Category: CPU

Auto Added by WPeMatico

Posted on by

AMD at CES 2025: RDNA 4 GPUs with FSR4, new X3D CPUs for desktops and laptops

AMD has already announced its new Ryzen Z2 chips for handheld PCs, but its CES 2025 keynote also included a whole new generation of graphics cards and new X3D processors for both desktops and laptops.

We’ll start with the graphics news, as the American firm detailed two models on the new RDNA 4 architecture – the RX 9070 XT and RX 9070 – as well as a long-awaited upgrade to their FSR upscaling tech, FSR4.

The RX 9070 XT and 9070 are positioned to counter Nvidia’s mid-tier 40-series and 50-series graphics cards, with the RDNA 4 architecture promising improved ray-tracing performance, better AI capabilities and even an improved media encoder – all areas of relative weakness for AMD versus competitors like Nvidia and Intel. The cards are produced on a 4nm process and ship this quarter, with models coming from the likes of Acer, Asus, Sapphire, XFX, ASRock, Gigabyte and PowerColor.

Attribution

Here are the relevant RDNA 4 slides.

FidelityFX Super Resolution 4 is the first time AMD is using AI for its upscaling, something long embraced by Nvidia to good effect. The feature is exclusive to RDNA 4 graphics cards, and hopefully will offer a step change beyond previous AMD efforts in what is now quite a competitive space with the likes of Sony, Intel and Nvidia all producing reasonable solutions. As before, frame generation and anti-lag tech is included.

AMD is also leveraging its cards improved AI capabilities to let users generate images, summarise locally-stored documents and ask a chat-bot AMD-related questions – so I’m sure it won’t be long after the cards are released that humorous screenshots of inappropriate bot behaviour are posted.

The company’s CPU announcements are perhaps a little more straightforward. First, we got what we all expected was coming: two new desktop 9000 X3D CPUs, the 9950X3D and 9900X3D, both to come in the first half of 2025.

Model Cores/Threads Max Boost/ Base Total Cache PCIe TDP
AMD Ryzen 9950X3D 16C/32T 5.7GHz/ 4.3GHz 144MB Gen 5 170W
AMD Ryzen 9900X3D 12C/24T 5.5GHz/ 4.4GHz 140MB Gen 5 120W
Attribution

And here’s the CPU side of the equation.

If you’re familiar with the 7950X3D and 7900X3D, this is familiar territory, with both being two-CCD parts but the higher number corresponding to a fully-activated part and the lower a cut-back version. That means 16 cores for the 9950X3D and 12 for the 9900X3D, with the flagship part offering a 5.7GHz max boost and 144MB of vertically-stacked v-cache. It doesn’t look the cache features on both cores, which is a bit of a disappointment.

The 9950X3D performance numbers look good too, with AMD’s figures indicating an eight percent advantage over the 7950X3D across 40 titles. There are some fairly significant gains here as well in certain games, with a 1.58x turn-out in Counter-Strike 2, 1.28x in Far Cry 6 and 1.16x in Starfield. Versus the significantly less threatening Core Ultra 9 285K, AMD’s labs found a 20 percent performance advantage on average, with 1.3x or higher results in the likes of Starfield, Cyberpunk 2077, Space Marine 2, Final Fantasy 16, Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs: Legion.

As well as the desktop chips, AMD also announced its first X3D chip for laptops, the 9955HX3D. The top of a lineup codenamed Fire Range that also includes two non-X3D chips, the 9955HX and 9850HX, the flagship X3D chip includes 144MB of cache, a 5.4GHz max turbo and a 16-core, 32-thread design.

Model Cores / Threads Max Boost / Base Total Cache GPU cTDP
AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX3D 16/32 5.4GHz/ 2.5 GHz 144 MB AMD Radeon 610M graphics 55-75W
AMD Ryzen 9 9955HX 16/32 5.4GHz/ 2.5 GHz 80 MB AMD Radeon 610M graphics 55-75W
AMD Ryzen 9 9850HX 12/24 5.2GHz/ 3.0 GHz 76 MB AMD Radeon 610M graphics 45-75W

To see this content please enable targeting cookies.

That sounds like a formula for an extremely powerful CPU that ought to outclass even laptops with full desktop chips, but we’ll have to wait until nearer launch in the first half of this year to get some performance figures, it seems.

Overall, it’s quite an impressive series of announcements from AMD, though I’m sure there will be some disappointment that the larger Ryzen 9000 X3D chips aren’t going to go on sale immediately.

