AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Review: 3D V-Cache Powers a New Gaming Champion

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Thermals

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AMD's Ryzen chips continue to have excellent power and efficiency metrics. Here we can see that the 5800X3D's position further down the voltage/frequency curve yields excellent results in our Handbrake renders-per-watt efficiency metric. 

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Here we take a slightly different look at power consumption by calculating the cumulative energy required to perform x264 and x265 HandBrake workloads, respectively. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart. 

These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart. 

Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are the best. As you can see, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D features a nice blend of power and performance. 

Test Setup and Overclocking

As mentioned, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn't support overclocking via the CPU multiplier, so you can't change the core clocks via that method. You also cannot adjust the power limits (PPT, TDC, EDC) or CPU voltage. Additionally, the chip doesn't support the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature, and you can't undervolt or underclock.

The 5800X3D fully supports overclocking the memory and Infinity Fabric, but as with most Ryzen chips, we found that we were only able to reach DDR4-3800 with the fabric dialed in at 1900 MHz. This setting allows us to run the memory in the desired low-latency 'coupled' (1:1 ratio) mode. You can get higher with uncoupled memory, but that results in less performance in games.

There have been reports of successful BCLK overclocks with early samples, which ekes out a few hundred extra megahertz of performance. We'll follow up with additional testing as time permits, but be cautious about overclocking benchmarks you might see in the wild: Remember, manipulating the BCLK has been shown in the past to cause inflated benchmark scores with AMD chips — but there are solutions for that.

We test Intel processors with the power limits fully removed for our standard measurements, so the 12900K and 12900KS are running beyond Intel's 'recommended' power settings, but remain within warranty. We haven't yet overclocked the 12900KS fully, so we're subbing in our overclocked 12900K configuration in its place. From what we've seen, it appears that the 12900KS silicon often clocks similarly to its non-S counterparts, but we'll update if we see a meaningful difference. 

Aside from a few errant programs for Intel, the overall trends for both AMD and Intel should be similar with Windows 10 and 11. As such, we're sticking with Windows 11 benchmarks in this article. We also stuck with DDR4 for this round of Alder Lake testing, as overall performance trends are generally comparable between DDR4 and DDR5. We have a deeper dive into what that looks like in our initial 12900K review.

We tested the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in two configurations:

• Ryzen 7 5800X3D: Corsair H115i 280mm water cooler, default power limits, DDR4-3200 in Coupled mode
• Ryzen 7 5800X3D DDR4-3800: Corsair H115i 280mm water cooler, default power limits, DDR4-3800 in Coupled mode

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