The AMD Ryzen 5 5800X — launched on November 5, 2020 — recently hit the top spot in Amazon UK’s list of best-selling CPUs. The refreshed 5800XT, which arrived in July last year, is likewise in the top ten most popular processors in Amazon US, with the chip sitting in fourth place.

This is unusual, given that these use the five-year-old Zen 3 architecture and the nearly decade-old AM4 platform. The age of these chips means that they’re often picked by PC builders sticking to a budget and are commonly eschewed by mainstream and high-end enthusiasts for more modern Zen 4 and Zen 5 options.

However, the ongoing memory crisis has enthusiasts flocking to older DDR4 modules as prices have surged to record highs. It has gotten to the point that 64GB DDR5 memory kits now cost more than an entire PlayStation 5 console, even with discounts. Analysts and industry experts are saying that there is no relief in sight in 2026, with prices expected to climb through the first quarter of next year.

That's why demand for decent gaming processors that use older DDR4 RAM has skyrocketed, with AMD’s first X3D chip, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, now costing more than new 9800X3D processors in the secondhand market.

Unfortunately, the 5800X3D is no longer in production, so gamers who want a new processor without paying for the DDR5 premium must settle for the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X or 5800XT. In our review of the 5800X, the chip delivered excellent gaming performance while balancing single-threaded and multi-threaded capabilities. However, it had a high launch price of $450 while offering almost the same numbers as the more affordable Ryzen 5 5600X.

Thankfully, the price of the 5800X has fallen since then, with the Amazon UK listing it for £184.19 or around US$250. On the other hand, the newer AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT is much more affordable in the U.S., as you can get it for just US $199 as per this Amazon US listing. By comparison, the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is also listed for $198.49 in Amazon US at the time of writing. While the 9600X will certainly beat the 5800X and XT in almost all metrics, the fact that the former uses more expensive DDR5 RAM is likely the main reason why many budget and mainstream PC builders are opting for the older processor that uses more affordable memory kits.

Are you looking for a cost-effective way to assemble a little gaming rig? You can't beat a bundle offer that saves almost $100. Combining a CPU, motherboard, and RAM, you can pick up this starter bundle from Newegg for a nice combo-bundle price. Grab a Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, ASRock X570 Steel Legend WiFi AX Mobo, and 16GB of G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 3600MHz RAM for only $333.

If you suffer from any discomfort from using your mouse on the daily grind, you should look at some of the ergonomic mice on the market to help you improve your workflow and your health. One of the best wireless mice - the Logitech Lift vertical ergonomic mouse is on sale for $59 at Dell after receiving a small discount. See our Logitech Lift review for more details on this ergonomic mouse. 

A simple yet functional no-frills mouse from Corsair that won't break the bank - the Corsair Katar Pro XT is on sale for just $21. This is a great price for a mouse with a small amount of RGB, an accurate optical sensor, and a lightweight design. We enjoyed that this mouse didn't attempt to change the wheel with its design but instead focused on functionality and cost. See our review of the Corsair Katar Pro XT for more details.

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TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, Motherboard & RAM Combo: now $333 at Newegg (was $427)
• Logitech Lift Vertical Ergonomic Mouse: now $59 at Dell (was $69)
• Corsair Katar Pro XT: now $21 at Amazon (was $34)
• SanDisk 256GB Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive: now $12 at Walmart (was $26)
• Inland Glass PLA 3D Printer Filament: now $10 at Amazon (was $22)

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Today we spotted a large discount on the Asus ROG Strix G18 gaming laptop that's now reduced to $2,099 at Best Buy. This is still a very high ticket price item, but you do get some impressive hardware in this large chassis. The 18-inch screen has a QHD resolution and a very fast 240Hz refresh rate - helping to power these specs are an Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU and an Intel Core i9-13980HX processor.

An alternative to either AMD or Nvidia on the GPU front, this AIB edition Acer Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 has a slight discount of $309 at Newegg. This GPU comes with 16GB of VRAM, and Intel has been delivering frequent driver updates that look to ever improve the performance of this GPU.

Pick up this last-generation AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU for just $189. Still, a solid performer if you want to put together a budget-build PC or even upgrade a previous AM4 system. With eight cores and 16 threads, this CPU is still highly capable of either productivity work or gaming. 

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TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• Asus ROG Strix G18 Gaming Laptop: now $2,099 at Best Buy (was $2,499)
• Acer Predator BiFrost Intel Arc A770 Graphics Card: now $309 at Newegg (was $399)
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU: now $189 at Amazon (was $220)
• Corsair RM750x (2021) PSU: now $94 at Newegg (was $119)
• Anker USB-C Hub 6-in-1 USB-C Adapter: now $19 at Amazon (was $39)

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The Micro Center-exclusive Ryzen 5 5600X3D might be the new hotness (on AMD’s old AM4 socket) when it comes to mid-range gaming value. But with two more cores and slightly higher base and boost clocks, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a better performer, one of the best CPUs for gaming, and it just keeps getting cheaper.

Currently sitting at $277 on Amazon for Prime day, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is $12 cheaper than it’s ever been and a whopping $172 less than its $449 launch price. At that price, it's also only $48 more than Ryzen 5 5600X3D. And since you don’t have to go to a Micro Center to buy one (Amazon comes to you!), that alone could make it worth the extra expense if you don’t live within reasonable driving distance of one of the 25 current Micro Center locations. Plus, you get two more cores for some extra future proofing (and current performance on highly threaded tasks).

Our testing shows that the 5800X3D is second only to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 1080p gaming, and 9 fps ahead of the 5600X3D. Keep in mind that the 7800X3D is both a much more expensive CPU and on a much more expensive AM5 platform, where the motherboards and the RAM (DDR5) are much more expensive.

So, if you’re looking to build a high-end gaming rig without spending hundreds more on AMD or Intel’s current platforms, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is an excellent option at $277 – especially if you can’t just swing by a Micro Center and pick up a cheaper 5600X3D.

This is the lowest ever price I've seen for the Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD — only $129 thanks to a promotion code at Newegg. Use the promotion code SSCS333 at the checkout to knock $10 off of the retail price of $139. The Samsung 980 Pro has been one of our favorite SSDs since it launched, and if you would like to know more about this SSD then see our review of the Samsung 980 Pro for more details. 

If you're looking for a cheap laptop for just doing the basics, like browsing or writing your memoirs, then take a look at the Asus VivoBook for only $199 from Best Buy. It has a 14-inch screen and an Intel 11th Gen Core i3-1115G4 CPU with 8GB of DDR4 RAM. 

MSI's Gaming Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU has been lowered to $509 at Amazon which is great to see as the price of GPUs is still holding a fairly high price — even from the last generation. The 6800 XT comes with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM which seems to be needed more and more in the latest AAA games that are being released as of late.

