AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

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AMD’s new "Zen 5" microarchitecture has proven to be a clear step up from the last generation's "Zen 4." Performance didn’t increase substantially, but power consumption and heat production are way down, signaling robust growth in efficiency. Now, AMD introduces a newly evolved version of its 3D V-Cache technology, targeted mainly at PC gamers and showing up first in the Ryzen 7 9800X3D ($479) desktop CPU. This processor features a robust secondary on-die component with 64MB of cache, pushing the processor’s total L3 cache pool up to 96MB. This confers benefits in a few select areas, but priced at $479, this processor is not a good value. AMD's own non-X3D Ryzen 7 and 9 processors in its 9000 series will be a better bet for most buyers.

AMD's Second-Gen 3D V-Cache Explained

The new 3D V-Cache design essentially turns the old design upside down. First-generation 3D V-Cache chips sat on top of a re-engineered Zen 3 or Zen 4 Core Complex Die (CCD, or main compute portion), but the second-gen design places the 3D V-Cache chip underneath an altered Zen 5 CCD. This change attempts to resolve one of the most significant issues that affected first-gen 3D V-Cache designs.

All computer chips have power and thermal limitations. Typically, one or both of these factors set the upper limits of what a computer chip can do. Pushing more power will enable you to push the chip to run at higher clock speeds, which leads to better performance so long as you don’t push so much power that you damage the chip or cause it to overheat. This makes cooling components like processors vital to achieving the best possible performance, and the 3D V-Cache chip portion, to an extent, got in the way of this on first-gen designs.

This happened for two key reasons. First, the 3D V-Cache layer directly blocked heat transfer from the compute portion into the processor's integrated heat spreader (IHS) and thus onward to the CPU cooler. Second, because the 3D V-Cache chip itself consumed power and produced heat, the CPU portion of the processor had to be configured to produce less heat to avoid overheating.

Placing the 3D V-Cache underneath the CPU cores essentially flips the issue. The cache likely can’t be clocked quite as high, but the more important CPU cores are better cooled and, thus, don’t need to be clocked down quite as much to avoid overheating. Cache, particularly L3 cache, has often been clocked lower than the CPU cores on numerous processors, so this design fits better with standard best practices in the processor world.

This time, the 3D V-Cache chip is also the same size in terms of die area as the Zen 5 CCD that sits atop it. I don’t have an exact measurement of the older 3D V-Cache die, but diagrams have made it appear to be roughly half or two-thirds the size of the Zen 3 and Zen 4 CCDs. AMD set spacers to the left and right of these 3D V-Cache chips to make a flat mounting surface for the IHS. The larger and more spread out V-Cache die that's still 64MB in capacity also likely helps with thermals as the heat production extends over a larger area.

Another plus to this design is that AMD made the 9800X3D unlocked. Earlier processors with 3D V-Cache had their multiplier fixed, and overclocking was severely limited. This was likely necessary, as overclocking the CPU cores when the 3D V-Cache was on top of them could cause the heat to build up and damage either the CPU cores or the 3D V-Cache. This is still a concern with the 3D V-Cache on the bottom, but less so as the processor cores are likely what generates the most heat, and those are more directly cooled in this configuration. AMD at least seems comfortable enough with overclocking in this configuration, as it enabled the feature on the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D on Paper

With that out of the way, let’s look closer at the Ryzen 7 9800X3D before diving into the test results. As a 9000-series Ryzen 7 processor, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D shares many similarities with the Ryzen 7 9700X. Both have eight CPU cores in a single CCD, and both can operate up to 16 threads with enabled simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) technology. Both also come equipped with a Radeon RDNA 2 integrated graphics processor (IGP) and support DDR5 RAM clocked as high as 5,600MHz.

You'll find just four key areas where these processors differ in specs. Internally, of course, they are more different due to the 3D V-Cache chip on the 9800X3D, and that’s the most significant difference between them on paper, too. (The 9800X3D has 96MB of L3 cache, while the 9700X has just 32MB.) The base clock on the 9800X3D is surprisingly higher than the 9700X at 4.7GHz, compared with the 9700X’s 3.8GHz. But this spec is a bit misleading, suggesting the 9800X3D is always clocked higher. In truth, base clocks are nearly meaningless today and have been for more than a decade now, as the boost or turbo clock typically determines a CPU’s max operating frequency.

