Ryzen 9 7950X3D was launched yesterday, a high-performance processor that was accompanied by Ryzen 9 7900X3D and became one of the most powerful processors for games. AMD is also planning to launch the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, but at the moment we are not sure when it will hit the market, nor do we know what the exact price will be in Spain.

The leak allowed us to see a lot of Ryzen 9 7950X3D performance data ahead of its launch, and it was finally confirmed in broad strokes. TechPowerUp published the best review of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D I’ve seen so far, in fact even going so far as to disable the CCD unit so we can get an idea of ​​the approximate performance we can expect from the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and do it. it’s clear that the 7950X3D Ryzen 9’s great value isn’t in its performance, It is located in its consumption and working temperatures.

Ryzen 9 7950X3D performance: Loses in applications, narrowly wins in games

In professional applications and tests, The Ryzen 9 7950X3D loses to the Intel Core i9-13900K by 2.2%, it actually loses even to the Ryzen 9 7950X by 0.3%, and the difference is greater if we allow the task scheduler to prioritize the cache. This is a consequence of something I’ve told you many times in the past, that the extra L3 cache only really improves performance in games.

Gaming performance data confirms that the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is the most powerful processor available today. Working from home, the Intel Core i9-13900K outperforms the GeForce RTX 4090 by 1.6% in 720p gaming. If configured to favor the cache, the difference rises to 3.8%. When prioritizing frequency, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D loses 10.2% against the Intel chip.

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Upscaling to 1080p, the Intel Core i9-13900K beats the stock Ryzen 9 7950X3D by 0.2%, but loses 2.5% to it when prioritizing cache. By increasing the resolution to 1440p, the Intel chip outperformed the default AMD chip by 2.3%, but loses 0.7% when configured to prioritize cache. In 4K we see the Intel Core i9-13900K wins by 0.2% over the Ryzen 9 7950X3D configured to prioritize cache.

I don’t think anyone would buy a Ryzen 9 7950X3D or a Core i9-13900K and a GeForce RTX 4090 to play at 720p or 1080p, so I think the conclusion we can draw from this comparison is very clear, the value AMD’s new top-of-the-range offers in terms of performance is very small and its selling price will largely determine whether it really pays off. it or not

Consumption and temperatures: here it really shines above the competition

The Ryzen 9 7950X3D, configured to favor L3 cache, reported a average consumption of only 73 watts in a total of 47 different applications, with the Intel Core i9-13900K hitting the mark 169 watts. This means that the former was capable of slightly more power than the latter, using less than half, which translates into much higher power per watt.

As you might have imagined, lower consumption also means more closed working temperatures. The maximum peak of the Ryzen 9 7950X3D configured for cache priority was 86 degreeswhile the Intel Core i9-13900K had a peak 102 degrees (both figures obtained in Blender). In the games, he remained first in 72 degrees and the other reached 87 degrees. Again, the difference is noticeable and the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is even cooler than the Ryzen 9 7950X which had maximum temperature 97 degrees.

However, keep in mind that the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is very close to its thermal limit, which was set at 87 degrees, which is lower than the model without 3D stacked cache, and which we think is responding to the greater sensitivity of this heat. We will need a 360mm liquid cooling kit to keep it at optimal values, keep that in mind since it’s still a dispersion-intensive processor, something normal since we’re talking about a chip that has 16 cores and 32 threads.

Best to wait for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D

That’s the conclusion I’ve been able to draw from everything I’ve seen so far. L3 cache affects performance in games and in those games having 16 cores and 32 threads doesn’t make sense. Therefore, buying Ryzen 9 7950X3D if your main goal is to play games is a bad idea because you’ll be paying for something you’ll never actually use.

Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a more interesting option because it retains 64 MB of 3D stacked cache (96 MB total), because it has 8 cores and 16 threads (exceeding the optimal minimum for gaming), and because it comes with a single CDD unit, which eliminates the problems that have been confirmed with dual CCD configurations, which his big brother has.

To all of the above, we must also add that the Ryzen 7 7800X3D will be cheaper, although unfortunately we still don’t know the final price for Spain, only the prices for the United States. The Ryzen 9 7900X3D costs €699, so it’s very likely that the Ryzen 7 7800X3D will be within range 549-599 euros, approx.