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TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• 2TB Samsung 980 Pro PCIe Gen 4 SSD: now $129 at Newegg with promo code (was $199)
• Asus VivoBook 14 Laptop: now $199 at Best Buy (was $429)
• MSI Gaming Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU: now $509 at Amazon (was $549)
• Dell G2723H Gaming Monitor: now $199 at Dell (was $369)
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU: now $240 at Amazon (was $449)

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HP is offering some fantastic discounts on their Omen gaming laptops right now. One of the standout deals is a $2,105 HP Omen 17 (2023) gaming laptop- thanks to a deals discount and the use of a coupon code GAMEAPRIL10 which combined saves you $234. This particular configuration comes with an RTX 4080 GPU, Core i7-13700HX CPU, 16GB of DDR5, 1TB SSD, and a 17-inch, 165Hz, QHD IPS screen. These are some high specs at this price point.  

This rather attractive-looking PC case does away with all the fish-tank-looking RGB and instead adds a touch of class with its wooden walnut front panel and open mesh side panel. If you're looking for a PC case that's a little more subdued and subtle then the Fractal Design North ATX PC Case for $139 is a great choice. We reviewed the Fractal Design North and absolutely loved it - giving it an Editor's Choice award thanks to its excellent thermal performance and beautiful design.

If you like to stream or even edit video, the Elgato Stream Deck Classic at $119 is an item you might want to consider to make your life easier. It's one of those gadgets that you don't realize how handy they are until you have one. With customizable LCD buttons, you can set up to perform your most frequent tasks and shortcuts the Elgato Stream Deck is a feature on many content streamers' desks. 

More great Real Deals follow below. 

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• HP Omen 17t Gaming Laptop: now $2,105 at HP (was $2,339)
• Fractal Design North ATX PC Case: now $139 at Amazon (was $230)
• Elgato Stream Deck: now $119 at Amazon (was $149)
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU: now $213 at Amazon (was $449)
• Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro DDR4 32GB RAM: now $84 at Best Buy (was $104)

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If $699 for an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D makes you balk at the thought of building a new gaming rig, then why not consider AMD's last-generation AM4 CPUs for a gaming build that won't break the bank. 

One of the best CPUs for gaming, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is on sale for only $309 at Amazon, and if you're lucky enough to live near a Microcenter store, you can get the 5800X3D for just $299.

With its groundbreaking 3D-stacked SRAM technology, the 5800X3D is enabled with a massive 96MB of L3 cache. Having 3D V-Cache allows the 5800X3D to have tremendous gaming performance. The chip still uses eight cores and 16-threads and is based on the same 7nm process and Zen 3 architecture as the rest of the 5000-series, but this chip was the peak for gaming on AMD's outgoing AM4 platform.

Average FPS at 1080p, 1440p, and Single/Multi-Threaded Applications

You can also read our review of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D for more information on its 3D V-Cache and performance metrics in our test bench and on some of our gaming benchmarks. We gave the 5800X3D an Editor's Choice award for its price and performance at the time but still noted that this CPU is best as an out-and-out gaming CPU as it's not as competitive on normal desktop applications.

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AMD's mighty AM4 gaming CPU — the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is now only $299 on eBay via Antonline's store. If you're on the AM4 platform and want the best CPU for gaming, then the 5800X3D is your best option, thanks to its generous 3D V-Cache that helps to boost performance in games. This is the cheapest price for the 5800X3D currently, but make sure to use the promo code JOLLY15 if you decide to make a purchase. 

The INNOCN 40C1R from Amazon for $399 is a great choice if you are looking to upgrade your display — that is if you have the room on your desk, or a monitor arm strong enough to hold this behemoth. With a 40-inch ultrawide QHD panel and 144Hz refresh rate, this large monitor will be able to provide buttery smooth frames for your gaming, or just give you a large amount of screen space for any work-related tasks. 

If you chew through a lot of large files or data and want something beefy to back up your work, then consider the WD Easystore 14TB External HDD is now available for $199 from Best Buy. It can store a massive 14TB of data via its USB 3.0 connection and is very portable.

See below for more great deals on gaming bundles from Razer and 4K monitors from Dell.

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D: now $300 at eBay
• INNOCN-40C1R 40-inch Ultrawide QHD Monitor: was $599, now $399 at Amazon
• WD easystore 14TB External HDD: was $294, now $199 at BestBuy
• Dell S2721QS 27-inch 4K Monitor: was $329, now $249 at Amazon
• Razer Next Level Gaming Bundle: was $50, now $35 at Walmart

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After seeing the 5800X3D on sale over the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales period, it's now either out of stock or raised back up to around the $370 mark or more from retailers with available stock. So, with the festive holiday season just around the corner, it's a great time to pick up the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D for just $309 from Antonline's eBay store thanks to a 15% discount code (JOLLY15). 

The 5800X3D is one of the best CPUs for gaming and at this price, it's the best bang-for-the-buck gaming CPU available, especially if you're looking to upgrade your CPU on an existing AM4 PC setup. 

If you are on the hunt for a premium quality laptop, you can grab one of Dell's XPS 17 (9720) laptops on Amazon for $2,549. Although this sounds expensive, you're getting a massive discount on one of the top-tier models in the range. This model comes with a 17-inch 4K touchscreen panel,  Core i9-12900HK processor, Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU, 1TB SSD, and a whopping 32GB of memory. When compared to the Dell website, nothing comes close to this price with these specs. 

EVGA may have dropped out of the GPU market, but they are still making power supplies, and you can get hold of one of their EVGA SuperNOVA 750 GT 750W units from GameStop for only $83. This PSU is fully modular and 80 plus Gold rated. 

See more Real Deals below on Dell monitors and Acer gaming laptops.

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D: was $364, now $309 at eBay via Antonline when using promo code JOLLY15
• Dell XPS 17 9720: was $3,195, now $2,549 at Amazon
• EVGA SuperNOVA 750 GT Power Supply: was $139, now $83 at GameStop
• Dell S2721D Monitor: was $239, now $149 at Dell
• Acer Nitro 5 Gaming Laptop: was $1,049, now $699 at Acer

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Even with new tiers of CPUs and GPUs available to purchase right now, availability and pricing aren't on the generous side at the moment. If you're on any kind of budget, you should certainly consider picking up some tried and tested components at a much more sensible price. 

Today, AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D is only $329 at Walmart. This is the lowest price ever for what is the best-value CPU for gaming that is currently available. What makes this CPU even better is that it can be easily combined with a wide range of AM4 motherboards and affordable DDR4 to make a very high-end gaming rig.

One of the best gaming laptops under $1,500, the HP Victus 15 is a low $479 - with an 8-core 12th Generation Intel i5-12450H processor, Bang & Olufsen audio for its twin speaker setup, a backlit keyboard for low-light gaming, and a decent selection of ports, you get a good amount for the price. However, you may want to upgrade with more RAM, and the included discrete GPU is an older Nvidia GTX 1650, which will struggle to run the latest AAA games on higher settings.

