AMD confirms Ryzen 7 9850X3D release date and price

AMD announced the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D at CES, an overclocked version of what's widely considered to be the fastest CPU for PC gaming - the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The notable difference here is the increased Boost Clock speed, which has increased by 400 MHz to 5.6 GHz. As the CPU still sports the same 8 'Zen 5' Cores with 16 Threads, 104MB of cache, and a 120W TDP rating, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D will sit alongside the Ryzen 7 9800X3D at retail.

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And with that, AMD has confirmed the release date and pricing for the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D, with the CPU expected to launch on January 29 with a SEP (MSRP) of $499 USD. This puts its price only $30 higher than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, a modest premium to pay for gaming performance that is, on average, 27% faster than Intel's flagship desktop processor, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K.

That said, with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D only a few percentage points faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, it's a CPU for those building a new rig or upgrading from older components. Interestingly, as part of today's announcement, AMD has confirmed that the 2nd Gen 3D V-Cache technology in the Ryzen 7 9850X3D means "high-frequency memory is not required," so it can be paired with entry-level DDR5 kits without sacrificing performance.

According to AMD, after benchmarking performance across over 30 games, the FPS difference between DDR5-4800 and DDR5-6000 with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D was less than 1%, which is good to know in today's memory-constrained market. The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is already available to purchase at Amazon for $499.