The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the first to utilise the new 3D V-Cache technology, will be available on April 20, 2022 for $449.
This new chip from the red team shares many attributes with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: it is an eight-core, 16-thread processor; it's built using TSMC's 7nm process node; and it works with existing AM4 socket motherboards.
So why bother upgrading at all?
AMD is using clever chip-stacking technology named 3D V-Cache to bolster the 5800X3D's gaming performance. It does this by boosting L3 cache to three times what it is on the Ryzen 7 5800X through 3D die stacking—a bump from 32MB to 96MB. As a result, AMD reports a performance boost of around 15% at 1080p in gaming over the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X.
That's a brand new technology coming from AMD and its chipmaking partner TSMC, so you should expect to see it used more extensively in future chips from AMD.
The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is 3D V-Cache's first foray onto our desktops, though, and at $449 AMD isn't charging any more cash for it. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is actually the same price as the Ryzen 7 5800X was at launch.
Though the Ryzen 7 5800X is currently available on sale for $350. Multiple major retailers have discounted AMD's Ryzen 5000-series CPUs across the board, in fact. These discounts are likely due to the arrival of Intel's 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs, though it's probably also down to the maturity of these chips, the process node, and the overall demand for them.
The same wave of discounts see the 12-core, 24-thread Ryzen 9 5900X drop to $449.
That means you're going to have to decide between the newer 3D-stacked chip with greater gaming performance over an older one with greater core counts or save yourself $100 to spend elsewhere—I'd recommend saving that towards a more powerful GPU.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Ryzen 7 5800X3D | Ryzen 7 5800X | Ryzen 9 5900X |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cores/threads | 8/16 | 8/16 | 12/24 |
| Boost clock (GHz) | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.8 |
| Base clock (GHz) | 3.4 | 3.8 | 3.7 |
| TDP (Watt) | 105 | 105 | 105 |
| Process node | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm | TSMC 7nm |
| L3 Cache (MB) | 96 | 32 | 64 |
| L2 Cache (MB) | 4 | 4 | 6 |
| MSRP | $449 | $449 | $549 |
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The real test for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D will be in how much of a difference that stacked cache makes in gaming. If it's really breaking new barriers in gaming performance for a CPU perhaps that's enough to win us over. And similarly, I'm excited to see AMD prove the concept of stacked cache (and stacked chips in general) in the real-world—there's going to be a lot more of this technology around from all major vendors in a blink of an eye.
AMD will also release Zen 4 processors later this year, which should deliver a pretty significant upgrade. Though these will also come with a new socket, AM5, so that will likely leave the Ryzen 7 5800X3D as the best gaming processor for the AM4 socket forevermore.
We'll keep an eye out for more performance figures closer to April 20, 2022—or 4.20—a date that holds no other relevance beyond AMD's exciting chip launch.