For either your PC or perhaps an upgrade for your PlayStation 5, the 1TB Gigabyte Aorus 7000s Gen4 is only $119 on Amazon.  With read speeds of 7000Mb/s and write speeds of 5500Mb/s, this M.2 SSD is fast enough to play all the latest titles and keep load times to a minimum. 

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TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D: was $449, now $329 at Walmart
• HP Victus 15.6" Gaming Laptop: was $799, now $479 at Best Buy
• Gigabyte Aorus Gen4 7000s SSD 1TB: was $229, now $119 at Amazon
• Gigabyte Aorus 32GB DDR5 Memory 5200MHz: was $225, now $169 at Amazon
• Matte Pink Overture PLA Filament: was $19, now $16 at Amazon

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AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU is a great chip for your gaming rig and it seems that it is now powering XMG's Apex 15 Max laptop. This notebook is already one of the few mobile chassis that can support AMD's standard Ryzen 5000 desktop parts, but thanks to a BIOS update to AGESA 1.2.0.7, the 3D V-cache variant of the 5800X is now supported.

The XMG Apex 15 Max, is a ultra-thick 15.6 inch gaming laptop, that features the unique characteristic of supporting AMD desktop-grade Ryzen 5000 series processors, thanks to a integrated B550 motherboard housed in the system. As a result, the system is capable of supporting CPUs all the way up to the Ryzen 9 5950X, with 105W chips operating in ECO mode.

Thanks to a AGESA code 1.2.0.7 supported BIOS update, the XMG Apex 15 can now support AMD's gaming jewel - the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. According to XMPG's benchmarks, the 5800X3D operating inside the Apex 15 is up to 14% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X, and 30% faster than the 5700X in Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Unfortunately that is the only advantage the 5800X3D offers in the XMG Apex 15 chassis. In Cinebench R20 and R23 the 3D-VCache chip lost to both the Ryzen 7 5700X and 5900X XMG in both the single and multi-core tests, due to the reduce clock speed headroom on the 3D VCache model.

As a result, the 5800X3D should only be considered if you're focused on gaming exclusively. Any other workloads will benefit greater from the other 8 core or higher core count Ryzen chips, which can boost to much higher frequencies compared to the 5800X3D model.

The laptop is incredibly thick, with a thickness of 32.5mm, this is anything but a thin and light. However, if you need desktop-grade CPU horsepower in a laptop chassis the Apex 15 max is one of the few notebooks that can sport AMD's Ryzen 5000 series desktop chips.

The system can be configured with either a RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 laptop GPU, and can support up to 64GB of 3200Mhz DDR4 SODIMM memory. For storage, the laptop comes with three storage slots, comprising of dual M.2 slots and a single 2.5 inch drive mount for SSDs or small 7mm tall hard drives.

The display features a 240Hz IPS display operating at a 1080P resolution, there are no other options available via the configurator. Powering and charging the system is handled via a 230W power brick.

For gaming, the Apex 15 will offer one of the best gaming experiences possible in CPU bound games thanks to 5800X3D support. XMG now offers the Ryzen 7 5800X3D as a option in its Apex 15 Max configuration tool, but it can also be a upgrade solution for current owners as well.

For an AMD 7 5800X3D based system with an RTX 3060, 16GB DDR4-3200 Samsung RAM and 500GB Samsung 980 SSD you'll be paying €1,720.99 (including a 19% sales tax, but postage is extra). Converting that to USD we subtract the 19% tax and see the price come in at $1379. Of course this will be liable for taxes and import duties in your home country.

One of the last big hurrahs for the AM4 platform - the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D has been reduced to $384 on Amazon. Ahead of the launch of AMD's Zen 4 CPU lineup, we've seen some reductions across the board for the current gen of Ryzen CPUs, which is great news for anyone that wants to upgrade their current AM4 platform with a faster CPU, and the 5800X3D is an excellent choice as it's one of our best CPUs for gaming pick. 

You can grab a Corsair RM1000e power supply for $152 on Amazon, saving over $25 on its usual retail price. If you're looking to future-proof a PC build, then 1000W of power should be more than enough to run a powerful CPU and graphics card - for the moment at least. 

And if you're on the hunt for a wireless gaming mouse, then you will struggle to find a better deal than this HyperX Pulsefire Dart Wireless RGB gaming mouse for only $32. With long battery life and a quality Pixart 3389 sensor, you're getting a lot of mouse for the money. 

Check down below for more of today's great deals. 

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU: was $449, now $384 at Amazon
• Corsair RM1000e Power Supply: was $179, now $152 at Amazon
• HyperX Pulsefire Dart Wireless RGB Gaming Mouse: was $99, now $32 at Amazon
• Seagate Firecuda 520 2TB SSD: was $260, now $169 at Newegg
• SanDisk Extreme V2 4TB: was $699, now $359 at Amazon

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Although GPU prices have fallen considerably since the highs of the great graphics card shortage, there has been a slight plateau reached in the last couple of weeks with regard to the retail price drops being offered. In fact, some cards have been going back up in price, but, this could be due to Amazon Prime Day being on the horizon and a need to artificially inflate prices before offering what looks to be bigger discounts. 

The MSI Ventus RTX 3080 (12GB Version) has dropped back down to its previous lowest price of $769 at Newegg. If you need a new GPU and can't wait until the 40-series launches then this is the best deal available at the moment for the 12GB version of the RTX 3080.

Today also sees price drops on several CPUs — all to the lowest prices we've seen. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X has dropped to a low $174. That's a very attractive-looking AM4 upgrade for those on a budget. The 5600X is also a fantastic gaming and productivity-focused CPU.

With 29% knocked off the price of the NZXT H710 ATX Mid-Tower PC Case - making it $119, this is an awesome deal for a pretty PC enclosure. The NZXT H710 has nice aesthetics and build functionality and would be a nice addition to any new build project. 

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• MSI Ventus RTX 3080 12GB GPU: was $999, now $769 at Newegg
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU: was $309, now $174 at Amazon
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU: was $449, now $274 at Amazon
• Intel Core i5-12600K CPU: was $294, now $249 with code FTPBU8559 at Newegg
• NZXT H710 ATX Mid Tower PC Case: was $169, now $119 at Amazon

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A Reddit user named Mannekino shared a post yesterday about his experience using MSI's new "Kombo Strike" beta BIOS on his Ryzen 7 5800X3D and MEG B550 Unify motherboard. For Mannekino, the Kombo Strike feature was a success on his chip, giving his Ryzen 7 5800X3D an 11 degrees Celsius drop in peak temperatures, and 19W less power draw while adding slightly more performance simultaneously.

