably higher gaming efficiency than the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D that it replaces, even though at a relatively upper $479 / £449.99 (about AU$700) value level. For avid gamers even though, maximum will fortunately pay a little bit extra for a more or less 15% building up in gaming efficiency on moderate.

The chip is not with out faults, even though. It is not the best possible processor for gaming on the subject of framerates (that identify belongs to the Intel Core i9-14900K over a number of video games, averaged out), yet the place the last-gen Intel flagship merely threw uncooked wattage to get to the highest, AMD’s newest gaming processor makes use of considerably much less energy to come back inside 6% of the 14900K’s total gaming efficiency, a distinction this is so with regards to being throughout the margin of variance and take a look at setups that if I reran all my assessments subsequent week, the 9800X3D would possibly beat it outright.

But, truthfully, it does not want to do this. Intel’s 14900K is overkill for any person now not operating ingenious workloads like video enhancing, and the facility price is just too prime to justify getting an additional 6% total gaming efficiency in artificial assessments. The Ryzen 9800X3D, in the meantime, gets you successfully similar exact efficiency and at a lower price, each in MSRP phrases, but additionally decreased energy intake and oblique financial savings like now not desiring to shell out for a 360mm AIO cooler to get probably the most out of the chip.

For that, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is for sure the most productive processor for gaming you’ll be able to purchase at the moment, and it cements 3-D V-Cache as the second one maximum spectacular innovation for gaming {hardware} after AI upscaling and it is one thing that Intel simply does not have a solution for it.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Price & availability

• How a lot is it? Its MSRP is $479 / £449.99 (about AU$700)
• When is it out? It went on sale November 7, 2024
• Where are you able to get it? You can get it in america, UK, and Australia

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is to be had now in america, UK, and Australia for $479 / £449.99 / AU$799, respectively.

This is a bump up from the cost of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D it replaces, which introduced at $449 / £439 / AU$779. I’d have cherished to look the fee stay the similar, in fact, however the last-gen chip wasn’t precisely an affordable processor initially, and each chips are very a lot focused at an fanatic marketplace the place the fee bump right here is not precisely going to be a dealbreaker—as long as the efficiency building up justifies the bump in value.

In phrases of Intel’s competing choices at the moment, at the efficiency facet, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (and Intel Core i9-14900K, for that topic) is $110 / £100 / AU$300 dearer to get the similar roughly gaming efficiency. As for in-class silicon, the 9800X3D is set 15-20% dearer than the competing Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, and is more or less 33% dearer than the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X.

Essentially, the 9800X3D is a consultant chip for avid gamers, and whilst it is not a efficiency slouch, at this value it is actually just for PC avid gamers who need the most productive total gaming processor and do not a lot care about stellar efficiency somewhere else. For those that want greater than only a gaming chip, different choices from AMD and Intel can be a greater are compatible for the fee.

• Value: 3.5 / 5

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Specs

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Features & chipset

The basic specifications of the 9800X3D don’t seem to be a lot other from the 7800X3D. They each game the similar 8-core/16-thread setup because the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, yet just like the 7800X3D, the 9800X3D has an extra 64MB L3 cache whilst the Ryzen 7 9700X simplest has 32MB L3 cache.

This 3-D V-Cache within the Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been redesigned from the former two generations of AMD X3D chips. This second-generation 3-D V-Cache, as AMD calls it, essentially adjustments how the 3-D V-Cache die interfaces with the principle processing die, which addresses one of the vital primary proceedings of the former two generations of X3D chips.

In the primary iteration of 3-D V-Cache, the additional cache die used to be stacked on most sensible of the principle processing cores, yet with Second-generation V-Cache, the additional cache die is beneath the principle die, leaving the principle processing cores unfastened to at once interface with the CPU cooler.

This is a huge deal, for the reason that processing cores are the place all of the warmth is being generated, so having an additional layer of silicon between it and the CPU cooler had numerous implications for what the chip may just do. Thermals needed to be sparsely controlled, so clock speeds needed to be stored in take a look at and there used to be no skill to overclock the chip.

