AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review: 3D V-Cache Goes God Mode with Stunning Gaming Performance

Demonstrating how AMD's 9800X3D with 3D V-Cache revolutionizes gaming and computational workloads for modern enthusiasts worldwide.

Hardware by Katmin on Jun 01, 2025

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D—the CPU that will surely save us from one of the most disappointing rounds of processor products launched before this. It's essential to put the concept of "X3D" into context and understand why it's so crucial to AMD and, indeed, gamers. The 5800X3D and 7800X3D were legacy products that came as close as possible to a "halo" offering in the CPU space.

The 9800X3D goes one step further in cementing AMD's dominance in the CPU market because, despite the best efforts of Ryzen 9000 and the latest Core Ultra chips, the 7800X3D remained the best gaming CPU on the market—until now. The 9800X3D comprehensively beats that, making it by far and away the leading processor in its field, obliterating the competition.

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Throughout this article, I'll dive into everything you need to know about the 9800X3D, including its specifications, its differences from its predecessors, and its performance in various game benchmarks. I'll also share my thoughts on whether it's worth the premium price and who should consider upgrading.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D Specifications Breakdown

The 9800X3D isn't an iterative product by any means. Rather than adding an extra L3 cache above the CCD (Core Complex Die), AMD has placed it underneath this time around—a move that results in lower temperatures and higher clock speeds.

The 9800X3D offers higher base clock speeds and much more L3 cache than the non-3D-V-cache-equipped 9700X. However, it's also worth noting that the TDP has increased to 120 watts, compared to 65 watts (and optionally 105 watts) for the 9700X.

Boost speeds are still 300 MHz slower on the X3D chip, but when compared to the 7800X3D, there are some nice gains: an additional 500 MHz on the base clock and an extra 200 MHz on Boost. For context, there was only a 100 MHz leap in boost clock when going from the 7700X to the 9700X, so the new design is noticeable.

At $479, this is an expensive chip. But the performance is explosive, and if you want the best of the best—the actual "halo" product—you'll have to pay a premium.

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Benchmarking Introduction

In my testing, the 9800X3D will take on its predecessor, the 7800X3D; the Ryzen 7 9700X, which is essentially a power-constrained version of the 9800X3D without the 3D cache; and, finally, Intel's most powerful gaming chip, the Core i9-14900K. I'm also going to look at some older processors for those on older "halo" platforms, considering an upgrade—specifically, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the Core i9-12900K.

Benchmark: Flight Simulator 2020

In the Limited Flight Simulator 2020 benchmark, the game places so much demand on the CPU that there isn't much scalability across resolutions. This game absolutely loves 3D cache, and whatever AMD has done to improve performance over the 7800X3D is astonishing.

We're almost 22% faster—that's 22 points clear of what was already the top performer, meaning a non-X3D chip like the Core i9-14900K is no slouch, so this is astonishing stuff. We're almost 40% faster than the 9700X, which has a 3D cache and is architecturally very similar to the 9800X3D. I'll repeat it: astonishing.

Moving to the 12th-gen Core i9 12900K and the 5800X3D, AMD's first generation into 3D V-cache is still a strong performer, beating the 12900K by 16%. That's remarkable because that's a DDR4 system beating a DDR5-based 12900K, and yet it's also a touch faster than the 14900K as well.

The 9800X3D obliterates those older chips, though—50% points clear of the 12900K and 30 points ahead of the 5800X3D. Those older chips are still excellent gaming processors to this day, which highlights that the 9800X3D is in a different league.

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Benchmark: Baldur’s Gate 3

In my automated benchmark run for Baldur's Gate 3, I see a 25% point increase for the 9800X3D over the outgoing 7800X3D and a 47-point lead over the non-3D-cache 9700X.

47% is almost comical: across the whole run, the 9700X is actually very close to the 14900K (which is only about three points faster on average), yet the 9800X3D beats the former by 47% and the latter by 43%. These are the kinds of gains we typically expect to see in the GPU space when a new product arrives; rarely do we see them in CPUs. This is legendary stuff.

Looking at the older chips, the 5800X3D is beaten by the 12900K by around 12 points, but the differentials with the 9800X3D remain huge. The new chip is 56% faster than the 12900K and 75 points clear of the 5800X3D. The hype is real, as they say. There's no letup in my automated run-through.

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Benchmark: Dragon's Dogma 2

In Dragon's Dogma 2, I see the 9800X3D 17 points ahead of the prior champion, the 7800X3D, and a more restrained 15-point advantage against the 14900K. There will always be games where specific architectures from different vendors perform better.

