The new king of the gaming CPU hill has arrived.

On 7th November 2024, the successor to what is undoubtedly the best gaming processor on the market launches for sale to the public; enter the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which has big shoes to fill as it takes over the helm from its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Built atop the "Zen 5" architecture and packing AMD's new 2nd Generation 3D V-Cache technology, the 9800X3D sports higher clock speeds than its predecessor and for the first time ever with a "X3D" part, full overclockability. Read on to learn more about this gaming processor and whether or not it's worthy of inheriting the best gaming CPU crown from the 7800X3D!

Specifications & Technology

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D shares the same eight-core/16 thread configuration as its predecessor, where it also sports the same amount of L2 and L3 cache as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. That said, the 9800X3D sports higher clock speeds, where it's 200 MHz faster than the 7800X3D in terms of maximum boost clock, and 500 MHz faster when it comes to base clock - these increases in clock speeds are achieved while maintaining the same 120W TDP as the 7800X3D. It's worth noting that with the 9800X3D, the maximum operating temperature (Tjmax) has been increased to 95°C, an early indication that we should see the 9800X3D running hotter than the 7800X3D while under intensive workloads.

A key feature of the 9800X3D is its utilisation of AMD's new 2nd Generation 3D V-Cache technology - with previous iterations of X3D offerings, namely the "Zen 3" 5800X3D and "Zen 4" 7800X3D, the 3D V-Cache was layered on top of the respective "Zen 3" and "Zen 4" cores. This time round with the 9800X3D, AMD has relocated the 3D V-Cache such that it is now placed beneath the "Zen 5" Core Complex Die (CCD).

As a result of this, the 9800X3D's CCD is in direct contact with the CPU cooler, leading to perhaps improved cooling efficiency - this facilitates the processor's ability to operate at higher single-threaded and multi-threaded clock speeds for a sustained period of time.

Packaging & Contents

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D comes with the following accessories:

• Case badge
• Certificate of authenticity/installation instructions/warranty information booklet
• AMD Community promotional leaflet

Test Setup & Benchmark Tests

To put the Ryzen 7 9800X3D through its paces, I've pitted it against my own personal Ryzen 7 7800X3D that I had purchased from retail previously, using a test bench PC with the following specifications:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D / AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (stock settings with PBO & Curve Optimiser disabled)
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB
• CPU Thermal Paste: Thermalright TF7
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER (N5 BIOS revision)
• Memory: 32GB (2x16GB) G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB DDR5 6000 CL28
• Storage: Samsung 990 PRO 1TB NVMe SSD
• Graphics Card: Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER 24G
• Case: Open-air test bench
• Monitor: Gigabyte G27Q 27" LCD monitor (144 Hz, 1440p)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (23H2 with all latest updates installed, VBS enabled, "Balanced" power profile)
• Chipset Driver: AMD 6.09.25.044
• Graphics Driver: NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver 566.03
• Resizable BAR: Enabled
• Ambient Temperature of Test Surroundings: ~30°C (non-airconditioned room)

A note on the Ryzen 7 7800X3D that was used in this comparison test - the said processor is a tray variant purchased from retail by yours truly, and based on my prior experience benchmarking with this very chip on other motherboards, it would appear that I've come up short in the silicon lottery; the 7800X3D that I have tends to score on the lower side of things when it comes to productivity benchmarks, especially when taking into consideration the scores that tech media platforms have published for their 7800X3D reviews when it first launched. As such, do bear this in mind when comparing the benchmark results of the 9800X3D (which was a media review unit supplied by AMD Singapore) against the 7800X3D in this article.

In addition, it's worth noting too that AMD had supplied the Gigabyte motherboard, G.Skill RAMs and Samsung SSD for this review - the Gigabyte X870E AORUS MASTER came shipped with the N5 BIOS revision, which I suppose is a beta BIOS meant for media platforms publishing Day 1 reviews, seeing as it isn’t available for download from Gigabyte’s website.

As pictured above, the N5 BIOS doesn’t come with Gigabyte’s "X3D Turbo Mode" feature that was only just introduced recently, with Gigabyte claiming that the said Turbo Mode can help improve the performance of certain AM5 processors, especially X3D processors. In any case, both the 9800X3D and 7800X3D were tested with everything on stock vanilla settings - for RAM settings, EXPO was enabled using the G.Skill RAMs' default EXPO profile, with no further tweaks to memory settings and timings.

CPU-Z Screenshots

Benchmark Tests

To test the performance of the 9800X3D and 7800X3D, the following benchmarks were run:

Productivity Benchmarks

• 7-Zip Compression & Decompression
• Cinebench R23
• Cinebench 2024
• Corona 10 Benchmark

Gaming Benchmarks

• Assassin's Creed Mirage In-game Benchmark
• Black Myth Wukong Benchmark Tool
• Cyberpunk 2077 v2.13 In-game Benchmark
• F1 23 In-game Benchmark
• Far Cry 6 In-game Benchmark
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider In-game Benchmark

For gaming benchmarks, all tests were run on the 1080p resolution.

Clock Behaviour, Thermals & Power

On an all-core workload (Cinebench 2024 Multi Core benchmark), the 9800X3D ran at around 5.17GHz across all cores, achieving an average temperature (Tctl/Tdie) of 90.8°C, a low of 83°C and a high of 92.4°C, while achieving around 145.7W of power draw on average when looking at the CPU Package Power metric via HWiNFO64.

Productivity Benchmark - 7-Zip Compression & Decompression

We’re off to a good start, where the 9800X3D was 16% faster than the 7800X3D when it comes to compression scores, and 15.3% faster than the 7800X3D when it comes to decompression scores.