By transferring the 3-D V-Cache die beneath the principle processor core complicated, the thermal restraints round clock speeds and voltage now not observe, so the 9800X3D is the primary 3-D V-cache chip to characteristic complete overclocking beef up, permitting exact voltage controls on the identical voltage limits as the remainder of the Ryzen 9000-series lineup.

Compared to the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, then, the 9800X3D advantages from noticeably sooner base clock and spice up clock speeds out of the field, and overclockers can now tinker with their CPUs with out an excessive amount of worry that they will brick the chip (even though with overclocking, this is all the time conceivable and will void your guaranty, so use warning).

Beyond that, the one primary trade from the former technology is quicker DDR5 reminiscence beef up, from 5200MHz with the 7800X3D to 5600MHz with the 9800X3D, even though each chips beef up AMD EXPO reminiscence overclocking for even sooner reminiscence speeds.

• Features: 4 / 5

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Performance

At the tip of the day even though, all that fancy new tech would not quantity to a lot if the chip’s efficiency did not ship, and fortunately, it does – even though now not universally.

In the unreal benchmarks, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D confirmed very sturdy single-core efficiency on par with the remainder of the Ryzen 9000-series lineup. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D, in the meantime, lags at the back of its Ryzen 7000 siblings noticeably, owing to the want to keep watch over thermals by way of proscribing clock speeds. The Ryzen 9800X3D does now not have this downside. Likewise, its multi-core efficiency may be unconstrained, operating forward of the Ryzen 7 9700X around the board.

On the ingenious entrance, that is usually now not going to be a chip for creatives to worry themselves with – even though there’s one exception. If you are a photographer or graphic clothier who does numerous paintings in Adobe Photoshop or its choices, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s further cache goes to be a major receive advantages on your workflows, beating out even the Intel Core i9-14900K in PugetBench for Adobe Photoshop be a couple of hundred issues.

Everyone else even though, this chip isn’t going to do a lot for you.

On the gaming facet, that is the place the 9800X3D actually presentations off, even though there is a little bit of a caveat to that. In video games the place the principle CPU bottleneck is sport common sense, comparable to Total War: Warhammer III or Civilization VI, the additional 3-D V-Cache is not essentially going to lend a hand your sport efficiency. In that example, you will need one thing with the quickest clocks conceivable to buckle down and do all the ones AI choice timber or physics calculations earlier than a sport body is even drawn.

As such, Intel’s last-gen (or even current-gen) chips have a bonus in some video games like Returnal (the place complicated bullet and geometry physics are the principle CPU workload) or Total War: Warhammer III (the place numerous person actors want to have their common sense calculated temporarily) as a result of those gaming workloads get pleasure from sooner clock speeds.

Where 3-D V-Cache actually advantages gaming is when there may be knowledge being communicated from the CPU to the GPU, like texture information or type geometry, and that further cache reminiscence can retain those smaller-but-not-tiny information within the quickest conceivable reminiscence that may dangle it. This mitigates the latency presented when drawing a brand new sport body when the CPU has to return to RAM to fetch a report as it did not have already got it in its a lot nearer cache reminiscence.

Games like F1 2023 and Tiny Tina’s Wonderland benefited mightily from the additional to be had cache. In the case of the previous, the Ryzen 9800X3D simply wallops the Intel Core i9-14900K, and with regards to the latter, runs an overly shut moment to it.

Taken all in combination, the Intel Core has a slight benefit simply given the combination of video games I used to check those chips, yet for many avid gamers, the percentages are excellent that the object you will be on the lookout for is a processor that works along with your graphics card the most productive more often than not, and on this case, that’ll be the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Overall, then, with efficiency that is available in neck-and-neck with the most productive Intel processors in gaming workloads on moderate, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D would already be an out of this world chip.

But I just can’t recover from the truth that the 9800X3D can do that with simply 53% of the facility of the Core i9-14900K. Add to that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s spectacular single- and multi-core efficiency, strangely nice Photoshop efficiency, and gen-on-gen efficiency beneficial properties at little or no energy or financial price, and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is definitely one of the most perfect AMD processors ever made.

• Performance: 5 / 5

Should you purchase the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D?

Buy the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D if…

Don’t purchase it if…

Also imagine

• Originally reviewed November 2024