Stay tuned for more news as it comes in – with Nvidia being the next to fire its keynote salvo in the early morning UK time.

Posted on by

Intel explains what went wrong with its new Arrow Lake desktop CPUs

Intel’s new Core Ultra 200-series desktop processors, codenamed Arrow Lake, launched to seriously underwhelming reviews back in October. Now the American firm has collated five issues that it says are to blame for the difference between its own performance expectations and what reviewers experienced, with four of the five problems described as being already resolved by BIOS, Windows or application updates, and further performance enhancements to arrive in January 2025.

For context, our Core i9 285K and Core i5 245K review saw performance wins for the 285K against the outgoing 14900K in three titles – Crysis 3 Remastered, Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Forza Horizon 5 – while the 14900K retained its crown in the other eight games we tested, often by extreme margins.

Here are the five issues, their root cause and current status, quoted from Intel’s release:

Performance Topic Root Cause Status
Unusual scheduling, high run-to-run variation, low single-threaded scores, intermittent ~1.5x increase in DRAM latency, performance lower on Windows 11 24H2 vs 23H2 Intel mistimed deployment of OS power plan settings (“PPM”), which customises DVFS, core parking and C-states. This caused a 6-30% performance loss Solved in Windows 11 26100.2161 or newer
Intel Application Performance Optimiser (APO) not demonstrating expected performance results Missing PPM places CPU into state where APO profiles cannot apply, select reviewer BIOSes additionally set APO to disabled by default. This caused a 2-14% performance loss on APO-profiled titles Solved in Windows 11 26100.2161 or newer
BSOD when launching Easy Anti-Cheat titles on Windows 11 24H2 Known issue with Easy Anti-Cheat KMD and Windows 11 24H2, issue exacerbated by disabling Virtualisation-Based Security (VBS) Solved with new Easy Anti-Cheat driver distributed by Epic
Select performance settings misconfigured in some pre-release BIOSes Consistency of VIP performance settings not sufficiently checked by Intel, including ReBAR, Intel APO, compute ring frequency, IMC gear, sustained/transient power limits. This caused a 2-14% performance loss Solved in customer BIOSes now available
New BIOS performance enhancements Fresh optimisations developed for upcoming BIOS updates, currently in validation by Intel and its partners, single digit performance enhancement estimated among a 35-game geomean Motherboard BIOSes planned for January 2025

The table makes for interesting reading, and Intel’s community blog on the subject goes into further detail on each identified issue too. In it, Intel promises “a complete performance digest, inclusive of the January BIOSes” at CES early next year, so we should get a better idea of exactly the performance differentials we should expect with all five fixes applied.

We also saw extremely poor performance in Cyberpunk 2077 in particular, and that seems to have been solved in game update 2.2 if the patch notes are to be believed.

If you are one of the vanishingly small number of people to be running a Core i5 245K, Core i7 265K or Core i9 285K system, then you’ve probably already updated to the latest Windows and BIOS versions, but it’s worth doing so now if you haven’t – and again in mid January when further BIOS updates are made available – to ensure that your system is delivering maximum performance. Intel says that the January BIOSes can be “identified with Intel microcode version 0x114 and Intel CSME Firmware Kit 19.0.0.1854v2.2 (or newer).”

We’ll look to retest the Core i9 285K and Core i5 245K once these January BIOS updates are available, as we did see much worse performance than we expected and it would be nice to see what these proccessors are truly capable of. We’re expecting to hear more from Intel at that time – as well as rivals AMD and Nvidia – so stay tuned for our reports from CES in the new year.

Posted on by

Beelink SER9 review: AMD’s Strix Point is its most powerful PC APU to date – but how does it game?

It’s fair to say that AMD is now leading the mobile x86 processor market, with its APUs particularly potent in powering the Steam Deck, ROG Ally and other PC handhelds. Following on from the Z1 Extreme and similar 7840U/8840U processors, there are two next-gen series: the upcoming Z2 lineup and the currently-available Strix Point AI SoCs. We’re looking at the latter today – and it’s the top-spec Ryzen AI 9 HX 370.

Rather than a power-constrained PC handheld or even a gaming laptop though, we’re testing a mini PC that can juice the APU up to 65W. That ought to deliver excellent gaming results, but how does the HX 370 compare to the Steam Deck at matched power levels? And how much extra do you get by ramping all the way up to 65W? We’ve put the tiny Beelink SER9 through its paces to find out.

