AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D shakes things up in a big way

We all knew it was coming. A string of rumors over the past several months has pointed to AMD releasing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D on November 7, but the company itself just confirmed the new CPU. It’s looking for a spot among the best processors, packing 3D V-Cache on top of an eight-core Zen 5 CPU in order to improve gaming performance.

True to rumors we’ve seen this week, AMD is pricing the CPU at $479, which is nearly $30 more expensive than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. AMD claims that the new chip provides an average gaming increase of 8% over the last-gen CPU, and 20% faster gaming performance compared to Intel’s recent Core Ultra 9 285K. In addition, AMD says that minimum frame rates are up, with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D improving 1% lows in The Last of Us Part One by 31%.

AMD is using its second generation of 3D V-Cache, which comes with a pretty big change. Instead of stacking the cache on top of the processor, the cache is now a single die that sits below the processor. This, according to AMD, helps keep the cores cooler on the processor, allowing the CPU to hit a 5.2GHz maximum boost clock speed. This change also allows AMD to open up overclocking. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the first 3D V-Cache processor that’s fully unlocked for overclocking.

That’s the major change this time around. Outside of using the new Zen 5 architecture, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is largely the same as its last-gen counterpart. It comes with a total of 104MB of cache, along with eight cores and 16 threads. It also has the same 120-watt thermal design power (TDP), though as we saw with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, there’s a good chance the CPU will run below that power limit while gaming.

Excited to announce the next chapter in gaming greatness! The world’s best gaming processor, the @AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is here to power our community to new heights. Let’s level up together! 🚀🎮 pic.twitter.com/2ykzt6UeFc

— Jack Huynh (@JackMHuynh) October 31, 2024

It might not be as efficient, however. By placing the cache below the CPU, AMD is able to more effectively cool the cores, and therefore, push them harder. That calls for more power. That’s especially true if you dive into fully overclocking the CPU, which up to this point has only been an option through AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) on 3D V-Cache processors.

As is always the case with prerelease benchmarks, we’ll have to wait until we can strap the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in the test bench to see how it truly performs. An 8% uplift in gaming performance is promising, however, especially considering that the Ryzen 7 7800X3D has remained uncontested in gaming, even in the face of the Core Ultra 9 285K and Ryzen 9 9950X.