AMD already closed the Intel hole for gaming with its Ryzen 9 7950X3D, and now it’s able to go a step additional. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D has been the chip everybody has been ready to see the benchmarks for after the earlier Ryzen 7 5800X3D dominated gaming CPUs for a very long time. Whereas the 7800X3D arrives greater than a month after the 7950X3D, I can confidently say it was effectively well worth the wait.
The brand new Ryzen 7 7800X3D is priced at $449, with eight cores, 16 threads, and a lift clock as much as 5GHz. It’s designed to compete with Intel’s flagship Core i9-13900K (round $589), AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D ($699), and even Intel’s $699 Core i9-13900KS processor that runs at as much as 6GHz out of the field.
AMD’s 7800X3D has impressed me lots. At $449, it affords among the greatest PC gaming efficiency you’ll find proper now, whereas delivering it in a bundle that consumes lots much less energy than Intel’s equivalents. It’s so spectacular that I believe it ought to be most individuals’s subsequent gaming PC CPU.
I’ve been testing out AMD’s 7800X3D with MSI’s Meg X670E Ace motherboard, 32GB of G.Ability DDR5 6000 RAM, and Nvidia’s RTX 4090. This is among the newest AM5 motherboards, so it has a single PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot and three PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots for loads of storage choices for PC video games.
Sadly, we don’t have a 5800X3D in our labs in the intervening time, however I’ve examined a wide range of workloads, artificial benchmarks, and video games throughout AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the 7950X3D, Intel’s Core i9-13900K, and the 13900KS. All checks have been run on the newest Home windows 11 2022 Replace with VBS safety disabled on all programs. Resizable BAR has been enabled, and checks have been run primarily at 1080p decision to assist keep away from any potential GPU bottlenecks and to research the uncooked CPU efficiency.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D blows previous Intel’s Core i9-13900K in the entire seven video games I examined at 1080p and max or extremely settings. Each F1 22 and Shadow of the Tomb Raider run greater than 15 p.c sooner on the 7800X3D, and Watch Canine: Legion is 9 p.c sooner on this newest AMD CPU.
I used to be stunned to see Nvidia’s RTX 4090 pushing 366fps at 1080p in Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the 7800X3D, which edges previous the highest efficiency I noticed on the 7950X3D. Even Metro Exodus sees some stable efficiency good points for the 7800X3D over each the 13900K and 7950X3D.
All of those outcomes are spectacular for AMD at 1080p, however since I sometimes run a smaller number of video games for our CPU checks, I wished to check among the video games I sometimes use for GPU opinions, too. The truth is, this CPU has impressed me a lot that will probably be the first rig for testing future GPUs right here at The Verge.
So I actually wished to place the 7800X3D extra head-to-head with Intel’s Core i9-13900KS in an expanded gaming take a look at at 1080p. The 13900KS is a souped-up model of the 13900K, with a 6GHz prime enhance pace and tweaked base clocks which can be designed to spice up PC gaming efficiency. It’s one of the best Intel has to supply for PC gaming proper now, but it surely’s additionally $699 in comparison with the $449 pricing of the 7800X3D.
Within the 16 sport checks at 1080p, the 7800X3D got here out on prime 10 occasions. A lot of the losses are tremendous shut, excluding CS:GO, the place Intel’s 13900KS manages to beat the 7800X3D by practically 8 p.c. All the opposite occasions the 7800X3D loses out, it’s lower than a 3 p.c lead for Intel right here. It’s an analogous story at 1440p, the place the 7800X3D is ready to beat the 13900KS in most checks or lose on a small margin.
The place AMD doesn’t win is on the productiveness facet. The 7800X3D falls effectively behind Intel right here. Each of AMD’s prime X3D chips lose out to Intel on PugetBench’s Photoshop take a look at, Geekbench 5, and Cinebench R23. The 7800X3D isn’t actually designed to tackle productiveness duties, so this isn’t shocking, and for that, you’d actually need the 7950X3D as an alternative or Intel’s Core i9-13900K.