First off, we should cover the SER9 itself. This unit is absolutely tiny, with a total volume of 0.59L – for context, even small form factor gaming PC cases tend to be around the 10L mark. The 100W power supply delivers up to 65W of power to the processor alone, while the full metal chassis is replete with ports: four USB-A and two USB-C, HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4a, two 3.5mm and 2.5-gig ethernet. (There’s sadly no Thunderbolt or USB 4, which would have been useful for eGPU experimentation.) The units storage can also be upgraded with two PCIe 4.0 slots on the underside of the unit. All this power in such a small space doesn’t come cheap – the solitary 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD model comes to $999 – but the machine is certainly powerful enough to justify the expense, while running cool and quiet.

Here’s the full assortment of Strix Point benchmarks with the SER9. Watch on YouTube
Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (SER9) Steam Deck OLED APU
CPU 4x Zen 5 cores @ up to 5.1GHz
8x Zen 5c cores @ up to 3.3GHz		 4x Zen 2 cores @ up to 3.5GHz
GPU 16 RDNA 3.5 CUs @ up to 2.9GHz 8 RDNA 2 CUs @ up to 1.6GHz
Memory 32GB LPDDR5x @ 7500MT/s 16GB LPDDR5 @ 6400MT/s
AI NPU, up to 50TOPS None
Power Up to 65W Up to 15W

As with most PCs, you can also trade off between performance and power/thermals. There are no BIOS controls to lower the TDP, annoyingly, but a customised version of the RyzenAdj tool (many thanks to Cary from The Phawx for the assist here) lets you do so via the command line. Running at 30W turns a very quiet PC into a virtually silent one, for example, and it also opens the door to our testing at set power levels, allowing for like-for-like testing against various mobile offerings.

We started with testing at 15W, where the SER9’s HX 370 can face off against the Ryzen 7 7840U (in the AyaNeo Kun), the Deck LCD and the Deck OLED. Remember that the SER9 and AyaNeo Kun are running games natively in Windows, while the Steam Decks are running the games on Linux via the Proton translation layer.

In Cyberpunk, the SER9 is the only member of the pack to really distinguish itself, with a 37 percent lead over the Steam Deck LCD and a 32 percent margin over the AyaNeo Kun. There’s more differentation in Forza Horizon 5, where the AyaNeo Kun beats the Deck LCD by 36.5 percent, and the SER9 beats the Kun by a further 28 percent. However, the octa-core 7840U shows the most stable performance, and it’s possible that the four large cores on the SER9 are being overwhelmed – or perhaps 15W simply isn’t enough power for an APU of this size.

SER9 vs AyaNeo Kun vs Deck OLED vs Deck LCD comparison in Cyberpunk 2077
SER9 vs AyaNeo Kun vs Deck OLED vs Deck LCD comparison in Forza Horizon 5
SER9 vs AyaNeo Kun vs Deck OLED vs Deck LCD comparison in A Plague Tale Requiem
SER9 vs AyaNeo Kun vs Deck OLED vs Deck LCD comparison in Marvel's Spider-Man
Here’s a selection of game benchmarks running at 15W. The HX 370 is the fastest contender – but at 15W, the advantage is perhaps more limited than you’d expect given the spec differential. | Image credit: Digital Foundry

The differences in A Plague Tale: Requiem are also interesting, with smaller margins that point to a memory bandwidth limitation – that’s one of the few specs that doesn’t see a huge lift with the HX 370. Finally, Marvel’s Spider-Man again sees a big lead for Strix Point, with a 34 to 44 point advantage versus the Steam Deck models and the AyaNeo Kun.

Of course, there’s little point in running the HX 370 at 15W if you actually want to maximise frame-rates, so let’s ramp up the power levels and see how much extra performance we can unlock. As well as 15W runs to compare against the Steam Deck, we have 25W and 30W results for parity against the ROG Ally in its unplugged/plugged power modes and then 65W for the full-fat SER9 experience.

In short, we see a relatively close grouping at the highest power levels, with 15W falling way behind. In Cyberpunk 2077, that translates into a 32 percent frame-rate improvement from 15W to 25W, 38 percent going from 15W to 30W, and 45 percent going from 15W to 65W. That brings the diminishing returns into focus – we’re more than doubling power from 30W to 65W, but only unlocking an extra five percent performance.

We see a big boost going from 15W to 25W or 30W – no wonder AMD recommends 28W for this chip in gaming laptops. There are further advantages at 65W, though the overall story is of diminishing returns.

