AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D Review – The Best Just Got Better

Introduction
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the company’s new flagship gaming processor. In November 2024 we saw the unveiling of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which instantly became the world’s fastest gaming PC processor. With the 9850X3D they are making small, incremental improvements to the 9800X3D—similar to what Intel does with their “KS” offerings. AMD announced the 9850X3D just a few weeks ago, at CES 2026, it is an 8-core/16-thread processor featuring 3D V-Cache, a critical innovation by AMD that sees processors ship with stacked last-level cache. The processor comes with 64 MB of L3 cache augmenting the on-die 32 MB. What sets the 9850X3D apart from the 9800X3D is a fairly significant increase in maximum boost frequency, and an update to Precision Boost behavior that should improve boost residency across the multithreaded workload scaling spread. Officially, the base clock is the same for both models, at 4.7 GHz, but the maximum boost has increased from 5.2 GHz to 5.6 GHz (+7.7%).

This 400 MHz increase in boost headroom also pulls up boost frequency residency across the core-count, so workloads benefit from higher frequencies. The stated TDP remains unchanged, it remains at 120 W. Each of the eight Zen 5 CPU cores comes with 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache that runs at double the bandwidth of the L2 cache of Zen 4 cores, the eight cores share a total of 96 MB of L3 cache. The Zen 5 CCD is built on the 4 nm TSMC N4P foundry node. The 6 nm client I/O die packs a dual-channel DDR5 memory controller, and a 28-lane PCI-Express Gen 5 root complex. Same as on the 9800X3D.

3D V-Cache, introduced in 2022 with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, sees AMD’s 8-core chiplets come with enlarged 96 MB last-level caches that are found to profoundly improve performance with gaming workloads. This large cache also helps with real-time rendering workloads. With the Ryzen 9000 generation powered by Zen 5 microarchitecture, AMD introduced its 2nd generation 3D V-Cache, which flips the way the Zen 5 CPU core die (CCD) and 3D V-Cache die (L3D) are stacked. On older 3D V-Cache chips, such as the 5800X3D and 7800X3D, the L3D is stacked on top of the CCD, over its central region that has the on-die 32 MB L3 cache, with structural silicon being stacked on top of the edges of the CCD that have the hotter CPU cores. This approach had posed thermal limits on the CCD, and AMD clocked its older X3D chips conservatively, with limited overclocking capabilities. The new 2nd Generation L3D is peppered with through-silicon vias (TSVs), which enable AMD to stack the CCD on top of the L3D rather than below it, so the CCD can more directly transfer heat to the integrated heat-spreader (IHS) over the solder-TIM. This approach lets 9000X3D processors have higher clock speeds and overclocking capabilities like regular, non-X3D processor models.

The AMD Zen 5 microarchitecture involves a comprehensive reworking of nearly all the core components compared to Zen 4, with a particular focus on the number-crunching capabilities. The core comes with a true 512-bit floating point data-path to more effectively execute 512-bit SIMD workloads that use instruction-sets such as AVX-512, VNNI, etc.; when compared to Zen 4, which uses a dual-pumped 256-bit data-path to execute these instruction-sets.

AMD is pricing the Ryzen 7 9850X3D at $500, a $20 increase over the launch price of the 9800X3D, which is now retailing for around $470. Given how popular these chips are among the PC gaming and enthusiast crowds, we don’t expect the 9800X3D to drop in pricing by much. What’s interesting is that the older generation 7800X3D is still going for $400. The new 9850X3D should be generally available from January 29, 2026.

AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D Market Segment Analysis PriceCores /
ThreadsBase
ClockMax.
BoostL3
CacheTDPArchitectureProcessSocketIntel Core i5Core i5-12400F$1106/122.5 GHz4.4 GHz18 MB65 WAlder Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i5-13400F$1706+4/162.5/1.8 GHz4.6/3.3 GHz20 MB65 WRaptor Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i5-12600K$1706+4/163.7/2.8 GHz4.9/3.6 GHz20 MB125 WAlder Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i5-13600K$2256+8/203.5/2.6 GHz5.1/3.9 GHz24 MB125 WRaptor Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i5-14600K$2606+8/203.5/2.6 GHz5.3/4.0 GHz24 MB125 WRaptor Lake10 nmLGA 1700Intel Core Ultra 5Core Ultra 5 245K$3106+8/144.2/3.6 GHz5.2/4.6 GHz24 MB159 WArrow Lake3 nmLGA 1851AMD Ryzen 5Ryzen 5 8500G$1506/123.5 GHz5.0 GHz16 MB65 WPhoenix 24 nmAM5Ryzen 5 5600X$1356/123.7 GHz4.6 GHz32 MB65 WZen 37 nmAM4Ryzen 5 7600$1856/123.8 GHz5.1 GHz32 MB65 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 5 7600X$2106/124.7 GHz5.3 GHz32 MB105 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 5 9600X$1856/123.9 GHz5.4 GHz32 MB65 WZen 54 nmAM5Intel Core i7Core i7-12700K$2108+4/203.6/2.7 GHz5.0/3.8 GHz25 MB125 WAlder Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i7-13700K$2808+8/243.4/2.5 GHz5.4/4.2 GHz30 MB125 WRaptor Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i7-14700K$3558+12/283.4/2.5 GHz5.6/4.3 GHz33 MB125 WRaptor Lake10 nmLGA 1700Intel Core Ultra 7Core Ultra 7 265K$2908+12/203.9/3.3 GHz5.5/4.6 GHz30 MB250 WArrow Lake3 nmLGA 1851AMD Ryzen 7Ryzen 7 5700G$1658/163.8 GHz4.6 GHz16 MB65 WZen 3 + Vega7 nmAM4Ryzen 7 5700X$1608/163.4 GHz4.6 GHz32 MB65 WZen 37 nmAM4Ryzen 7 7700$2808/163.8 GHz5.3 GHz32 MB65 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 7 7700X$2758/164.5 GHz5.4 GHz32 MB105 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 7 9700X$3058/163.8 GHz5.5 GHz32 MB65 WZen 54 nmAM5Ryzen 7 5800X$1658/163.8 GHz4.7 GHz32 MB105 WZen 37 nmAM4Ryzen 7 5800X3D$3408/163.4 GHz4.5 GHz96 MB105 WZen 37 nmAM4Ryzen 7 7800X3D$3758/164.2 GHz5.0 GHz96 MB120 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 7 9800X3D$4508/164.7 GHz5.2 GHz96 MB120 WZen 54 nmAM5Ryzen 7 9850X3D$5008/164.7 GHz5.6 GHz96 MB120 WZen 54 nmAM5Intel Core i9Core i9-12900K$2808+8/243.2/2.4 GHz5.2/3.9 GHz30 MB125 WAlder Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i9-13900K$4158+16/323.0/2.2 GHz5.8/4.3 GHz36 MB125 WRaptor Lake10 nmLGA 1700Core i9-14900K$4608+16/323.2/2.4 GHz6.0/4.4 GHz36 MB125 WRaptor Lake10 nmLGA 1700Intel Core Ultra 9Core Ultra 9 285K$5708+16/243.7/3.2 GHz5.7/4.6 GHz36 MB250 WArrow Lake3 nmLGA 1851AMD Ryzen 9Ryzen 9 5900X$26512/243.7 GHz4.8 GHz64 MB105 WZen 37 nmAM4Ryzen 9 7900$37012/243.7 GHz5.4 GHz64 MB65 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 9 7900X$40012/244.7 GHz5.6 GHz64 MB170 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 9 7900X3D$58012/244.4 GHz5.6 GHz128 MB120 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 9 9900X$43012/244.4 GHz5.6 GHz64 MB120 WZen 54 nmAM5Ryzen 9 5950X$34516/323.4 GHz4.9 GHz64 MB105 WZen 37 nmAM4Ryzen 9 7950X$66016/324.5 GHz5.7 GHz64 MB170 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 9 7950X3D$55016/324.2 GHz5.7 GHz128 MB120 WZen 45 nmAM5Ryzen 9 9950X$49016/324.3 GHz5.7 GHz64 MB170 WZen 54 nmAM5Ryzen 9 9950X3D$64516/324.3 GHz5.7 GHz128 MB170 WZen 54 nmAM5