However when you solely care about gaming, the 7800X3D is the plain alternative given the mixture of efficiency enhancements, worth, and energy utilization. It’s genuinely spectacular how environment friendly AMD’s 7800X3D is right here. I examined the 7800X3D operating Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with maxed-out ray-tracing settings, and the CPU bundle energy hit a peak of 67 watts. Intel’s 13900KS hit a most of 275 watts for a similar activity.
I additionally noticed the 13900KS hit 329 watts throughout a Cinebench run, whereas the 7800X3D solely hit a peak energy draw of 86 watts. Whereas the 13900KS delivers much better Cinebench efficiency and a small bump to border charges in video games like Cyberpunk 2077, it’s delivering higher efficiency in most video games with out the additional energy draw.
The 7800X3D additionally maxed out at 84 levels Celsius throughout a Cinebench run, in comparison with 101 levels Celsius max on the 13900KS. Very like the 7950X3D, the 7800X3D has a TDP of 120 watts, down from the 170-watt TDP discovered on the unique Zen 4 7950 chip. Intel makes use of a base energy of 125 watts on the Core i9-13900K, and it has pushed this to 150 watts on the 13900KS. At max turbo energy, each of Intel’s newest chips go above 250 watts and might go even additional if a motherboard permits it.
The effectivity of AMD’s newest X3D chips is due to its newest Zen 4 structure and a mix of its spectacular 3D V-Cache know-how. 3D V-Cache works so effectively in video games as a result of they don’t want a excessive quantity of CPU cores and energy. As a substitute, they favor CPUs that may course of information rapidly with massive quantities of cache. Productiveness apps don’t sometimes favor large quantities of cache, so we don’t see the identical efficiency good points in these duties.
The 7800X3D, very like the 7950X3D, requires a brand new AM5 motherboard. These boards have assist for DDR5 reminiscence and as much as 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes. The primary PCIe 5.0 shopper SSDs are set to launch quickly, however most will nonetheless use PCIe 4.0 SSDs for now. The PCIe 5.0 assist on AM5 boards is nice for futureproofing, however you received’t want it for GPUs anytime quickly. Nvidia’s newest RTX 40-series playing cards don’t assist this newest normal, and we haven’t hit the boundaries of PCIe 4.0 for GPUs but.
Present AM4 coolers also needs to work simply tremendous with AM5 boards. I’ve been ready to make use of Corsair’s H150 Elite LCD with none adjustments required on the 7800X3D, 7950X3D, and common 7950. It’s price checking along with your cooler producer to ensure that current AM4 fashions can simply be used with these new AM5 motherboards, although.
You’ll additionally must be sure you configure a brand new BIOS choice to make sure boot occasions are cheap. I seen some early points with the DDR5 reminiscence coaching course of throughout my Ryzen 9 7900X overview, with an extra boot time of round 30 seconds. AM5 motherboards ship with a “reminiscence context restore” BIOS choice that you should have enabled to cut back boot occasions.
I initially had points with this technique stability with this setting enabled this on MSI’s Meg X670E Ace motherboard. After reporting the problems to each MSI and AMD, MSI equipped an up to date BIOS that fastened the Blue Display screen of Loss of life (BSOD) that I noticed.
AMD’s 7800X3D is a very spectacular gaming CPU. AMD closed the hole with the 7950X3D, and now it’s going past that and flexing its effectivity on the similar time. If I have been constructing a gaming PC proper now, I’d choose the 7800X3D for sure.
In the event you use your PC for each gaming and productiveness apps like Photoshop, Premiere Professional, or one thing related, then the 7950X3D is a greater choice for many who want efficiency in each. Each of AMD’s prime choices pack some nice PC gaming efficiency in processors that received’t price as a lot to run. That’s vital in lots of markets which can be nonetheless feeling the results of rising vitality payments or for anybody who needs their PC gaming to influence the surroundings much less.
The 5800X3D turned the favored choice for PC players, and I believe the 7800X3D is right here to shine for 2023 and past.
Replace, April eleventh 10:45AM ET: Overview up to date to notice MSI has equipped a brand new BIOS replace that has fastened the soundness points I noticed after enabling a boot function.
