AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D Review - The best gaming chip just got better

TweakTown Rating: 95%

Our Verdict

AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the new gaming champ, but it's only a minor improvement over the already stellar 9800X3D.

Pros

• It's the gaming king
• Solid all-round performance
• Power efficiency
• Full overclocking support

Cons

• $499 for eight cores is pricey
• Little improvement over the 9800X3D

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications and Pricing

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D has been the king of gaming processors since its launch in November 2024. A year and a bit later, it's time for a refresh. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a 9800X3D with a 400MHz higher boost clock. It's not a dramatic change, but higher clocks without an increase in TDP are always welcome.

The 9850X3D is an 8-core / 16-thread chip built on the Zen 5 architecture. Like the 9800X3D, it has an additional 64MB of stacked L3 cache, bringing its total to 96 MB. However, unlike the 5800X3D and 7800X3D, the 9850X3D includes AMD's second-generation V-cache.

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The first-generation V-cache of the 5800X3D and 7800X3D was located atop the core complex die (CCD). This meant AMD could not push the core clocks as high as it would have liked due to heat concerns. The cores didn't have direct contact with the CPU cooler, which affected previous X3D chips in non-gaming workloads.

With heat being less of a concern, AMD can run its 9000X3D chips at much higher frequencies. In fact, the 9850X3D's 5.6GHz boost clock is only 100MHz lower than the much more expensive (and higher TDP) 9950X and 9950X3D. The 9850X3D maintains the same 120W TDP (162W PPT) of the 9800X3D.

The 9850X3D has a base clock of 4.7GHz and a boost clock of 5.6GHz. That's a boost clock increase of 400MHz over the 9800X3D. More notable are the clock speeds of the 9850X3D over the V-cache-less 9700X. 4.7GHz/5.6GHz is significantly higher than the 3.8GHz/5.5GHz clock speeds of the 9700X. That means the 9850X3D isn't a one-trick gaming pony. It's the fastest of all AMD's 8-core CPUs under any type of workload.

The 9850X3D can be manually overclocked via the multiplier. The 5800X3D and 7800X3D had untapped potential beyond their default settings. This barrier was removed for the 9800X, and with the 9850X3D's significantly higher boost clock, it's safe to say that AMD has released the shackles and it's fully confident in the design and manufacturing of V-cache CPUs.

Further AMD CPUs Reading – Our Latest Reviews

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Review - The all-round X3D chip we've been waiting for
• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Processor Review - All of the gaming goodness without compromise
• AMD Ryzen 9 9900X CPU Review

The 9850X3D is drop-in compatible with all AM5 motherboards after a BIOS update. That gives AMD an edge over Intel's Core Ultra 200S series in overall platform cost. Affordable B650 and even A620 motherboards are compatible with the 9850X3D. AM5 has the advantage of guaranteed support from AMD for at least another two years, whereas Intel is almost certain to introduce a new socket for its next-gen Nova Lake CPU family.

AMD is known to be preparing a 9950X3D with dual V-cached equipped CCDs. Given the staggered launch of X3D chips from previous generations, I wouldn't bet against a 9600X3D at some point. Such a chip would surely be a favorite among budget-conscious gamers.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D's MSRP is $499 US, $20 higher than the original launch price of the 9800X3D.

Best Deals: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Desktop Processor

	Today	7 days ago	30 days ago
	-	-	$469 USD	Buy
	$466.99 USD	$469 USD	-	Buy
	-	-	$639.99 CAD	Buy
	$639 CAD	-	$659 CAD	Buy
	-	-	£399.95	Buy
	-	-	$469 USD	Buy
	$739 AUD	$739 AUD	$739 AUD	Buy
* Prices last scanned 2/9/2026 at 11:40 am CST - prices may be inaccurate. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. We earn affiliate commission from any Newegg or PCCG sales.

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D and Test System

Ryzen 7 9850X3D

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The 9850X3D's package is small and unassuming, as desktop Ryzen CPUs no longer ship with a cooler.

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The chip comes with a small instruction booklet, a card with a QR code for more information, and a case sticker.

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I've always liked the look of AM5 CPUs. That's if it's even possible to describe a CPU as good-looking. It has some kind of cyberpunk badass look. Not that you'll ever see it under a cooler!

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The backside offers 1718 socket pads, the same as all AM5 CPUs.

Test System

The key components of our test system were an ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero, G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000, and an MSI RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics card.