Kombo Strike is a new MSI feature released two weeks ago for AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D. We still don't know how Kombo Strike works officially, but MSI says it will improve the CPU performance of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. There are three levels to choose from, with the third option being the most aggressive setting. Right now, this new feature is only attainable in beta BIOS updates for specific MSI 500-series motherboards.

However, according to Mannekino's report, the user believes Kombo Strike is an automated version of AMD's Curve Optimizer, which is an undervolting utility designed for Ryzen 5000  CPUs. It would certainly make sense considering the MSI exclusive feature does improve the Ryzen 7 5800X3D's performance. Plus, Mannekino's temperature and power results show very similar behavior to Curve Optimizer undervolting. But do take this with a grain of salt since we don't have official confirmation on this theory.

Mannekino's setup consists of an MSI MEG B550 Unify equipped with a Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU and a high-speed G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4 3600 CL14 4x8GB memory, and an MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Super Gaming X Trio. Cooling is about as overkill as it gets with dual 360mm radiators, but it does make Mannekino's temperature results very surprising.

In Cinebench R23 with Kombo Strike disabled, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D averaged 14,641 points after a second run to heat up the system. With Kombo set to level 1, that score goes up to 14,732 points, level 2 to 14,961, and level 3 to 15,049 points. However, the chip netted only a 2.7% increase in performance at the highest level.

Other benchmarks, including Superposition, 3DMark Time Spy, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Red Dead Redemption 2, all show very similar behavior. But the performance results become much more interesting if we look at the power and temperature results.

With Cinebench R23 on a 10-minute loop, Mannekino's Ryzen 7 5800X3D averaged 81.3 degrees Celsius and 112.2W power consumption. But when Kombo Strike is on level 3, the temperature and power reduced quite drastically to 72.3 degrees Celsius and 98.2W. It is fantastic to see, considering we are getting a performance boost simultaneously, even if it's small. The power and thermal results are around a 12% to 14% reduction in wattage and temperatures.

On paper, these numbers are cool to see from one of AMD's hottest chips to date -- thanks to the 3D V-Cache. However, in the real world, the efficiency gains you get from Kombo Strike won't make a noticeable difference in gaming and day-to-day use, with less than a 3% on average performance bump.

Heat and power are also non-concerning issues since the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is known to hit 80 degrees to 85 degrees Celsius under all-core workloads due to the additional 3D V-Cache hindering heat transfer from the die to the IHS. So these temperatures are very average and safe for this chip.

The CPU is also heavily influenced by a locked 1.35V voltage limit only found on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D (compared to 1.5V on a regular Ryzen 5000 chip.) As a result, Precision Boost can't achieve higher boost frequencies at 80 degrees Celsius than if CPU temps are much lower. It is also why the Ryzen 7 5800X3D pulls less power than the Ryzen 7 5800X despite its higher thermals. As a result, you would have to use a tiny CPU cooler or run the chip inside a thermal-constrained environment to make MSI's Kombo Strike feature a viable option for improving CPU performance. If you are a hardware enthusiast and like the lower numbers for the sake of it, it's a cool feature to have. But for real-world performance gains, MSI's Kombo Strike seems to be more gimmicky than helpful.

MSI is bringing out all the punches on AMD's non-overclockable Ryzen 7 5800X3D, with yet another BIOS update to improve the chip's performance on MSI motherboards. On this occasion, it comes as a feature inside the BIOS utility known as the Kombo Strike. The beta BIOS updates are available for select X570S, X570, and B550 MSI motherboards.

The new Kombo Strike utility remains a mystery. MSI didn't share any in-depth details of the feature. For example, the description for the BIOS says, "improved CPU performance of Ryzen 7 5800X3D." But, we know that it features four options: Disabled, 1, 2, and 3. The third level probably provides the most performance gains out of all three levels. It's uncertain how MSI managed to squeeze extra performance out of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, since AMD has locked down all CPU overclock parameters for the chip. It's plausible that MSI could have discovered a method to raise the power limit, allowing for better performance.

Suppose you care to install this beta BIOS update yourself. In that case, it's available for the X570S Unify, Ace, and X570 Godlike, as well as the B550 Unify X, Unify, Gaming Edge WiFi, B550I Gaming Edge MAX WiFi and the B550M Mortar. Once installed, you can access the Kombo Strike option in the "Overclocking/Advanced CPU Configuration" of the BIOS. But beware, these are beta BIOS updates, so additional bugs or instability can occur.

The second BIOS update in under a week improves the Ryzen 7 5800X3D's performance with MSI motherboards. The previous BIOS update unlocked additional CPU offset, Precision Boost Overdrive, and the Curve Optimizer on the X570 Unify.

The new beta BIOS also comes with the "CPU Offset Voltage" option enabled for the brave to undervolt the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. However, it's essential to tread cautiously since too low of a voltage is terrible and will ultimately impact the processor functionality and your system's stability.

MSI isn't the only manufacturer to offer Ryzen 7 5800X3D tweaking as Asus also has several built-in custom overclocking functions which work on all Ryzen 5000 processors, including the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. We've already seen overclockers push the Ryzen 7 5800X3D beyond 5 GHz. So, MSI's latest BIOS will be a welcome addition for Ryzen 7 5800X3D owners that want to squeeze every bit of performance out of the processor.

Ryzen 7000 will arrive this summer, potentially in September. The 3D V-Cache variants should come shortly after, according to AMD's latest desktop client CPU roadmap.

A user (via Komachi_Ensaka) on the MSI forums has shared a beta firmware for MSI's MEG X570 Unify motherboard that unlocks several previously unavailable options for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

Before the Ryzen 7 5800X3D's launch, AMD had confirmed that overclocking was off the table. The chipmaker blocked all frequency and core voltage adjustment options from the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, so that owners won't see any of those options inside the motherboard's BIOS. Unfortunately, that also leaves out the opportunity to undervolt the processor. Nonetheless, some AMD motherboards on the market come with an external clock generator that reportedly allows you to overclock the BCLK on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

According to Svet, the administrator on the MSI forums, the E7C35AMS firmware for the MEG X570 Unify has unlocked additional Vcore offset, Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO), and Curve Optimizer. The forum user claims that MSI doesn't recommend users to overlock their Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

In addition to the beta firmware, the MSI forum administrator also shared screenshots of some Cinebench R23 runs that he did on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Unfortunately, he didn't detail the settings he had modified, but his results showed a 4.7% higher multi-core performance. Sadly, single-core performance didn't see any benefits, with a margin of less than 1% from overclocking the CPU. 

The firmware is currently in beta, so MSI still has to iron out all the bugs and whatnot. For example, it's unknown if the brand only offers the unlocked options on the MEG X570 Unify or if it'll extend support to other AMD motherboards. There's also no word on when the official firmware will be ready.

