The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is here, and it is just about what we would expect. Better said, it is a great eight-core processor because it uses Zen 5 along with 3D V-Cache. Realistically, this is a gaming processor, and today, on the embargo lift, you will likely see that most sites have this as a new king of gaming, especially at low resolution where CPU bottlenecks are more pronounced. For our piece, we are going to take a quick look at how it compares for non-gaming tasks.
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Overview
We have covered the AMD Zen 5 microarchitecture a few times now. Feel free to read more about that at your leisure. The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D takes that Zen 5 core in the AMD Ryzen 9000 series AM5 platform and adds 64MB of 3D V-Cache at a 120W TDP.
If your goal is to just get a higher clock speed 8-core 16-thread processor, the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is probably the better option at this point. On the other hand, a huge number of applications can take advantage of the larger cache, and that can make the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D a better option.
AMD calls this its 2nd Gen AMD 3D V-Cache technology. The new method of adding the 64MB L3 cache die on the bottom allows for better thermal conductivity to the cooler and therefore we get higher clock speeds and overclocking capability.
Here is the delidded shot that AMD sent us.
AMD Ryzen 9000 Delidded
The new 64MB L3 cache die is bonded below the Zen 5 CCD. That means the Zen 5 CCD is on the cooling solution side of the package.
That 64MB plus the 32MB on the CCD gives us 96MB of L3 cache. The 104MB figure is that 96MB plus 1MB of L2 cache per core for 8MB L2 total.
One other big benefit for many is that this is an AM5 socket CPU. We are using a relatively fancy ASRock X870E Taichi motherboard, but getting a cooler was easy since we have AM5-compatible coolers. The ecosystem is certainly primed for the new chips and at 120W, these are nowhere near the hottest chips we have seen recently.
Next, let us discuss our test configuration.
“It has neither a massive NPU nor integrated graphics”.
Are you sure about the graphics? There should be some basic graphics on the IO die (there are for the non-3D part). If AMD have disabled that for this chip (or if it has a different IO die), that’s significant enough that it should be explicitly called out.