Beyond the canned benchmarks, we also had some time to actually sit down and play some games on the SER9 in its default 65W mode. Cyberpunk 2077 played quite well, even at a 1080p output resolution, high settings and FSR 2 quality mode upscaling, with frame-rates above 30fps even through the Cherry Blossom Market that represents one of the most CPU-intensive areas of the game – and that’s with full crowds enabled, something you don’t see on consoles. We see similar results in our other streaming tests, going into 40fps territory, which suggests that FSR 3 frame generation might be a starter – and indeed, the tech works well to lift frame-rates into a 50-70fps window without deleterious levels of input lag.

The same basic setup works well in Marvel’s Spider-Man too. 1080p, high settings, XeSS 1.3 quality upscaling and FSR 3 frame generation combine for frame-rates up to 120fps, allowing you to take good advantage of a high refresh rate monitor.

Older and less demanding games run well even without frame generation. For example, Control runs happily at 720p upscaled to 1080p via TAAU at console-equivalent settings, mostly at a locked 60fps. Switching over to a native 1080p presentation, the demanding Corridor of Doom from our old benchmarking suite reveals results in the 40s, which is pretty good going for one of the most challenging areas of the game. Of course, Control is best known for its RT implementation, and this also is doable on the SER9 – 720p, TAAU up to 1080p with RT medium for ray-traced reflections and transparency reflections. With results north of 30fps, this is hugely impressive for a device of this size!

To see this content please enable targeting cookies.

That doesn’t mean that you can play literally any game though. Alan Wake 2‘s chapter two forest scenes are a huge ask for integrated graphics, and even at 1080p FSR 2 performance and lowest settings, the SER9 falls under 30fps. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is similar, with borderline 30fps performance at nearly lowest settings.

Ultimately though, it’s hard not to be charmed by the Beelink mini PC. It’s handily capable, the form factor is irresistible, and it’s very quiet – quite the combination.

I do have to wonder about the future of PC handhelds though. The Ryzen 7 7840U and its equivalent Z1 Extreme delivered a good – but not game-changing – bump over Steam Deck, requiring the use of a lot more power. Strix Point offers another iterative bump, even though we’re now looking at twice the amount of compute units and more frequency than the Deck. There’s still potential for a healthy bump to performance, but it can vary drastically between games – and it perhaps underlines why the likes of Valve and Microsoft are waiting for a truly generational leap in capabilities before delivering their next-gen handhelds.

Posted on by

Grab a Ryzen 5 5700X and 32GB of DDR4-3200 RAM for just $145 from Newegg

If you’re after a new CPU to put into an older AM4-based system, or want to build a potent budget rig, then this bundle deal from Newegg may be for you. Currently, they are offering the potent 5700X CPU and a free 32GB kit of DDR4-3200 Corsair Vengeance RAM for $145 after a $35 discount with code BFEDZA29.

Having an 8C/16T CPU is handy if you’re going to be making use of all of them, with more intensive workloads such as both AAA gaming as well as heavy content creation workloads that can involve things such as transcoding and editing video. The 5700X also comes with a boost clock of 4.6GHz, making it especially snappy. Taking all this into account, you’ve got yourself an especially powerful and speedy processor for a great price.

With this in mind, the 5700X offers a marvellous price to performance ratio for those more intensive workloads. If you want better gaming performance than the 5700X then you’ll be spending a fair bit more on the 5700X3D, or having to build a new system on AM5. These chips are coming down in price, but you’ve then got to deal with building a new system on a new platform. What’s more, making the most of it with the latest PCIe 5.0 SSDs and DDR5 RAM is still quite expensive, even if their respective component prices are still falling.

You also get the benefit of a bundled Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 CL16 RAM kit, which is the ideal price to performance sweet spot for DDR4, while 32GB of capacity gives you oodles of headroom for gaming and even more intensive workloads. Newegg says this is worth $53 on its own, which combined with the $35 discount on offer, makes this quite the potent deal.

If you want to grab a potent combo of components for a new or existing AM4 build, this Newegg bundle may well be for you.

Posted on by

Build a budget gaming PC for under £750 thanks to these Black Friday deals

We’ve already covered a RTX 4070 Super mini gaming PC for £1300 based around Black Friday discounts, but what if you want something even more affordable – something that doesn’t require paying a premium for an extra-small case, power supply and motherboard? Here, we’re going to achieve a powerful enough machine for 1080p gaming at high settings, yet spend less than £750.

