AMD commits regicide and replaces the world's fastest gaming CPU

AMD has officially unveiled the new replacement for the best-in-slot gaming CPU, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, as the company has unveiled a new selection of CPUs at CES 2026.

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The CPU AMD is now putting forward as its fastest gaming-focused CPU to date is the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, a refresh of the Zen 5 architecture that comes with very similar specifications when directly compared to the 9800X3D, but with performance metrics that exceed it. According to AMD the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a 8-core 16 thread CPU that features a 5.6GHz boost clock, 104MB cache (L2 + L3), and a 120 TDP.

The only difference between the 9850X3D and its predecessor is the boost clock total, with the 9850X3D being 0.4GHz faster than the 9800X3D's maximum boost clock of 5.2GHz. The remaining specifications are exactly the same, but given the increase in boost clock we can expect modest gains across both single and multithreaded tasks. Leaked performance testing between the two CPUs indicates an approximate 5% performance gain with the 9850X3D.

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