These expanded options come as we await the arrival of AMD's Zen 4 Ryzen 7000, which comes to market this Fall to heat up the Intel vs AMD rivalry once again. 

A PC enthusiast called Madness has put an AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D under the knife. He successfully performed a delicate operation to remove the integrated heat spreader (IHS) without killing the chip - a procedure popular with the CPU overclocking community dubbed delidding. After some prodding by a Hardware Luxx editor, Madness shared some exciting test results, comparing key CPU performance stats when gaming before and after the delid operation. The delidded Ryzen 7 5800X3D ran faster, consumed less power, and ran 10 degrees Celsius cooler in the same system when taxed by playing Forza Horizon 5.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D with its IHS removed smiles alongside some telltale but unsophisticated tools - sharp knife blades. The Twitter user used the blades to pry up the edges of the IHS while simultaneously applying between 150 to 200 degrees Celsius via a heat gun. With previous-gen processors, this process is somewhat nerve-wracking. Still, the 5800X3D adds a layer of jeopardy by positioning a multitude of surface mount components between the IHS 'legs'. Those would be all too easy to accidentally knife during the delidding. More established CPU designs can be delidded with less risk.

After delidding, an enthusiast might replace the factory TIM (thermal interface material) with something like a liquid metal compound or run the chip 'naked' with the risk of direct cooler contact on the silicon. Instead, Madness has followed up to say that he added Conductonaut compound to the dies and replaced the IHS.

Ultimately, the results of delidding are more important than the process, and Madness achieved an impressive result. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D ran 10 degrees Celsius cooler under heavy workloads after the operation. It isn't the only benefit; the 3D V-cache chip also showed improved power consumption and better boost clocks. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a locked chip, so you can't overclock the CPU, but workarounds have emerged that allow tuning. It would be interesting to see the results of overclocking with the delidded chip.

 Another exciting image from Madness revealed a vacant second pad area in the 5800X3D with a sliver of protective material lifted off. It isn't normal for a single CCD Ryzen to have a second pad like this. 

AMD's Zen 4 CPUs will arrive later this year, and the 3D V-cache versions will follow with only a tiny timing gap.

The battle for gaming supremacy between Intel and AMD has never been as intense as it is now, but AMD has a new ace in the hole. AMD's $449 Ryzen 7 5800X3D uses new cutting-edge 3D-stacked SRAM technology, called 3D V-Cache, to enable a total of 96MB of L3 cache that unlocks tremendous gaming performance, unseating Intel's expensive $738 Core i9-12900KS as the fastest of the Best CPUs for gaming — but at a more forgiving price point. AMD pulled this feat off with an eight-core 16-thread chip based on the same 7nm process and Zen 3 architecture as the original Ryzen 5000 chips that debuted back in 2020, but uses an innovative hybrid bonding technology to fuse an extra slice of cache atop the processing cores, a first for desktop PCs.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D represents the company's last hurrah for its long-lived Socket AM4 platforms that have shepherded the Ryzen chips from their infancy with the Ryzen 7 1800X in 2017 to their once-dominating position at the top of our CPU benchmark gaming hierarchy last year with the Ryzen 9 5900X.

AMD's chips held the lead in every metric until Intel released its Alder Lake lineup last year, with Intel's Core i9-12900K landing as the fastest gaming CPU we'd ever tested. However, with AMD poised to launch the 5800X3D, Intel attempted to cement itself atop the gaming performance charts with its new Special Edition Core i9-12900KS. That came to market one week before the 5800X3D with boost speeds reaching up to a blistering 5.5 GHz, a record high for PCs, and for a little over a week, it was the fastest desktop PC chip in all categories. 

Intel's short-lived advantage in gaming came at the cost of extra power, though: The Core i9-12900KS has a 150W processor base power (PBP), a record for a mainstream desktop processor, and we measured up to 300W of power consumption under full load. In contrast, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D has a 105W TDP rating and maxed out at 130W in our tests, showing that it is a far cooler processor that won't require as expensive accommodations, like a beefy cooler, motherboard, and power supply, as the Core i9-12900KS.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D's 96MB of L3 cache is transparent to the operating system, meaning it doesn't need special accommodations from the OS or software, but it doesn't benefit all games. However, we did see a big uplift in nearly every title we tested. 

Here's a quick snapshot of the 5800X3D's average performance in our gaming test suite and key single- and multi-threaded applications. You'll find much more extensive testing on the following pages, but this gives you a good general sense of how the Ryzen 7 5800X3D stacks up.

As you can see, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D takes the crown as the fastest gaming chip in our test suite and lives up to AMD's claim that 3D V-Cache delivers an increase in gaming performance equivalent to what we would normally only see from a new microarchitecture. However, the 58000X3D isn't as fast as comparable chips in other types of single- and multi-threaded work beyond gaming. That's because the other models have a core count and frequency advantage. In fact, due to lower clock speeds than its most directly-comparable counterpart, the Ryzen 7 5800X, the 5800X3D is slower in some single-threaded applications.

However, while Intel's 12900KS still delivers leading performance in applications, its hefty $739 premium isn't as good of a buy as AMD's $449 Ryzen 7 5800X3D if you're solely interested in gaming. The same applies to the standard 12900K and 12700K, too, though the Core i7-12700K is a contender if you're looking for a more balanced blend of gaming and application performance around the $410 price point.

Of course, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a huge win if you already own a Ryzen system — this chip will drop into almost any AM4 motherboard, saving some cash if you have the right supporting components. Overall, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is exactly what AMD says it is — a chip optimized specifically for gaming that takes the overall lead.

First, let's take a quick look at the specs, then get right to our full gaming and application test results. Be sure to look for the deep-dive details and testing on the 3D V-Cache, boost frequencies, and thermals later in the article (the latter is particularly interesting). 

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Specifications and Pricing

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the first consumer processor to feature 3D V-Cache, but the company also uses the tech for its Milan-X processors for the data center. 3D V-Cache leverages a novel new technique that uses hybrid bonding to fuse an additional 64MB of 7nm SRAM cache vertically atop the Ryzen compute chiplet, thus tripling the amount of L3 cache per Ryzen die.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D comes with the same eight Zen 3 cores and 16 threads as the standard Ryzen 7 5800X but has a lower 3.4 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost frequency within its 105W envelope. AMD trimmed 400 MHz from the base clock and 200 MHz off the boost frequency, but you get an additional 64MB of L3 cache in exchange, for a total of 96MB of L3.

Naturally, the 3D V-Cache tech has tradeoffs, with the most obvious being the $449 price tag — you’ll pay an extra $100 for the same number of cores as you’d get in the vanilla Ryzen 7 5800X.