Looking at the boost clocks, we instead see the 9700X is the higher clocked of the two processors. The 9700X can boost up to 5.5GHz, while the 9800X3D tops out at 5.2GHz, giving the 9700X an advantage of roughly 6%. That covers three key spec differences, the last being the TDP rating. The 9800X3D has a TDP of 120 watts (W), with the 9700X shipping with a default TDP of 65W. It is possible to increase the TDP on the 9700X to 105W, should you want to, and many motherboards now support a one-click option to do this in the BIOS. It was tested in both configurations for this review.

Though not necessarily a difference in specs, it’s also important to point out the price difference. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is priced high at $479, much more than the Ryzen 7 9700X at $359. This makes it far closer in terms of price to the Ryzen 9 9900X at $499, but that processor has a dozen CPU cores instead of eight, and it has 64MB of L3 cache that brings it closer to the 9800X3D than the 9700X and thus minimizes that advantage from the 9800X3D.

Testing the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Processor Performance

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D was tested on our AMD test bed that was updated recently to use a Gigabyte X870E Aorus Master motherboard and two 16GB sticks of DDR5 RAM for a total of 32GB of memory. Added to this are a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD, a SilverStone DA850 850W power supply, a Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL240 Flux water cooler, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super Founders Edition graphics card. All of these parts were assembled on a Praxis Wetbench chassis, and all tests were performed inside Windows 11 Pro with the latest updates installed.

The test results from AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D are more interesting than most because they are less predictable. In Cinebench 2024, the 9800X3D outperformed the stock standard 9700X in the multi-threaded test by a healthy 20%, but this is a bit of a hollow victory. The 9800X3D has a much higher TDP, likely driving the difference. When the 9700X is configured to operate in its 105W TDP mode, that advantage shrinks to 7%. If the 9700X could be easily configured with a 120W TDP, it may have even been able to match the 9800X3D.

Either way, neither a 20% nor a 7% increase makes up for a 33% increase in price. On the same Cinebench multi-threaded test, the Ryzen 9 9900X, with its extra cores, was unquestionably faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, with a near-30% advantage.

Blender might benefit from the larger pool of cache on the 9800X3D, as this is one of the few tests in which we saw the 9800X3D significantly ahead of the 9700X. (I’ll mainly focus on the 105W TDP results from now on for the 9700X.) Here, the 9800X3D was up to 11% faster than the 9700X with this higher power setting. It also showed comfortable leads over Intel’s just released "Arrow Lake" Core Ultra 5 245K, but the Ryzen 9 9900X was still far faster than all three.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s performance in Cinebench 2024 and Blender was its most significant win versus the Ryzen 7 9700X, but it didn’t perform too poorly in the remaining tests. In HandBrake 1.8, the 9800X3D was 9 seconds faster than the 105W-TDP-configured 9700X on the test rendering task, but this time, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K pulled ahead of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and completed the test 15 seconds faster. In POV-Ray 3.7, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D turned in the worst single-threaded score of any processor since the last-gen 3D V-Cache chips. Its multi-threaded performance was better here, and closer to par with the Ryzen 7 9700X, but it was still a bit slower than the Ultra 5 245K and the Ryzen 9 9900X.

Our Adobe Premiere Pro 24 test, conducted using the PugetBench for Creators test utility, showed the Ryzen 7 9800X3D possibly gaining some minor advantage again from the added cache, placing roughly 6% ahead of the Ryzen 7 9700X. The last test here, with AIDA 64, didn’t show any significant difference between the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the Ryzen 7 9700X, but it again showed the Ryzen 9 9900X to be clearly faster.

Testing the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: 3D V-Cache Plus an RTX 4080 Super

We saw a few gains in the CPU tests for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but nothing big enough to justify its higher price compared with the Ryzen 7 9700X. That could change in the gaming tests. After all, AMD targets its processors with 3D V-Cache as enthusiast gaming processors, so this should be where they shine the most, right?

Well, starting with 3DMark, we saw no appreciable difference among any of the test CPUs. In F1 2024, the Ryzen 7 9800X managed to push the frames per second (fps) count up slightly higher than the competition, but not by much. The difference between the 9800X3D and the 105W TDP Ryzen 7 9700X was less than 2% across the board. At stock TDP, the 9700X was only about 3% behind the 9800X3D, as was the 9900X.

Cyberpunk 2077 showed similar results with the 9700X and 9800X3D, essentially tying when the 9700X is configured with its higher TDP; otherwise, the difference is just 3%. The 9800X3D, 9900X, and 9700X all performed identically in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

It’s only in the last two tests that we saw anything different. Here in Total War: Three Kingdoms and Shadow of the Tomb Raider, at 1080p in both games, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D finally displayed some gaming aptitude above what the Ryzen 7 9700X can produce. In Total War, the 9800X3D was 6% faster than the 9700X with the 105W TDP and 8% faster than the 9900X. Shadow of the Tomb Raider placed the 9800X3D about 12% ahead of the 9700X with the 105W TDP and 10% faster than the Ryzen 9 9900X.