The starting point for this build is the extremely affordable Ryzen 5 5600X, which has been reduced down to £99 – a great value for a six core, 12 thread Zen 3 processor with PCIe 4.0 support. It’s got ample power for entry-level gaming and general productivity, and the inclusion of the Wraith Stealth cooler in the box means we don’t have to spend any time, thought or budget on a third-party CPU cooler.

Category Product Deal Was
CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (with Wraith cooler) £98.63 £113.80
GPU PowerColor Fighter RX 6750 XT £282.52 £300
Motherboard Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite AX V2 ATX £100.98 £144.70
RAM Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4-3200 CL16 £28.98 £42.28
SSD WD Black SN770 2TB £92.99 £102.99
PSU Corsair RM850e (Used – Like New, Amazon Resale) £69.05 £86.32
Case NZXT H5 Flow (2024) £69.98 £89.99
Total £743.13 £880.08

Opting for a Ryzen 5600X means building on the venerable AM4 platform, with B550 motherboards offering the best balance of features and affordability. Luckily, there are options aplenty with on-board Wi-Fi and solid I/O for around £100-£120. One great option is the Gigabyte B550 Aorus Elite V2 which costs £101 from Ebuyer and comes with Wi-Fi 6, support for PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs and speedy USB-C. That means we need some DDR4 RAM, and this 16GB kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200 CL16 is just £26 from Amazon. That hits the sweet spot for price to performance, and gives plenty of headroom for gaming and most content creation workloads too. The WD SN770 2TB NVMe SSD for £93 from Scan provides solid capacity and excellent performance with up to 5150MB/s reads and 4900MB/s writes, respectively.

As for the case, I’m leaning towards the NZXT H5 Flow, which provides solid room to build in, a clean aesthetic and handy extras such as decent front I/O with wider cable channels to make it easier for ham-fisted fellows like me to route cables to a reasonable standard. It also comes with two 120mm fans pre-installed for convenience, too. From Amazon, it’s £70 for Black Friday. The Corsair RM850e PSU might be overkill for what’s inside, but provides a reliable, fully modular 80+ Gold unit with lots of headroom for upgrading, and for £69 from Amazon with the Amazon Resale 20 percent reduction, it’s hard to turn down.

The piece of the puzzle that’s quite difficult to decide on is with my GPU choice. I’m aiming for something in the £250-£300 range to keep this build at around £750 excluding Windows, and I’ve narrowed it down to either the £283 AMD RX 6750 XT, or £240 Intel Arc A770 16GB model. Both cards have their merits, with the Arc A770 packing in an extra 4GB of VRAM, better RT performance and support for AV1 encoding, while the RX 6750 XT performs better and benefits from better driver support. With these reductions in mind, the £336 (w/ code CHILLY5) RX 6800 also becomes a viable choice in and around that budget, which betters both of these cards.

Building this PC is probably what’s going to occupy my time over the festive period, and I’m not totally scared at all! I shall return later on with a build update to see how it all runs.

Posted on by

Quick! AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600 has had a big price cut for Black Friday Week

AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600 remains an excellent value proposition for both gaming and content creation workloads, and it only seems to be getting cheaper. We’ve seen it go as low as £100 or so earlier this year, but to be able to get it for under £80 from Amazon is quite frankly ridculous. This marks out a 65 percent cut on its RRP, and is certainly the lowest price we’ve ever seen this CPU at.

For generalists looking for an affordable CPU for a new PC build with a fair bit of grunt, the 5600 makes sense for a solid option. It’s got the necessary power for a modern system and has marked itself out over the last few years as one of the best value all-round CPUs that money can buy. A big reason for this is that it’s essentially a downclocked 5600X with a 200MHz slower base and boost clock frequencies. Otherwise, it’s the same 6 core and 12 thread processor that should be more than up to the task of both general computing, as well as more intensive workloads such as gaming. It’s intriguing to note that the non-X variant on offer here makes for an especially close competitor to the more powerful -X version at a much lower cost, making it a fantastic value choice for those wanting a blend of a capable processor for a great price. Plus, you also get the benefit of a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler, which saves you a few pounds.

You’re also entering into an ecosystem where well specced parts are becoming more affordable, with feature-packed AM4 motherboards going for good prices in a range of form factors, while DDR4 RAM in good capacities is virtually dime a dozen these days. It’s also at the point where NVMe storage prices remain at a sensible level, giving you the chance to get snappy drives in bigger capacities for decent money. You also have a reasonably decent upgrade path here up to the 5700X3D later down the line, too, if you find you need more power than the 5600 can offer.