The 5800X3D's big attraction is AMD's claim of an average 15% gain in gaming performance over AMD's fastest gaming chip, the Ryzen 9 5900X which also currently retails for $450. The 3D V-Cache doesn’t increase performance in other types of work beyond gaming, so compared to the 5900X, you’ll sacrifice four cores and eight threads in exchange for the extra cache, thus losing performance in some productivity applications. That means the Ryzen 9 5900X would be the better option for productivity-focused work, but you should also look to Alder Lake alternatives if you're after a more balanced performance profile.

The 5800X3D fully supports overclocking the memory and Infinity Fabric, but you can't overclock the CPU cores or use the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature (more detail below). The company cites a voltage limitation, but our thermal testing below certainly implies that heat dissipation is an exacerbating issue. AMD says this is the first iteration of the tech, and it is possible that overclocking could be enabled on potential future 3D V-Cache processors. However, the company hasn't officially committed to releasing other models in the future. Given the performance we've seen, it wouldn't be surprising to see this tech carry over into the Zen 4 era.

That won't stop enterprising enthusiasts from trying, though. We've already seen reports of limited BCLK overclocking that can eke out a few hundred extra megahertz (perhaps more on motherboards with external clock generators), and there appears to be a workaround to alter the motherboard's voltage output to the CPU, thus feeding the chip more voltage than AMD intended. Of course, the latter could incur significant risk, but we'll learn more in the coming weeks as enthusiasts put the silicon through the wringer.

As with all other 105W Ryzen 5000 chips, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn't come with a cooler. The chip has the same thickness (Z-height) as all other Ryzen 5000 models, so it is compatible with the broad ecosystem of standard coolers for the AM4 socket. The 5800X3D will drop into existing 400- and 500-series motherboards (Socket AM4), and AMD’s upcoming BIOS updates will also enable support on older 300-series platforms. You'll need a BIOS with AGESA 1.2.0.6b (or newer) for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

AMD says that Ryzen 5000 support will vary by vendor, as will the timeline for new BIOS revisions. However, they should all be available now. Notably, these BIOS revisions will also include the fix for AMD’s fTPM stuttering issues.

The 5800X3D also doesn't support the leading-edge connectivity options, like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0, that you'll find with Alder Lake, but it does support up to DDR4-3200 and PCIe 4.0. AMD won't be able to match intel's connectivity tech until its 5nm Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ Zen 4 CPUs arrive later this year.

Let's take a closer look at the overall architecture, power, and thermals, including thermal throttling testing, then move on to our gaming and application benchmarks. 

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3D V-Cache Technology

The idea behind 3D V-Cache is relatively simple, but the execution is complex. The basic idea behind any on-chip cache is to keep frequently accessed data as close to the execution cores as possible, thus eliminating high-latency trips to main memory. As a result, the cores don't have to wait for data, thus staying busier and boosting performance. The L3 cache is slower than other caches (like L1 and L2), but its higher capacity means it can store more data, improving the hit rate (the number of times useful data is held in the cache). There's a reason AMD calls it "Game Cache" — L3 cache is very important to performance, and games, in particular, can suffer from high L3 latency or reduced cache capacity/hit rates.

But a big slab of cache is best. As you can see in the above album, AMD stacks an additional SRAM chiplet, connected via TSVs to the lower die, directly in the center of the compute die (CCD) to isolate it from the heat-generating cores on the sides of the chiplet. However, AMD has to use a silicon shim on top of the cores to create an even surface for the heat spreader that sits atop the chiplet. Contrary to popular belief, this is a single shim that wraps around the chiplet on three sides (images in cache testing section). Silicon is an excellent thermal conductor, but the shim and extra SRAM die will inevitably reduce thermal dissipation from the bottom die, thus resulting in less thermal headroom. We show that impact in our boost frequency and thermal load testing. The extra memory also consumes more power.

AMD says overclocking isn't possible because the cache chiplet and the CCD share the same power plane and the effective voltage limit for the SRAM chiplet weighs in at 1.35V. Since the core voltage can't be altered separately, that prevents overclocking the CPU core frequencies. Unfortunately, this also hampers peak chip frequencies during normal operation, so the 3D V-Cache tech does contribute to the 5800X3D’s lower clock speeds. For perspective, the Ryzen 7 5800X has a 1.5V limit, so it can reach higher clock speeds.

AMD's 3D chip stacking tech is based on TSMC's SoIC technology. TSMC's SoIC is a bumpless chip stacking tech, meaning that it doesn't use microbumps or solder to connect the two die. Instead, the two die are milled to such a perfectly flat surface that the TSV channels can mate without any type of bonding material, reducing the distance between the cache and core by 1000X. That reduces heat and power consumption while boosting bandwidth. You can read much more about the hybrid bonding and manufacturing process here. AMD says the technique uses silicon fab-like manufacturing with back-end like TSVs, which means the production flow is similar to that of a regular chip. 

As before, the 7nm Core Complex Die (CCD) has 4.15 billion transistors spread out over 80.7mm^2 of silicon. Meanwhile, the new smaller 7nm 3D V-Cache die measures only 41mm^2, yet has 4.7 billion transistors. As you can see in the table, that means it has slightly more than twice the transistor density, which is due to AMD using a density-optimized version of 7nm that's specialized for SRAM. It's also important to remember that a standard compute die includes several types of transistors (libraries, standard cells) for different purposes, so density varies across the die. In contrast, the V-Cache die uses a largely uniform layout.

The L3 cache chiplet spans the same amount of area as the L3 cache on the CCD underneath, but it also has twice the capacity. That's due to the optimized process, but also partially because the additional L3 cache slice is somewhat 'dumb' — all the control circuitry resides on the base die, which helps reduce the inevitable latency overhead associated with fetching data from a separate die (more on that in the cache testing section later).

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 3D V-Cache Design and Latency

Several factors influenced AMD's decision to use 3D-stacked SRAM, but key among them is that SRAM density isn't scaling as fast as logic density. As a result, caches now comprise a higher percentage of the die area than before, but without delivering meaningful capacity increases. Furthermore, expanding the cache laterally would incur higher latency due to longer wire lengths and eat into the available die area that AMD could use for cores. Additionally, adding another SRAM chiplet in a 2D layout isn't feasible due to the latency and bandwidth impact.

To address those issues, AMD stacks the additional SRAM directly on top of the center of the compute die where the existing L3 resides. This L3-on-L3 stacking allows the lower die to deliver power and communicate through two rows of TSV connections that extend upwards into the bottom of the L3 cache chiplet. These connections go vertically into the upper die and fan out, which actually reduces the amount of distance data has to travel, thus reducing the number of cycles needed for traversal compared to a standard planar (2D) cache expansion. As a result, the L3 chiplet provides the same 2 TB/s of peak throughput as the on-die L3 cache, but it only comes with a four-cycle latency penalty.

