AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D price and specs leak suggest surprising performance

The specs and early pricing for AMD's highly anticipated Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor have been leaked online from retailers, painting an exciting picture of AMD's next 3D V-cache processor, which many expect to arrive on November 7th comes onto the market.

European comparison site Geizhals (via Tomshardware) has published a full specs table for the new processor and found some surprising results in it. First, the frequencies are listed as 4.7 GHz for the base frequency and 5.2 GHz for the peak boost frequency. The former is a whopping 500MHz higher than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, suggesting it will have much higher multi-threaded performance.

What's new?

The peak boost frequency is also important as it suggests higher frequencies even in low-threaded workloads, as it is 200MHz higher than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which was only at 5GHz. The key takeaway here is that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D will likely offer much better performance than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D outside of gaming, and content creation has clearly been a weak point for 3D V-cache models in the past. The fact that AMD has moved the 64MB 3D V-cache from top to bottom of the cores means more thermal headroom as the cores are now in direct contact with the processor's heat spreader.

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Of course, the higher frequencies have another important influence, namely on the frame rates in games. The Ryzen 9000 series had a disappointing start as it didn't offer significantly better performance in games than the Ryzen 7000 series. There are fears that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D could suffer a similar fate, but the spec leak confirms the benefits of moving the 3D V-cache beneath the CCD and cores, with these much higher frequencies undoubtedly increasing in-game frame rates as well.

Ryzen 7 9800X3D prices

US retailers have quoted prices between $450 and $500 in recent weeks, while in Europe prices at retailers who accidentally posted their product pages, including taxes, have typically been around 550 euros, which is 50 euros higher than the introductory price of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D lies. So early indications suggest that prices will be similar, but we'll have to wait until launch day for confirmed prices.

Current information suggests that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D has about 8% higher gaming performance than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, but offers significantly more 15% more performance when creating multi-threaded content. This may not justify an upgrade from the older 7800X3D, but it would certainly justify choosing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D over the older CPU as long as the launch price isn't crazy.

Another interesting move from AMD is that the spec leak suggests that the processor will also support overclocking – the first 3D V-cache AMD processor to do so. This is significant because it means that even more power could be achieved by further increasing the frequencies.

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If the Ryzen 7 9800X3D delivers the expected performance, it would be a big win for AMD, as it would save face from a disappointing launch of the Ryzen 9000 with its Zen 5 architecture and also Intel, its Core Ultra 200 series fell well short of expectations, taking away market share. In fact, Intel's CPUs have often been viewed as excellent all-rounders, and with that advantage missing from the new Arrow Lake CPUs, AMD could capitalize on this situation and improve its all-rounder credentials thanks to its new 3D V-Cache CPUs.

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Unfortunately there's no pricing from AMD yet, but the Ryzen 7 7800X3D had a launch price of $450, so we're hoping we'll see similar pricing. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D will be released on November 7th. I'll review it as soon as it comes out. So follow me here on Forbes using the blue button below, on Facebook or YouTube for the latest news and reviews.