AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: the most effective gaming CPU

AMD has dominated PC gaming CPU efficiency for greater than two years. Its X3D chips have offered a lift that Intel has been unable to match, and its new $479 Ryzen 7 9800X3D goes a step additional to not solely enhance gaming efficiency but additionally day-to-day duties and inventive workloads.

The primary desktop Zen 5 CPUs have been disappointing in gaming, however the 9800X3D, which arrives on November seventh, makes some massive enhancements over the already-great Ryzen 7 7800X3D. I’ve been testing it over the previous week, and I’ve discovered massive enhancements to productiveness workloads, alongside round an 8 % leap in gaming efficiency.

Identical to the $449 7800X3D, should you largely play video games in your PC, then the 9800X3D ought to be your subsequent CPU.

AMD’s productiveness enhancements with the 9800X3D are largely because of a redesign of the processor. AMD is utilizing a second era of its 3D V-Cache expertise that sees the cache now sit beneath the processor cores. It’s an enormous distinction meaning the processor cores have higher entry to cooling and the cache is now much less delicate to excessive temperatures. That’s the massive cause AMD has been capable of ramp up the bottom clock pace by 500MHz and add a further 200MHz to the increase clock.

Each of those clock pace will increase have helped increase productiveness efficiency, alongside the Zen 5 structure. For the primary time on an X3D chip, AMD is even supporting overclocking, which ought to imply we’ll see some much more spectacular outcomes from this processor.

I’ve been testing AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D with a Gigabyte X870E Aorus Grasp motherboard, 32GB of G.Talent DDR5-6000, and Nvidia’s RTX 4090. This is likely one of the newest AM5 motherboards, however the 9800X3D will work with current AM5 boards because of BIOS updates.

I’ve examined quite a lot of workloads, artificial benchmarks, and video games throughout AMD’s new Ryzen 7 9800X3D, its current 7800X3D, and Intel’s $589 Core i9-14900K and Core Extremely 9 285K. All of the checks have been run on Home windows 11 (model 24H2) with virtualization-based safety (VBS) and resizable BAR enabled.

All checks are carried out at 1080p decision to research uncooked CPU efficiency. Like most different CPU reviewers, we don’t check at 1440p or 4K in video games to make sure we’re demonstrating the variations between CPUs. Most video games demand extra from the GPU at increased resolutions, as an alternative of the CPU. However a greater CPU can nonetheless assist out at 4K, particularly for upscaling applied sciences like DLSS or in CPU-heavy titles like Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, and Microsoft Flight Simulator.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D blows the 7800X3D away in productiveness and creator workloads. It’s not even shut. In Geekbench 6, the 9800X3D is round 20 % sooner than the 7800X3D in each single-threaded and multithreaded efficiency. In Cinebench 2024, it’s practically 16 % sooner for the single-thread check and an enormous 27 % sooner on the multithreaded workload.

Even in Premiere Professional and Photoshop PugetBench checks, the 9800X3D leaves the 7800X3D behind, with an 18 % enhance in efficiency in PugetBench for Photoshop and simply shy of 10 % within the Premiere Professional check.

These scores reveal the massive enhancements AMD has made to the 9800X3D for day-to-day duties and creator workloads. It’s nonetheless largely behind Intel’s newest Core Extremely 9 285K in these workloads, however AMD has considerably closed the hole the 7800X3D had.

Over on the gaming facet, AMD has prolonged its lead, particularly towards Intel’s Core Extremely 9 285K. Like many different reviewers, once I examined Intel’s newest desktop CPU final month, I discovered that it was a step again in gaming efficiency in comparison with the Core i9-14900K.

The 7800X3D already comfortably beat the 14900K and Core Extremely 9 285K, and the 9800X3D leaves Intel’s gaming CPU efforts even additional behind. Throughout my checks, I’ve discovered that the 9800X3D is round 8 % sooner in video games than the 7800X3D. That’s precisely what AMD promised when it introduced the 9800X3D, and in some video games, it’s even increased.

In Metro Exodus, I noticed body charges with the 9800X3D that have been practically 14 % increased than the 7800X3D. Cyberpunk 2077 additionally improved by practically 11 %. To place that in perspective, the 9800X3D is 50 % sooner than Intel’s newest Core Extremely 9 285K in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1080p. It’s an astonishing hole for Intel that implies there have to be some form of bug with that exact mixture of sport and CPU. However the 9800X3D remains to be 38 % sooner than Intel’s earlier 14900K, so AMD has a powerful benefit right here both means.

If you wish to squeeze much more efficiency out of the 9800X3D in video games, Gigabyte affords an X3D turbo mode on the Aorus Grasp, which boosts single-thread efficiency by performing some bandwidth tuning, unifying CPU core distribution, and balancing a few of the {hardware} energy. The result’s decrease total efficiency in workloads that depend on multithreaded efficiency however some will increase in sport efficiency, relying on the sport.

I noticed a 9 % leap in efficiency in Metro Exodus with X3D turbo mode enabled, with only a 3 % enhance in Cyberpunk 2077. Different video games noticed a smaller enhance, like Shadow of the Tomb Raider seeing a lift of practically 2 %. In 2023’s Forza Motorsport, the X3D turbo mode had no impact on efficiency. You positively sacrifice multithreaded efficiency in creator workloads you probably have this enabled within the BIOS, although.

This further efficiency does come at a slight value to energy draw and thermals. Throughout Cinebench 2024, I observed the 9800X3D hit a CPU bundle temperature of 88 levels Celsius, greater than the 82C I noticed on the 7800X3D throughout the identical check. The 9800X3D additionally used 160 watts at its peak throughout this check, whereas the 7800X3D solely hit 89 watts. 

Each chips have a 120-watt TDP, however it’s clear that the 9800X3D is utilizing this as a rule. Through the Black Fable: Wukong benchmark, the 9800X3D was utilizing 131 watts, greater than double the 63 watts that the 7800X3D was utilizing for a similar check. The 9800X3D energy draw remains to be far behind Intel’s power-hungry 14900K throughout creator workloads, which pulls greater than 260 watts throughout Cinebench checks. Energy draw may even differ relying on the varieties of video games you’re enjoying.

What’s clear to me with this 9800X3D is that AMD has now established an much more spectacular hole over Intel in gaming efficiency, whereas shrinking the efficiency variations in productiveness and creator workloads. I feel this smaller hole on the non-gaming facet will now tempt extra creators who additionally play video games over to AMD. 

Intel sacrificed gaming efficiency in favor of effectivity with its Core Extremely 9 285K, however many PC players merely don’t care about energy effectivity until it leads to considerably cooler temperatures and, subsequently, higher efficiency and fewer throttling. Intel’s sacrifices make the 9800X3D an apparent buy if you would like the most effective PC gaming efficiency, and the Core Extremely 9 285K is an apparent selection if you would like the most effective in productiveness and creator efficiency and play video games little or no or by no means. 

If, like me, you’re somebody who performs a whole lot of PC video games but additionally renders 4K movies and wishes nice efficiency in productiveness duties, then it’s a more durable selection. Intel has all the time provided a superb stability between creator workloads and gaming, however AMD beats it in gaming and is closing the hole on the productiveness facet. If I have been largely gaming, I might choose the 9800X3D and even wait to see what a rumored 16-core Ryzen 9000 X3D chip may ship very quickly.