If you are in the market for an amazing value CPU and you’d like a fantastic bang for the buck option, then this remarkable reduction on the Ryzen 5 5600 from Amazon isn’t to be missed.

Posted on by

Where to buy AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: UK/US links and prices

AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D is easily the best gaming CPU money can buy today, with hugely impressive performance gains against both the reigning champion 7800X3D and all other Ryzen processors on the market – while Intel’s recent releases are left further down the performance ladder. There are also major improvements in content creation performance and thermals, making the 9800X3D a stronger all-around choice than its predecessors.

With our 9800X3D review complete, it’s now time to round up all of the places you can find this hotly anticipated processor in the US and the UK.

Here’s our most recent data, including prices and availability for the biggest retailers on both sides of the Atlantic. Expect stock levels to be low for some time, based on the extremely high demand for this powerful processor!

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D – best UK prices and retailers

Retailer Price Availability
CCL £519 Pre-order – ETA 14 November 2024
Novatech £469 Pre-order – ETA 15 November 2024
Ebuyer £469 Pre-order – ETA 23 November 2024
Scan £469 Pre-order – ETA 29 November 2024
Overclockers £449 Pre-order – ETA December 2024
AWD-IT £529 Out of stock
Amazon UK TBA Not yet live
Currys TBA Not yet live

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D – best US prices and retailers

Retailer Price Availability
Amazon US TBA Not yet live
B&H Photo Video $479 Sold out, no restock ETA
Best Buy $479 Sold out, no restock ETA
Newegg $479 Sold out, no restock ETA
Newegg (bundles) $639-$999 Sold out, no restock ETA
2nd-gen 3D V-Cache from AMD
Image credit: AMD

Frequently asked questions

What motherboards support Ryzen 9000?

AMD’s X670E, X670, B650E and B650 motherboards all support Ryzen 9000 out of the box, so you won’t need to upgrade if you’ve got a Ryzen 7000 system already. X670E offers PCIe 5.0 throughout, X670 offers PCIe 5.0 for storage and graphics, and B650 offers PCIe 5.0 for storage only. In general, as you progress from B650 to X670E, expect more features, more PCIe lanes and higher prices. Newer generation X870E and X870 motherboards are also available, but these tend to offer relatively minor spec bumps with no major new features and the same processor compatibility, so we recommend sticking with the cheaper 600-series motherboards for 2024 at least.

What memory is best for Ryzen 9000?

As was the case with Ryzen 7000, Ryzen 9000 is a DDR5-only platform, so your older DDR4 RAM won’t work here. Instead, you’ll need to pick up a new kit of DDR5, which starts at DDR5-4800 and goes up to DDR5-6400 and beyond. We recommend DDR5-6000 with the lowest latency you can find – CL30 or lower is great, but higher latencies are still OK.

The usual RAM buying advice applies here. First, get two or four sticks to ensure you’re running in dual channel mode, as using a single stick suffers from a severe performance penalty. Secondly, make sure you enable XMP or EXPO in your motherboard’s BIOS to ensure that you’re getting the rated speeds – you can check your current RAM speed with a free tool like CPU-Z or Windows 11’s Task Manager.

What CPU coolers support Ryzen 9000 / AM5?

While most CPU coolers now support AM5 out of the box, some older models designed for AM4 that don’t use the default AMD backplate may not be compatible. Therefore, it’s best to look for AM5 support specifically, which is available from most popular brands including Corsair, Noctua, NZXT, Thermalright, Cooler Master, Be Quiet!, etc.

Well, there you have it – the best prices for AMD’s all-new Ryzen 7 9800X3D and a little advice too. Let us know if you spot one of these CPUs for a lower price, and stay tuned to @dealsfoundry on Twitter for more PC deals as we find them.

Posted on by

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review: obliterating the competition

It’s been a rough old time when it comes to benchmarking CPUs, I can tell you that. The Ryzen 9000 release back in August was let down by relatively meagre performance improvements and an unready software ecosystem, while Intel’s 285K and 245K launch last month showed a significant performance regression versus 14th-gen – despite a genuinely interesting shift in architectures. Thankfully, AMD is here to save the day with the Ryzen 9 9800X3D.

As you might expect, the 9800X3D is the fastest gaming CPU we’ve ever tested, but what you might not expect is just how much faster it can be in some titles versus the 7800X3D, 9700X and 14900K – and how much of a step forward it is outside of games versus its X3D predecessor.

