Introduction

It’s been an interesting few months when it comes to processors. When the Ryzen 9000 series launched, we were quite optimistic about the next-generation processor architecture. However, AMD has focused on power efficiency and slightly improved performance. For many of you, it was clear that there was no reason to upgrade from the 7000 series, especially with the 7000X3D already on the market. A few weeks ago, Intel launched its Arrow Lake processors, and while many expected them to easily outperform the AMD Ryzen 9000, that just didn’t happen. The Core Ultra Series 200 has multi-threaded and single-threaded potential for gaming enthusiasts, but it’s not the best option. In my reviews of the Series 9000 and Core Ultra 200 processors, I said you should wait for the 9000X3D processors. And now the first Ryzen 9000X3D processor is the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It offers excellent 8-core computing performance, and combined with some extra cache, it’s probably the best gaming CPU your money can buy right now. Plus, it’s very energy efficient and runs cool enough even for a heat pipe based cooler. The Ryzen 9800X3D, this young rascal has eight cores and sixteen threads based on the new Zen5 architecture. The processor will be analyzed, tested and compared. Considering its performance combined with an architecture supporting PCIe Gen 5, DDR5, and a processor easily reaching 5.2 GHz, this product could become an ideal gaming processor for many. Although some updated graphics cards have been released this year, not much else has been released in the hardware component area. Yes, AMD has officially announced the launch date for its new Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors, which includes four more SKUs: the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X, the 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X, the 8-core Ryzen 7 9700X and the 6-core Ryzen. 5 9600X. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D will be the first key model in the lineup and has been the subject of extensive discussion, especially regarding its performance compared to previous models. AMD has responded to rumors about potential changes to its thermal design power (TDP), confirming that it will launch with an incredibly low TDP of 65W. The top-end Ryzen 9 9950X will feature a TDP of 170W, while the Ryzen 9 9900X will retain a TDP of 120W. The Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 5 9600X are both tuned to 65W, highlighting AMD’s efforts to balance performance and power efficiency. What about the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, you might ask, well, and it still sticks to a really decent 120W TDP.

2nd Generation 3D V-Cache Placement
The main difference of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the location of its 3D V-cache. In previous models like the Ryzen 5800X3D and Ryzen 7000X3D, the 3D V-cache was located above the Zen3 and Zen4 cores, respectively. In contrast, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which uses 2nd generation AMD 3D V-cache with Zen5 cores, positions the cache below the CPU cores. This new location means that the main heat source, the Zen5 core complex, is closely linked to the cooling system, changing the way heat is managed within the processor.

Placing the 3D V cache under the processor cores provides notable thermal advantages. The 3D V cache is less affected by temperature changes than the CPU cores. This design adjustment results in an improvement in thermal resistance of up to 46%. Better thermal resistance helps maintain lower operating temperatures, allowing the processor to maintain higher clock speeds for single-threaded and multi-threaded tasks. Better cooling efficiency is essential to improve CPU performance and ensure long-term stability. As a result, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D can run at higher clock speeds, with a 500 MHz faster base clock and a 200 MHz faster max boost clock than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Although the boost clock speed increase may seem small, it significantly improves multi-core performance.

Additionally, the 9800X3D’s multithreaded performance is closer to that of the Ryzen 7 9700X when set to a configurable thermal design power (cTDP) of 105W. This improvement is due to the 9800X3D’s ability to fully utilize the power available, unlike the previous Ryzen 7 7800X3D model. On the graphics side, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D includes an integrated GPU (iGPU) with 2 computing units (CU) based on the RDNA 3+ architecture. This iGPU has 128 unified shaders and can run at up to 2,200 MHz. While it is capable of supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate, including ray tracing, the modest number of shaders suggests its performance in games will be limited from mid-2024 onwards. However, it can still handle up to four ultra-high definition monitors at 4320p resolution and supports both hardware encoding and decoding for popular video codecs like AVC, HEVC, VP9 and AV1, although it doesn’t support VVC like some others. contemporary chips.