AMD has officially announced its Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, one of the worst-kept “secrets” in the tech world this year (alongside Apple’s just-unveiled M4 Macs).
The Ryzen 9800X3D is pretty much exactly as the avalanche of rumors suggested AMD confirms that, as shown by previous specifications, it has 8 cores (16 threads) and a base clock speed of 4.7 GHz with a maximum boost frequency of 5.2 GHz. Earlier today, the US price was rumored to be $479, and this has now been confirmed: an increase of $30 over the 7800X3D’s MSRP.
Again, as leaked this is an unlocked chip, so it can be overclocked. AMD explains that the Ryzen 9800X3D is a ‘2nd generation’ 3D V-Cache (as previously rumored), with the cache this time under the CCD (the die with the cores).
What this means is that the cores are now closer to the cooling solution and therefore stay cooler – allowing for higher clock speeds compared to last generation X3D.
As a result, AMD claims the Ryzen 9800X3D is 8% faster than the 7800X3D for gaming framerates, as averaged from testing across a large package of some 40+ popular PC games (with a 7900 XTX GPU).
Some bigger boosts will be seen, and some games will witness double-digit gains (Star Wars Outlaws is mentioned as one of them). AMD also claims that the Ryzen 9800X3D is ‘on average’ 20% faster than a system powered by Intel’s new flagship, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K.
The Ryzen 9800X3D has a TDP of 120W and a total of 104MB cache, of which 64MB is the 3D V-Cache.
Analysis: Don’t forget the higher lows
So everything is about as expected, including that 8% generation gain for PC gaming framerates that was previously leaked – and disappointed some people. Perhaps that’s why AMD has properly qualified this press release around the topic of gen-on-gen improvements – the figure is just an average, and some titles will undoubtedly do a lot better than this (in certain scenarios). Although we don’t get a sense of what some of the bigger improvements might be.
What we do get is a clear comparison to Arrow Lake’s flagship, albeit with some strange wording: what is “up to an average” of 20%? Does this just mean the average is 20%? But if that’s the case, why stay ‘up to’ – it’s either a top mark or it’s an average, full stop anyway? Or does that mean it’s 20% if you choose a selection of certain games, but not all (AMD tested some in that comparison)?
We don’t know, but since Arrow Lake has stumbled when it comes to gaming, we’d expect a favorable comparison for the new Ryzen 9800X3D anyway.
As part of building the case for the Ryzen 9800X3D’s power, AMD is specifically highlighting the chip’s generational improvement in terms of minimum frame rates. A given example is The Last Of Us: Part 1, where Team Red says the 9800X3D has a “similar average frame rate to the competition” (the Intel Core i9-14900K), but it is 31% higher when compared to 1% low frame rates. What that means is that the Ryzen CPU delivers more consistent smoothness, with fewer drops (or judders) at very low frame rates – and that’s definitely a good thing.
But as always, we need independent testing to ensure these claims hold true as AMD has stated in this press release. The Ryzen 9800X3D will go on sale in a week’s time on November 7 for $479, as mentioned – and there will be some disappointment with the increase in MSRP from generation to generation.
Still, it’s not a huge increase by any means, but some may be gritting their teeth because they didn’t buy the 7800X3D when it went on sale a few months ago for not much more than $300. We’ll just have to see how the Ryzen 9800X3D fares when we put the chip to the test itself – and how much better the CPU could be than its predecessor in our benchmarks. Stay informed.