AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Start Zen 5 with 3D V-Cache is amazing

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is here, and it’s pretty much what we’d expect. Better said, it’s 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 promise, you’ll likely see most sites featuring this as the new king of gaming, especially at low resolutions where CPU bottlenecks are more pronounced. For our piece, we’ll take a quick look at how it compares to non-gaming tasks.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Overview

We’ve covered the AMD Zen 5 microarchitecture a few times now. Feel free to read more about it. The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D takes the Zen 5 core of the AMD Ryzen 9000 series AM5 platform and adds 64MB of 3D V-Cache at a 120W TDP.

If your goal is just to 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 large number of applications can benefit from the larger cache, and this 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 matrix at the bottom allows for better thermal conductivity to the cooler and therefore we get higher clock speeds and overclocking capability.

Here’s the split shot that AMD sent us.

AMD Ryzen 9000 Delded

The new 64MB L3 cache die is tied under the Zen 5 CCD. That means the Zen 5 CCD is on the cooling solution side of the pack.

The 64 MB plus 32 MB on the CCD gives us 96 MB of L3 cache. The 104MB figure is 96MB plus 1MB of L2 cache per core for a total of 8 MB L2.

Another big advantage 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 as we have AM5 compatible coolers. The ecosystem is certainly ready for the new chips, and at 120W, these are nowhere near the hottest chips we’ve seen recently.

Next, let’s discuss our test configuration.