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero - Buy from Amazon
• GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super Ventus 3X - Buy from Amazon
• RAM: G.Skill Trident Z Neo RGB 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 - Buy from Amazon
• Cooler: Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux - Buy from Amazon
• OS Storage: Teamgroup T-Force Z540 2TB - Buy from Amazon
• Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Titanium 850W - Buy from Amazon
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro - Buy from Amazon

Benchmarks - Rendering and Encoding

Cinebench 2024

Cinebench is a well-established rendering benchmark. It has two tests: a single-core workload that uses one thread (1T) and a multi-threaded test that uses all threads (nT) of the tested CPU.

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The 1T Cinebench test shows just how much the 9850X3D benefits over the lower clocked 9800X3D. It's about 7% faster. As both chips have the same base clock, the nT results are similar. Obviously, the chips with higher core counts score a lot better.

Blender

A rendering application like Blender is just one of many reasons a user will consider a high-core-count CPU. We use the Whitelands demo file and record how long it takes to render the image.

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A rendering time of 834 seconds is easily the fastest of the 8-core chips. The 9850X3D is no one-trick pony. Of course, if you're doing lots of rendering and encoding, Arrow Lake is also worth considering.

Handbrake

Handbrake is a simple-to-use video encoding and transcoding application. Here, we convert a 4K movie trailer to 1080p. The results below show the average FPS; higher values indicate the task will take less time to complete.

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Ditto with Handbrake. The 9850X3D is the fastest AMD 8-core chip, but for encoding tasks, core count remains king.

Benchmarks - File Compression and Memory Latency

7Zip

7Zip is a commonly used free file compression and decompression app. It's sensitive to changes in memory speed and latency, and scales with the number of CPU threads.

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It's another solid result for the 9850X3D.

AIDA64 Memory Latency

Memory latency is an area that's traditionally favored by Intel and its monolithic designs. AMD's chiplet architecture and the Infinity Fabric link inevitably introduce some latency compared to monolithic architectures. A nanosecond or two here or there is not noticeable, but more significant margins, particularly when the memory is frequently accessed, will result in more undesirable and cumulative idle cycles.

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Curiously, all of the X3D results are a touch behind those of the non-X3D chips. High memory latency can significantly impact gaming performance, but it matters less due to the 9850X3D's voluminous L3 cache. Fewer memory accesses are what V-Cache was designed for.

Benchmarks - PCMark and 3DMark

PCMark 10 Productivity

We'd love to use our PCs purely for leisure, but some of us have to work, too! The PCMark 10 productivity test performs a series of tests using office productivity applications.

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This result is a little curious. Some subtests are more memory-agnostic than others, and it's likely that these subtests don't benefit from the extra cache.

3DMark Time Spy Extreme

Time Spy Extreme has lost favor as a graphics benchmark to Speed Way and Steel Nomad, but its CPU test is still a good measure of multi-core performance.

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The Time Spy Extreme CPU test shows an insignificant improvement over the 9800X3D.

Benchmarks - Gaming

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is brutal on graphics cards, but when things like ray tracing are removed, it becomes more sensitive to CPU and memory performance differences.

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Here, our RTX 4070 Ti Super is still GPU bottlenecked. It serves as an example of how virtually all modern CPUs are sufficient for gaming in graphically demanding scenarios. Still, a little bit of CPU grunt makes enough difference to put the 9850X3D at the top of the list.

Far Cry 6

Far Cry 6 is an example of a game that exhibits CPU bottlenecking with powerful graphics cards.

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Wow, just look at how the Ryzen 9000X3D chips can thrive in CPU-limited scenarios!

Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn can achieve high frame rates with powerful graphics cards when using the'Favor Performance' preset.

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Horizon Zero Dawn loves cache. The 9850X3D is well in front, though the 9800X3D isn't far behind in percentage terms, as expected.

Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition

Metro Exodus received an update that improved DLSS support, enhanced ray tracing, and variable rate shading, among other things. Still, with a powerful graphics card, it is affected by CPU and memory performance at 1080p, though less so with a card like the RTX 4070 Ti Super.

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The 9850X3D tops the chart again.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

I'm a big fan of the Borderlands series and really enjoyed playing Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. At 1080p with the high preset, our RTX 4070 Ti Super still somewhat limits it, so the differences here are not as large as you'd see with an RTX 5090.

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Oh, the 9850X3D got pipped! By one frame...

F1 22

F1 22 isn't particularly demanding, and it doesn't require a high-end graphics card to achieve smooth frame rates. We tested at 1080p with high settings.

