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The Ryzen 7 9850X3D was never set up for success. From the moment it was announced and AMD revealed its internal benchmarks, it was clear that we were dealing with a CPU that offered marginal, single-digit performance increases over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Even when being charitable to the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, it fails to meet muster.
It’s a worse value than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, consumes more power, and just barely claims a new top slot in our gaming rankings. The extra juice isn’t worth the squeeze here. That’s even more true when you factor in PBO, which itself can bring up the clock speed of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D by 200MHz and likely close the performance gap; that’s something I plan on testing in the coming weeks.
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Compared to the broader market, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is unsurprisingly excellent in games and middling in applications. For gamers, if it’s between the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and any other non-X3D CPU, the 9850X3D wins every time. The difficulty the Ryzen 7 9850X3D faces, however, is the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with its lower price, frequent sales, and largely similar performance.
AMD says the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a new entry in its X3D lineup, and that it isn’t replacing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. If that remains true, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the way to go. Although that’s AMD’s official narrative, I struggle to see a world where the Ryzen 7 9800X3D outlives the Ryzen 7 9850X3D; from a business perspective, selling binned silicon for a higher price is the right move.
It’ll be interesting to see how prices shift over the next few months. Given the performance of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, it serves to reinforce the price point of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and prevent it from slipping further. It’s possible we’ll see a downward pressure on prices, however, especially given that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D isn’t poised to be a smash success like its predecessor.
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Jake Roach is the Senior CPU Analyst at Tom’s Hardware, writing reviews, news, and features about the latest consumer and workstation processors.
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-Fran- Yeah... If this was replacing the 9800X3D at its MSRP, then it would've been a nice "plus" for it, but charging more?Reply
Nah. Big pass. Given the age and all that, this CPU should have slotted at $450 MSRP and bring the 9800X3D to $420 MSRP.
EDIT: I forgot to mention/ask, isn't the current street median price of the 9800X3D like $450?
Like Leo from KitGuru's review succintly summarised: "WHY?".
Regards. -
JakeRoach Reply
You can find it for $450, certainly. I stuck with $470 as the price because that's what you can find it for on just about any day at just about any retailer. But yes, the value dynamic is already rough at $470, and even worse at $450 for the 9850X3D.-Fran- said:Yeah... If this was replacing the 9800X3D at its MSRP, then it would've been a nice "plus" for it, but charging more?
Nah. Big pass. Given the age and all that, this CPU should have slotted at $450 MSRP and bring the 9800X3D to $420 MSRP.
EDIT: I forgot to mention/ask, isn't the current street median price of the 9800X3D like $450?
Like Leo from KitGuru's review succintly summarised: "WHY?".
Regards. -
Roland Of Gilead In the pricing and specs table you have the 9850x as 12 core and 140mb cache.Reply -
-Fran- Reply
For sure!JakeRoach said:You can find it for $450, certainly. I stuck with $470 as the price because that's what you can find it for on just about any day at just about any retailer. But yes, the value dynamic is already rough at $470, and even worse at $450 for the 9850X3D.
Also, as it's under-mentioned in every CPU review here at Tom's: thanks for testing with JEDEC specc'd RAM! I am one of the biggest fans of your strictness for that.
Regards. -
gggplaya Reply
This is no different than the Intel KS series, like the 14900ks. It's just the highest binned chips that people want, instead of trying to win the silicon lottery. These will likely be capable of the best overclocks. The price difference is negligible if you're chasing the best clocks.-Fran- said:Yeah... If this was replacing the 9800X3D at its MSRP, then it would've been a nice "plus" for it, but charging more?
Nah. Big pass. Given the age and all that, this CPU should have slotted at $450 MSRP and bring the 9800X3D to $420 MSRP.
EDIT: I forgot to mention/ask, isn't the current street median price of the 9800X3D like $450?
Like Leo from KitGuru's review succintly summarised: "WHY?".
Regards. -
logainofhades NGL I kinda want one, only because the extra clock speed and the x3d v-cache should prove useful for WoW, in cpu limited situations.Reply -
-Fran- Reply
I'm not saying they shouldn't do that.gggplaya said:This is no different than the Intel KS series, like the 14900ks. It's just the highest binned chips that people want, instead of trying to win the silicon lottery. These will likely be capable of the best overclocks. The price difference is negligible if you're chasing the best clocks.
At the end of the day, it comes down to price. In this case, AMD failed the "value" proposition since they think a ~4% improvement is worth an extra $20 (MSRP) and ~$50 (street prices).
Also, we're all collectively assuming this is "higher binned", but in reality the increase in power correlates very negatively to the increase in performance, so I'm not even sure if this is a "better bin" or just a re-skin of the same exact dies. A rebrand, if you like.
Regards. -
adamXpeter OK, but what's about overclocking? Potential, results? Who buys this CPU for stock clock, stock JEDEC RAM?Reply
Also, no full screen for the diagrams? Or it is a Firefox thing? -
Gururu Nice review! AMD messed up though. The 9850X3D is faster in games than the 9950X3D and the 9900X3D is slower than both. Good Golly!!Reply -
logainofhades ReplyGururu said:Nice review! AMD messed up though. The 9850X3D is faster in games than the 9950X3D and the 9900X3D is slower than both. Good Golly!!
Probably due to the 6c vs 8c on the CCD.