What I particularly like about the 9800X3D is that it does something a bit different to the 7800X3D and 5800X3D before it. Rather than adding on the extra L3 cache above the CCD, AMD has popped it underneath this time around, a move that sees temperatures go down and clock speeds go up. The result is a chip that is a much better all-rounder than its predecessors, while still delivering the kind of game-changing performance that makes X3D chips worth waiting for.

2nd-gen 3D V-Cache from AMD
Image credit: AMD

To properly get to grips with the level of performance on offer, we’ve run the 9800X3D through our full gamut of 11 game benchmarks at 1080p, 1440p and 4K, including some of the most demanding single-player (Dragon’s Dogma, Starfield, Cyberpunk) and multiplayer (CS2, F1 24) releases. Our power analysis and DDR5 testing also returns from our recent Intel Core Ultra 200S reviews.

Before we get into all that though, it’s worth taking a closer look at the specs here – and whether the changes we see versus the 7800X3D and 9700X are reflected in our synthetic and content creation benchmarks.

In short, the 9800X3D offers higher base clock speeds and much more L3 cache than the 9700X, but it’s also worth noting that the TDP has climbed to 120W – versus 65W and optionally 105W – for the 9700X. Boost speeds are still 300MHz slower on the X3D chip, but versus the 7800X3D it’s clear that the new on-bottom V-Cache location has delivered some nice gains – plus 500MHz (!) when it comes to base clock and plus 200MHz when it comes to boost. For context, we only saw a 100MHz leap in boost clock when going from the 7700X to the 9700X, so that new design does make itself known.

This is also the most expensive Ryzen 7 X3D chip ever shipped, with a $479 RRP versus the $449 7800X3D and 5800X3D – though (potentially deliberate) supply issues have meant that the 7800X3D is far from the bargain it once was.

CPU design Boost Base L3 cache TDP Price
Ryzen 9 9950X Zen 5 16C/32T 5.7GHz 4.3GHz 64MB 170W £555/$584
Ryzen 9 9900X Zen 5 12C/24T 5.6GHz 4.4GHz 64MB 120W £383/$383
Ryzen 7 9800X3D Zen 5 8C/16T 5.2GHz 4.7GHz 96MB 120W $479
Ryzen 7 9700X Zen 5 8C/16T 5.5GHz 3.8GHz 32MB 65W £309/$324
Ryzen 5 9600X Zen 5 6C/12T 5.4GHz 3.9GHz 32MB 65W £229/$249
Ryzen 9 7950X3D Zen 4 16C/32T 5.7GHz 4.2GHz 128MB 120W £550/$595
Ryzen 9 7950X Zen 4 16C/32T 5.7GHz 4.5GHz 64MB 170W £429/$487
Ryzen 9 7900X3D Zen 4 12C/24T 5.6GHz 4.4GHz 128MB 120W £443/$569
Ryzen 9 7900X Zen 4 12C/24T 5.6GHz 4.7GHz 64MB 170W £323/$395
Ryzen 7 7800X3D Zen 4 8C/16T 5.0GHz 4.2GHz 96MB 120W £398/$476
Ryzen 7 7700X Zen 4 8C/16T 5.4GHz 4.5GHz 32MB 105W £264/$269
Ryzen 5 7600X Zen 4 6C/12T 5.3GHz 4.7GHz 32MB 105W £189/$207
Ryzen 5 7600 Zen 4 6C/12T 5.1GHz 3.8GHz 32MB 65W £167/$198
Ryzen 9000 benchmarking setup
A very clean and not at all dusty test rig, featuring a Ryzen 9000 processor, RTX 4090 Founders Edition, ASRock Taichi X670E and the Alphacool Aurora Eisbaer 240mm AiO. | Image credit: Digital Foundry

All testing was performed on fresh installs of Windows 24H2 with the latest chipset drivers, BIOS updates and Nvidia’s 565.90 graphic drivers installed (to allow us to reuse the mountain of data we collected for our Core 285K and 245K reviews). Resizable BAR and core isolation were enabled on each system.

Our CPU test platform is based around the Nvidia GeForce Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card and Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM. Each CPU is accompanied by a 1000W+ power supply from Corsair or NZXT, a high-end 240mm or 360mm AiO and a suitable premium motherboard: the ASRock X670E Taichi for AMD Ryzen 7000 and 9000, the MSI Z890 Meg Ace for Intel Core Ultra 200S, the Gigabyte Aorus Z790 Master for 12th and 14th-gen Intel Core and the Asus ROG Crosshair 8 Hero for AMD Ryzen 5000 – with Trident Z Royal DDR4-3600 CL16 as DDR5 RAM is not supported on this platform.