Still, even here, with a 32-point lead over the 9700X—an 8-core, 16-thread Zen 5 processor without a 3D cache—it's clear that 3D cache is a genuine game changer for gaming applications. Against the older 12900K, the 9800X3D has a 32-point advantage, and that widens to 46 points against the classic 5800X3D. Make no mistake: the 5800X3D is still an amazing processor, but it's not always capable of keeping up with AMD's new offering.

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Benchmark: Starfield

Starfield is interesting because, if memory serves, it was one of the only games in our suite where the new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K outperformed the 14900K. There is some Intel friendliness to this game, perhaps, but the 9800X3D still powers ahead—just not by as massive a margin as in some of our other results. It's a 12-point lead for the 9800X3D, rising to 24 points against the 7800X3D.

Even the octa-core 9700X is beaten by 26%, so anyone thinking twice about trading down should perhaps rethink that. Compared to older processors, the 5800X3D still hits around 90% of the 12900 K's performance, but the 9800X3D beats that Intel chip by 33% and the AM4 "GOAT" by 48 points.

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Benchmark: Cyberpunk 2077

Cherry Blossom Market in Cyberpunk 2077 remains one of gaming's most CPU-constrained areas, especially with Ultra RT effects enabled. Here, the 9800X3D beats the 7800X3D by 15%, rising to 19% against the 14900K.

Cyberpunk tends to be quite friendly to Core processors, so the non-3D-cache 9700X is beaten by 24%. Looking back at our older CPU champions, the X3D "old" versus the X3D "new" shows the 9800X3D beating the 5800X3D by 21 points, while the gain against the 12900K rises to 35%. This is another show of complete dominance from AMD.

Benchmark Summary: 11 Game Average

Those examples above are just the highlights from Will Judd's testing. When I used the 7800X3D as the reference point—remember, that was already the best gaming CPU on the market—and calculated the percentage differentials for the 14900K and the 9800X3D, the results were impressive.

A geometric mean indicates that the 9800X3D runs 15.49% faster than the 7800X3D on average. If we disregard Forza Horizon (where I suspect we hit GPU limits at 1080p) and Counter-Strike 2 (which also appears suspiciously low compared to the trend), the average gain rises to 16.9%.

Curiously, I wondered how many gamers could tell the difference in titles like Crisis 3 Remastered, Forza 124, and Counter-Strike 2, where frame rates are so high. I decided to remove games that average frame rates above 165 fps—my threshold for noticing differences on a 240 Hz monitor versus a 165 Hz monitor.

Doing so mostly removes the more "mediocre" results, and that average gain rises to 20.54% over what used to be the best gaming CPU. It makes me wonder if we'd see a correspondingly higher increase in overall averages just by focusing on those titles that run at relatively lower frame rates.

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Summary and Recommendations

The point is clear: even with the arrival of the Ryzen 9000 and Intel's Arrow Lake, the existing Ryzen 7 7800X3D was unassailable—it was the CPU champion, and nothing was going to get in its way. However, with the 9800X3D, that reign comes to an end.

It's extremely rare to see generation-on-generation gains this strong in the CPU space, but I'm willing to bet there are many gamers out there considering moving on from their 12th gen Intel CPUs or older AM4 systems.

To be clear, the 5800X3D is still a superb product, and even though it's effectively end-of-line now, the 5700X3D is almost as good and much cheaper than anything else covered here today—I got mine from AliExpress for around £130, which is astonishingly cheap.

In terms of convincing upgrade options, the 9800X3D is by far and away the best choice for gamers, assuming you can stomach the price point. When these chips went on sale last week, some price gouging over the already steep MSRP was unfortunate, but I was genuinely tempted to buy one.

My 13900K is still great for gaming, mind you, but the 9800X3D is in a class of its own. The only thing stopping me from jumping in right now is that a Ryzen 9 9500X3D is almost certainly coming, which will be better suited to my content-creation needs—albeit at what will doubtless be an even more eye-watering price. I can't wait to see what that chip can do.

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In the meantime, for a purely gaming-oriented build and perhaps for your first DDR5 platform, this is the new state of the art. This is simply brilliant work from AMD. To have your existing halo product (the 7800X3D) outperform the more recent competition is one thing, but to provide an in-step change in performance on top of that is rare. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D comes highly recommended.

Final thoughts

There's a lot more to explore—power consumption analysis, RAM testing, and much more—in Will Judd's full web review, so do check that out. But in the meantime, that's everything I wanted to share about the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. If you enjoy diving into CPU architecture and benchmarking as much as I do, this chip is something you'll want to keep on your radar.

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