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The 9850X3D is again at the top of the list, making it five from six. Though we can't test 100 games, it's safe to say the 9850X3D is the new gaming champ, though the 9800X3D nips at its heel the whole time. Owners of the latter can feel very comfortable with their purchase, without needing to upgrade.

Benchmarks - Power Consumption and Temperatures

Power

The 9850X3D has a 120W TDP and 162W maximum socket power (PPT) limit. A Cinebench looping test showed the 9850X3D nearly reaching that 162W limit, though small variations can be expected across different chips. AMD deserves credit for a whopping 400MHz boost clock increase over the 9800X3D, without an official TDP increase. A few extra watts for our sample are definitely tolerable.

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Though the peak result doesn't provide the full context of a CPU's efficiency across a variety of workloads, a full-load reading of 160W is very good, especially when compared to the peak power levels a 14900K can reach.

Temperatures

It goes without saying that temperature results heavily depend on your cooler's capabilities, case airflow, and ambient temperature. We aim to maintain a constant ambient temperature of 22 degrees Celsius for temperature testing.

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A peak temperature reading of 82 degrees is quite a jump over the thrifty 9700X, but it's still well within the capabilities of decent coolers. Stacked dies inevitably add heat, but given the 9850X3D's higher clock speeds over other 8-core chips, 82 is not a bad result.

Final Thoughts

As we enter 2026 and all the talk centers on AI and how hyperscalers are hogging manufacturing capacity, it's good to see AMD remember its gaming heritage. It could easily have persevered with the 9800X3D for another year, and no one would have complained. But AMD didn't, and the 9850X3D is the new champion of PC gaming CPUs.

Almost all the conclusions we reached with the 9800X3D apply to the 9850X3D. It's the best gaming chip with none of the weaknesses of the 5000 and 7000 series X3D chips. Its high clock speeds mean it doesn't lose any performance in non-gaming applications. Of course, chips with higher core counts still reign supreme in heavily multithreaded apps, but games need to be optimized for the CPUs people actually use, which means four, six, or eight cores. And that's without mentioning consoles. Eight cores are perfect for a gaming PC and will surely be for a while yet.

The gaming performance of first-generation V-cache chips was a bit hit-or-miss, depending on the game. Many didn't benefit from the extra cache, and some performed better with higher clock speeds, which was a strength of Intel. But with the 9850X3D's significantly higher base and boost clocks, you can have your cake and eat it too. High clock speeds, plus V-cache and IPC gains from the Zen 5 architecture, mean it's a gaming monster across the board.

The repositioning of the cache die under the CCD makes it easier to dissipate heat than on prior X3D chips. You don't need a high-end AIO to keep its temperatures under control. And AMD will let you overclock it just like all the other 9000-series CPUs, and PBO is available too.

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Gaming aside, it's interesting to see just how much faster the 9850X3D is than the power-constrained 9700X, even though its rated boost clock is just 100MHz higher than the 9700X's; the latter simply cannot maintain high all-core boost clocks because of its 65W TDP.

The 9850X3D's only real competitor is the 9800X3D. The only difference between the two is a 400MHz increase in boost clock. The TDP of both remains the same at 120W. The more important number is the 162W socket power limit. If you were to raise that a little, I'm sure the 9850X3D would widen the small performance gap with the 9800X3D, but that's a topic for another article.

The 9850X3D's MSRP of $499 is $20 higher than the 9800X3D's launch price. Strong demand (and perhaps limited supply) has kept the price of the 9800X3D fairly stable. A check shows it can be purchased for $469. However, the 9700X is much cheaper at around $330. It remains a solid all-purpose CPU, but given the gaming strengths of the 9850X3D, a $130 premium is one gamers will happily pay, particularly if you have a powerful GPU to take advantage of it.

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It's worth stressing that the 9850X3D's benefits will only apply to those using high-end graphics cards or to those looking to push hundreds of FPS in competitive shooters. But it's a strong all-rounder, too. That couldn't be said of prior X3D chips, which suffered from lower clock speeds and lost significant performance.

Arrow Lake chips are far less impressive at gaming, though they excel in creative and heavily threaded tasks. The chip or platform you choose will depend on factors such as your budget, partnering components, and workloads. There's no substitute for more cores when it comes to creativity tasks. A 285K or 9950X is a better option (albeit more expensive) under those kinds of loads.

If you're a gamer first and foremost and want a highly capable all-purpose chip as a bonus, the 9850X3D is the best chip there is. But owners of the already excellent 9800X3D should not feel any need to upgrade. Zen 6 is where they should be looking.