Productivity Benchmark - Cinebench R23

Moving on to Cinebench R23, we see that the 9800X3D attains a multicore score of 22965 as compared to 17173 with the 7800X3D – again bearing in mind I probably came up short on the silicon lottery for my 7800X3D when purchasing it, as 7800X3Ds can score around 18000 points on stock settings for Cinebench R23’s multi core test – from the internet, I’ve seen numerous reports of owners of 7800X3Ds scoring anywhere between 16000 points to 17000 points for the Cinebench R23 multi core test, an indication of how wide the performance variance can be with the 7800X3D. In any case, this is a test on stock settings with no Curve Optimiser whatsoever, and the results represent a 33.7% performance gain with the 9800X3D. For the single core test, the 9800X3D scored 2087 points, an 18.8% improvement over the 7800X3D’s score of 1757.

Productivity Benchmark - Cinebench 2024

With Cinebench 2024, the 9800X3D achieves a 27.9% performance gain over the 7800X3D for the multi core test with a score of 1347 points, and an 18.9% performance improvement over the 7800X3D for the single core test with a score of 132 points.

Productivity Benchmark - Corona 10

Rounding off this section on productivity benchmarks, the 9800X3D is whopping 41.1% faster than the 7800X3D for the Corona 10 benchmark.

Based on the results obtained above, it appears that we’re getting pretty decent productivity performance gains with the 9800X3D over the 7800X3D.

Gaming Benchmark - Assassin's Creed Mirage In-game Benchmark

With Assassin’s Creed Mirage's built-in benchmark tool on the 1080p resolution with the "High" preset and all forms of upscaling disabled, the 7800X3D beats the 9800X3D in terms of average FPS by a small margin, representing a 0.8% performance regression by the 9800X3D.

Gaming Benchmark - Black Myth Wukong Benchmark Tool

Curiously, with Black Myth Wukong's standalone benchmark tool, where the "Cinematic" graphics preset was used with ray tracing set to "Very High" and both DLSS and Frame Generation enabled, the 7800X3D manages to match the 9800X3D in terms of average FPS using the game’s standalone benchmark tool, though as can be seen above, the 9800X3D does have improved maximum and minimum FPS figures, with a 59.5% and 3.6% improvement in maximum and minimum FPS respectively over the 7800X3D.

Gaming Benchmark - Cyberpunk 2077 v2.13 In-game Benchmark Tool

Moving on to Cyberpunk 2077's in-game benchmark, on the "High" preset with ray tracing and all forms of upscaling disabled, the 9800X3D achieves a 15.1% improvement in terms of average FPS when compared to the 7800X3D, with similar gains to be had in terms of maximum and minimum FPS figures too.

Gaming Benchmark - F1 23 In-game Benchmark Tool

F1 23’s in-game benchmark test sees a smaller performance gain by the 9800X3D over the 7800X3D, with a 4.3% increase in average FPS - these results were achieved on the "High" preset with all forms of upscaling disabled.

Gaming Benchmark - Far Cry 6 In-game Benchmark Tool

With Far Cry 6's in-game benchmark test, where the game was set to the "High" preset with DXR disabled and the HD Texture Pack disabled, the 9800X3D beats the 7800X3D handily with a 28.6% increase in average FPS, scoring 270 FPS versus the 7800X3D’s 210 FPS.

Gaming Benchmark - Shadow of the Tomb Raider In-game Benchmark Tool

Rounding off this section on gaming benchmarks is a 11.9% performance bump by the 9800X3D over the 7800X3D, when it comes to average FPS figures with Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s in-game benchmark. The game was set to the "High" preset with all forms of upscaling disabled and ray tracing disabled.

Pricing & Conclusion

To sum up, the 9800X3D seems to be a worthy successor of the 7800X3D that it replaces, where for the most part, we get double-digit performance gains across the board when it comes to gaming and productivity performance, except for Assassin's Creed Mirage and Black Myth Wukong, where I did observe some minor regression – this is very much in-line with AMD’s internal benchmark data, where the brand's internal testing did reveal a handful of games that had performance regressions. Granted, for the purposes of this review, I’ve only had the chance to test the 9800X3D with six game titles and a small selection of productivity benchmark tests, but based on some of AMD’s internal test data across a much wider range of game titles and productivity applications, the 9800X3D seems to represent a good step up in overall performance compared to the 7800X3D, especially on the productivity side of things. I’m sure in due course, we’ll have more data points to confirm this as more tech reviewers give their takes on the 9800X3D’s performance in the coming days and weeks.

According to AMD, the 9800X3D will be available to purchase for a price of $479 USD, which represents a $30 increase on the 7800X3D’s initial launch price. That said, it remains to be seen how the value situation will be like, especially with Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200S series of processors bombing at launch due to their lacklustre gaming performance, and prices of the 7800X3D increasing at retail over the past few months due to what is likely a drop in supply and increase in demand. Given the state of the processor market at the present moment, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how the pricing situation evolves in the coming weeks before forming an opinion on the 9800X3D’s value. That said, if we were to look at things from a pure performance perspective alone, I think it’s safe to say that AMD has retained the gaming processor crown for the foreseeable future with its new Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Get the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D from Amazon: https://amzn.to/4fbn7St (affiliate link)

Get the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D from Amazon: https://amzn.to/4hst53f (affiliate link)

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The processor, motherboard, RAM and SSD featured in this article were review units provided on loan from AMD Singapore, while the graphics card was provided on loan from CDL Trading Pte Ltd, an authorised distributor for Gigabyte in Singapore.