The album above outlines our cache and memory latency benchmarks with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the 5800X using the Memory Latency tool from the Chips and Cheese team. These tests measure cache latency with varying sizes of data chunks, and the first slide zooms in on the L3 portion of the cache. Here we can see that the tool measures the Ryzen 7 5800X3D's L3 latency at 12-13ns, whereas the 5800X measures at 10-11ns (the second slide shows the zoomed-out version). We also used AIDA to record the latency measurements, which we listed in the table. Overall, the 3D V-Cache triples the amount of L3 cache but incurs a fairly negligible ~2ns latency impact and a four-cycle penalty.

As mentioned before, the L3 cache chiplet spans the same amount of area as the L3 cache on the CCD underneath, but it has twice the capacity. That's partially because the additional L3 cache slice is somewhat 'dumb' — all the control circuitry resides on the base die, which helps reduce the latency overhead. AMD also uses a density-optimized version of 7nm that's specialized for SRAM. The L3 chiplet is also thinner than the base die (13 metal layers).

AMD produces all of its Zen 3 silicon with TSVs, so all of its Zen 3 silicon supports a 3D V-Cache configuration. However, the TSVs aren't exposed unless they're needed. For 3D V-Cache models, AMD slightly thins the base die as well to both expose the TSV connections and also to maintain the same overall package thickness (Z-Height) as the existing models.

The lack of control circuitry in the L3 chiplet also maximizes capacity and allows AMD to selectively 'light up' only the portions of the cache that are being accessed, thus reducing (and even removing) the power overhead of tripling the L3 cache capacity. In addition, because the larger cache reduces trips to main memory due to higher L3 cache hit rates, the additional capacity relieves bandwidth pressure on main memory, helping to reduce latency and thereby improving application performance from multiple axes. Fewer trips to main memory also reduces overall power consumption.

The L3 cache chiplet consumes significantly less power per square millimeter than the CPU cores. Still, vertical stacking does increase power density, so it's best to isolate it from the heat-generating cores on the sides of the chiplet. However, this would leave a protruding die on top of the CCD, so AMD uses a single silicon shim that wraps around three sides of the L3 chiplet to create an even surface for the heat spreader that sits atop the chiplet. Silicon is an excellent thermal conductor, and the intention is for the shim to allow heat to transfer from the cores up to the heat spreader.

Previous renderings of the design have shown two distinct silicon shims and appeared to show the L3 cache die spanning from one side of the die to the other. However, AMD's materials for the Milan-X launch clearly show one long shim that covers the compute die and a thin portion on the edge of the die that isn't covered by the L3 cache chiplet. This thin expanse of the bottom die includes I/O functions that the chiplet uses to communicate with the I/O die. AMD confirmed that this is the actual layout on all 3D V-Cache processors, like the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and not the stylized renders shared that show two separate shims. 

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AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Boost Frequencies, Thermal Throttling Tests

Thermal dissipation can limit a chip's peak performance, particularly as process nodes become denser. Adding in the complexity of a 3D-stacked design adds thermal challenges, in this case, exacerbated by the silicon shim stacked atop the CPU cores — this shim transfers heat from the cores to the integrated heat spreader (IHS), but could inevitably reduce the efficiency of the heat transfer from the cores. In effect, it could trap a small amount of heat. Signs of those challenges cropped up in our thermal and boost testing, leading us to conduct more in-depth testing to back up our findings. 

The slides above show the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and its nearly-similar counterpart, the Ryzen 7 5800X, which doesn't have a 3D V-Cache design, running through a spate of standard heavily threaded applications (Cinebench, HandBrake, AVX-heavy y-cruncher) to measure power and thermals. We used a Corsair H115i 280mm AIO with the fans cranked to 100% to keep the chips as cool as possible during this test run.

The 5800X3D has a 400 MHz lower base and 200 MHz lower boost clock than the Ryzen 7 5800X, and we can see that the 5800X3D runs at 4.35 GHz during the heaviest multi-core workloads while the 5800X runs at 4.5 GHz. This is expected given the specifications, but we also noticed that the 5800X draws up to 145W while reaching those higher clock speeds, while the 5800X3D only peaks around 120W. This despite both chips having the same 105W TDP and 142W PPT.

Both chips reach the same peak around 80C during the heavy parts of the test, showing that the 5800X3D runs at the same temperature even though the 5800X is consuming 25W more power and running at higher clocks. AMD tells us that thermals aren't the limiting factor that prevents higher clock speeds or the allowance of higher voltages (and thus more heat) for overclocking, but these results certainly imply that the 3D-stacked design doesn't dissipate heat as well as the standard design. To investigate further, we ran a more intense test below. 

We turned to a Prime95 test under rigorous conditions to take a closer look at thermal dissipation. We often don't include Prime95 power measurements in our standard CPU reviews, largely because there is a massive disconnect between this extremely rigorous stress test and the power consumption and thermal load generated by most real-world applications. Still, we're specifically looking to push the chips to their throttle point for this test.

To push the processor's limits even harder, we unplugged the fans on the Corsair H115i cooler but left the pump running (unplugging the pump caused clocks to drop too rapidly for our logging to provide any granularity). We then kicked off a Prime95 run with small FFTs, but with AVX instructions disabled. This type of Prime 95 stress test is brutal, and you won't see this type of stress during even the heaviest normal use. As such, remember that we're doing this for science, and not as an indicator of how these chips would function in your PC.

The results clearly show that the 5800X3D peaks at 130W while the 5800X peaks at 145W. Then both chips reach a steady-state temperature of 90C before they begin aggressively throttling power, and thus clock speeds, to remain at this temperature threshold. You'll notice that the 5800X3D encounters this high temperature sooner than the 5800X, and it drops to lower clocks than the 5800X before the end of the test. 

Additionally, the 5800X3D remains at 90C while drawing 86W at its lowest point, but the 5800X drew 110W at its lowest point at the same 90C. This shows that the 5800X3D doesn't dissipate as much thermal load as the 5800X within the same temperature threshold. In other words, if all else were equal, the 5800X3D would run hotter than the 5800X under identical conditions. In fact, even when consuming less power, the 5800X3D is undoubtedly hotter than the 5800X. 

But to be clear: You would never encounter these conditions during normal use, and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D runs perfectly fine within its specifications. In fact, the 5800X3D is much cooler than the competing Core i9 processors.

Thermal dissipation has been one of the major sticking points that have prevented high-performance 3D chips from going mainstream, but AMD has done an amazing engineering job in bringing thermals under control enough to deliver a chip that provides excellent performance within an acceptable TDP threshold.  

Our results certainly heavily imply that thermal dissipation will remain a serious challenge at higher power thresholds, and while AMD contends that voltage is the limiting factor that reigns in the 5800X3D's clock speeds and prohibits overclocking, there could be some room for interpretation of that statement. Most have taken AMD's statement to mean that heat isn't an issue, even though the company has also cited heat as a factor with 3D V-Cache at other times.

