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-revealed M4 Macs).
The Ryzen 9800X3D is pretty much just as the avalanche of rumors suggested, with AMD confirming that as seen with previous spilled specs, it has 8 cores (16 threads) and a 4.7GHz base clock speed with a 5.2GHz max boost frequency. A rumor broke earlier today that the price would be $479 in the US, and this is now confirmed, too – a $30 hike on the MSRP of the 7800X3D.
Again, as leaked, this is an unlocked chip, so it can be overclocked. AMD explains that the Ryzen 9800X3D is ‘2nd-gen’ 3D V-Cache (as was rumored before), with the cache underneath the CCD (the die containing the cores) this time.
What this means is that the cores are now closer to the cooling solution, and therefore will be kept cooler – allowing for faster clock speeds compared to last-gen X3D.
The upshot is that AMD claims the Ryzen 9800X3D is 8% faster than the 7800X3D for gaming frame rates, as an average from testing across a large suite of some 40+ popular PC games (with a 7900 XTX GPU).
There are going to be some bigger boosts witnessed, and some games will witness double-digit gains (Star Wars Outlaws is singled out as one). AMD also claims the Ryzen 9800X3D is ‘up to an average’ of 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 about the higher lows
Everything is pretty much as expected, then, including that 8% generational gain for PC gaming…
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