Storage duties are handled by a range of PCIe 4.0 or PCIe 5.0 SSDs, including the 4TB Lexar NM790 for our AMD Ryzen 9000 system.

Now, let’s move onto the content creation benchmarks to get a better sense of how the 9800X3D advances on its predecessors. Even if you don’t plan to use the 9800X3D to crank out videos or do 3D modelling, this sort of testing also sets out the maximum uptick we’re likely to see in gaming workloads and gives you a more general sense of all-core performance.

Cinebench 2024 (1T) 2024 (MT) R20 (1T) R20 (MT)
Ryzen 5 3600X 77 578 485 3654
Ryzen 7 5800X3D 95 915 546 5746
Ryzen 9 5900X 98 1171 610 8393
Ryzen 5 7600X 114 845 744 5814
Ryzen 7 7700X 118 1127 758 7609
Ryzen 7 7800X3D 112 1074 688 6988
Ryzen 9 7900X 116 1605 776 11196
Ryzen 9 7950X 121 2004 784 14272
Ryzen 5 9600X 132 935 850 6358
Ryzen 7 9700X 130 1172 862 7851
Ryzen 9 9800X3D 134 1342 823 8938
Ryzen 9 9900X 135 1784 879 12617
Ryzen 9 9950X 138 2235 866 15850
Core i5 14600K 120 1400 777 9420
Core i7 14700K 127 1987 818 13614
Core i9 14900K 133 2107 875 15297
Ultra 5 245K 128 1435 841 9864
Ultra 9 285K 144 2386 895 16055

Starting with our Cinebench test results, including the popular R20 and more recent 2024 release, the 9800X3D shows a small uptick in single-core performance (130 vs 134) and a much larger ramp up in multi-core performance (1342 vs 1172) versus the 9700X, most likely attributable to its higher power limits or the extra L3 cache. Note that we tested the 9700X at its stock 65W setting, though a 105W mode was made available later and in our 9700X review we saw it deliver similar performance to the 9800X3D – 136 single, 1280 multi.

The bigger differential comes when examining the 9800X3D versus the 7800X3D. Here, scores are up around 20 percent for single and 25 percent multi-core in the two Cinebench versions, putting the 9800X3D half-way between the eight-core 7700X and 12-core 7900X – not bad.

While Cinebench is meant to reflect a 3D modelling and animation task in Cinema 4D, our Cinebench test reflects a real use case for us: transcoding a Patreon video file into H.264 and H.265 (HEVC). Here, we measured the 9800X3D sucking down a healthy 259W at full tilt, versus the 191W-max 9700X, but the new CPU also turns in an impressive 59.59fps H.264 and 27.44fps HEVC average transcode frame-rate. That’s 15 percent faster than the 9700X, admittedly while drawing 35 percent more power.

Handbrake H264 (fps) HEVC (fps)
Ryzen 5 3600X 26.66 10.80
Ryzen 7 5800X3D 42.00 18.71
Ryzen 9 5900X 57.59 23.83
Ryzen 5 7600X 41.29 18.31
Ryzen 7 7700X 53.27 23.65
Ryzen 7 7800X3D 49.63 21.54
Ryzen 9 7900X 78.35 32.59
Ryzen 9 7950X 98.58 41.68
Ryzen 5 9600X 42.51 19.77
Ryzen 7 9700X (191W max) 51.80 23.79
Ryzen 7 9800X3D (259W max) 59.59 27.44
Ryzen 9 9900X 82.96 35.33
Ryzen 9 9950X 103.25 44.97
Intel Core i5 14600K 59.42 25.39
Intel Core i7 14700K 80.26 31.07
Intel Core i9 14900K (476W max) 85.06 35.08
Intel Ultra 5 245K (286W max) 61.05 26.88
Intel Ultra 9 285K (362W max) 97.17 38.44

Comparisons versus the 7800X3D are also impressive, with a 27 percentage point advantage in the HEVC test. We’re still some way from the likes of the 12-core and 16-core AM5 designs, but it’s still an impressive showing for a gaming-focused part and one that proves the efficacy of AMD’s new bottom-cache design.

Now let’s get into the turkey and Yorkshire puddings of our testing, the gaming benchmarks. We have 11 games in all.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D analysis