Testing the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Radeon RDNA2 IGP Performance

AMD’s desktop processors have not changed much in terms of integrated graphics. The new Ryzen 9000 series uses the same IGP chip as the older Ryzen 7000 series, with identical clocks and features.

The IGP isn’t all that bad, and it was able to run the games we tested. Granted, you get playable frame rates in these titles only if you drop the resolution to 720p and turn the graphics settings down reasonably far. But if this IGP were all you had, you would be able to find some games, probably older ones, that will run and be playable with decent settings. Of course, almost no one buys a 3D V-Cache CPU to use the IGP. It's all about gaining slivers of gaming performance with a high-end graphic card paired with the CPU.

One note: The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is missing from the Call of Duty chart. That’s not a mistake; the game kept crashing for the 9800X3D. That may sound contradictory to the previous paragraph, but as mentioned, these AMD CPUs have precisely the same IGP. This is why they all perform about the same.

The 9800X3D’s IGP was stable outside of Call of Duty and never caused the system to crash, so its issues here are likely related to a driver issue or something similar that will likely get patched (if it hasn’t been already, by the time you read this). For now, lacking numbers for the 9800X3D in Call of Duty, it’s safe to assume if it did work, it would perform along the lines of the other AMD Ryzen 9000-series chips in the chart above.

Testing the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Power & Thermal Performance

Improved power consumption and lower heat generation are hallmarks of the new Ryzen 9000 series. With the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, AMD sidelined all that. We use a Kill-A-Watt wall meter to measure the power consumption of the test bed as a whole, so expect some variation as we check the whole system and not just the CPU. Even so, it’s clear from the chart that the 9800X3D consumed a fair bit more power relative to its core count than all of the competition.

To be fair, the Ryzen 7 9700X with the 105W TDP is also less efficient than the same CPU configured with a 65W TDP, and with the higher TDP setting, it does come close to the 9800X3D. However, the 9800X3D consumed between 37% and 62% more power than the 9700X when configured with a 65W TDP. It also came surprisingly close to consuming as much power as the Ryzen 9 9 9900X, and its power consumption was a fair bit higher than that of the Ultra 5 245K, too.

The 9800X3D's operating temperature was acceptable, topping out at 82 degrees Celsius, but this was notably higher than the 9900X.

Verdict: An Able Enough Chip That Costs Too Much

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a processor that doesn't make sense as it is positioned and priced. That may seem harsh given its performance numbers, but you must look at the whole picture and how the 9800X3D relates to its competition. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has three main competitors; realistically, it fails against all of them.

First, compare the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with the Ryzen 7 9700X. You clearly get a touch more CPU performance with the 9800X3D. The double-digit percentage increases in Blender and Cinebench are impressive. Setting the 9700X to have a 105W TDP helped it close the gap considerably with the 9800X3D, though. From performance alone, the 9800X3D could be argued as the better of the two chips if the 9800X3D didn’t cost $479 and the Ryzen 7 9700X didn’t cost $369. That's 33% more money for a 17% advantage in Blender and, realistically, a 7% advantage in Cinebench. That math clearly shows the 9700X to be the better option if CPU performance is what matters most.

Next is the Core Ultra 5 245K, priced even lower at $309. In this case, it’s even easier to argue for the Ultra 5 245K as, in addition to costing less than the 9800X3D, it was also faster in many tests and came closer to matching the 9800X3D’s Blender performance than the 9700X. If the 9700X is a better buy than the 9800X3D, then the Ultra 5 245K is a better buy than the 9700X.

Last is the Ryzen 9 9900X. This one costs just $20 more than the 9800X3D. For that increase in cost, you get drastically more performance in everything outside of games. As an example of how much faster the 9900X is, check the Cinebench scores, and you’ll see that the 9900X was about 30% faster than the 9800X3D.

Taken as a whole, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, on paper, has the price of a Ryzen 9 while performing like a Ryzen 7, and this makes it hard to recommend. We can’t even think of any niche areas where this processor would have an advantage. AMD would, of course, suggest gaming, but that advantage exists only at lower resolutions and graphics settings--and in our test titles, only mildly. Whatever you want to do with your PC, you can easily find a better-value processor than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, starting with the Ryzen 7 9700X and the Ryzen 9 9900X. It may gain some cred, though, if AMD eventually drops the price.