As a reminder, voltage, frequency, and thermals are all interrelated. Higher clock frequencies require more voltage, but more voltage results in more heat. A higher voltage may simply push the chip outside its comfortable thermal envelope. As such, 3D V-Cache's 1.35V limit may simply be a product definition designed to keep thermals in check given the chip's thermal design, and not be an actual physical limitation of the technology itself.

As part of our normal test regimen, we tested performance in lightly-threaded work with the H115i cooler. To assess peak boost speeds, we ran through our standard series of lightly-threaded tests (LAME, PCMark10, Geekbench, VRMark, and single-threaded Cinebench).

The 5800X3D reached its peak 4.5 GHz frequency frequently, while the 5800X actually exceeded its 4.7 GHz spec and regularly hit 4.8 GHz. Temperatures and power draw aren't a major concern through most of this test, but there are a series of multi-threaded Geekbench workloads near the 1000-second mark. Again, the 5800X draws more power and runs at higher clocks than the 5800X3D during these periods of heavy load, but it has nearly identical temperatures.

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AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Thermals

AMD's Ryzen chips continue to have excellent power and efficiency metrics. Here we can see that the 5800X3D's position further down the voltage/frequency curve yields excellent results in our Handbrake renders-per-watt efficiency metric. 

Here we take a slightly different look at power consumption by calculating the cumulative energy required to perform x264 and x265 HandBrake workloads, respectively. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart. 

These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart. 

Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are the best. As you can see, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D features a nice blend of power and performance. 

Test Setup and Overclocking

As mentioned, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn't support overclocking via the CPU multiplier, so you can't change the core clocks via that method. You also cannot adjust the power limits (PPT, TDC, EDC) or CPU voltage. Additionally, the chip doesn't support the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature, and you can't undervolt or underclock.

The 5800X3D fully supports overclocking the memory and Infinity Fabric, but as with most Ryzen chips, we found that we were only able to reach DDR4-3800 with the fabric dialed in at 1900 MHz. This setting allows us to run the memory in the desired low-latency 'coupled' (1:1 ratio) mode. You can get higher with uncoupled memory, but that results in less performance in games.

There have been reports of successful BCLK overclocks with early samples, which ekes out a few hundred extra megahertz of performance. We'll follow up with additional testing as time permits, but be cautious about overclocking benchmarks you might see in the wild: Remember, manipulating the BCLK has been shown in the past to cause inflated benchmark scores with AMD chips — but there are solutions for that.

We test Intel processors with the power limits fully removed for our standard measurements, so the 12900K and 12900KS are running beyond Intel's 'recommended' power settings, but remain within warranty. We haven't yet overclocked the 12900KS fully, so we're subbing in our overclocked 12900K configuration in its place. From what we've seen, it appears that the 12900KS silicon often clocks similarly to its non-S counterparts, but we'll update if we see a meaningful difference. 

Aside from a few errant programs for Intel, the overall trends for both AMD and Intel should be similar with Windows 10 and 11. As such, we're sticking with Windows 11 benchmarks in this article. We also stuck with DDR4 for this round of Alder Lake testing, as overall performance trends are generally comparable between DDR4 and DDR5. We have a deeper dive into what that looks like in our initial 12900K review.

We tested the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in two configurations:

• Ryzen 7 5800X3D: Corsair H115i 280mm water cooler, default power limits, DDR4-3200 in Coupled mode
• Ryzen 7 5800X3D DDR4-3800: Corsair H115i 280mm water cooler, default power limits, DDR4-3800 in Coupled mode

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AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Gaming Benchmarks — The TLDR

As usual, we're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions. Because most of the titles below show little meaningful differentiation at higher resolutions, we only tested four of the seven titles at 1440p. Be aware that the limited selection of titles tested at 1440p can result in large swings in our cumulative measurements if there's a big increase in a single title — those swings would be more muted if we had a larger selection of 1440p titles. 

The above charts comprise the geometric mean of our standard gaming test suite, but we include the individual results in the charts below. Given that the 5800X3D's extra cache doesn't benefit all games and that our existing test suite also appears to heavily favor the improvements from 3D V-Cache, we also included a table with results from an additional five games below. Those extra titles aren't factored into the cumulative measurements above, but they show the same general trends.

On average at 1080p, the 5800X3D is ~9% faster than the 12900K, which costs 30% more, and ~7% faster than the Core i9-12900KS, which costs a whopping 64% more. That means the Ryzen 7 58000X3D is now both the fastest gaming chip in our test suite and a better value for gaming specifically than the Core i9 models.

Overclocking either of Intel's Core i9 models requires a beefy cooler and robust motherboard. However, despite its much tamer overall power requirements, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is still ~3% faster than the overclocked 12900K in our cumulative measurement.

The 5800X3D is 13% faster at 1080p than the stock Core i7-12700K but is only 3.6% faster than the overclocked 12700K config. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is 10% more expensive than the 12700K, but the more value-centric AM4 ecosystem gives AMD a leg up over Intel's chip, at least if you're specifically interested in gaming. As you'll see in the application testing below, the Core i7-12700K is a much better all-rounder if you're looking for performance in productivity work, too.

AMD's marketing claim is that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is, on average, 15% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X. The 3D V-Cache doesn't improve performance in all games, so this will vary, but we recorded a 21% increase over the 5900X at 1080p in our test suite, which is incredibly impressive.

The 5800X3D and the 5800X are built from the same basic design, but the X3D model has a 200 MHz lower boost and 400 MHz lower base clock than the 5800X. Despite that limitation, we recorded a massive 28% gain over the 5800X at 1080p, which is impressive. However, overclocking the 5800X3D's memory yielded an average performance increase of only about 1%, which isn't too meaningful. In addition to our own expansive testing and experiments, we've seen plenty of benchmarks from multiple sources that indicate that memory overclocking is a fruitless endeavor with the 5800X3D. That's a good thing because you can pair the chip with inexpensive memory and get nearly the absolute best performance available, but it also means that the memory overclocking capability is merely a bullet point on the spec sheet. 

It is noteworthy that a few of our tested game titles approach a GPU bottleneck at 1080p, so we might see larger performance deltas when new, more powerful GPUs arrive later this year. Moving over to 1440p brings a GPU bottleneck into the equation, so the performance deltas between the chips shrink tremendously. However, those results provide a good perspective if you game at higher resolutions and don't plan to upgrade your GPU before buying your next CPU. 

The competition between Intel and AMD is much closer now, and not all games benefit from the 3D V-Cache, so it's best to make an informed decision based on the types of titles you play frequently. Be sure to check out the individual tests below.

3DMark, VRMark, Chess Engines on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Synthetic benchmarks don't tend to translate well to real-world gaming, but they do show us the raw amount of compute power exposed to game engines. It's too bad most games don't fully exploit it. Here we can see that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is very similar to the 5800X in compute-bound synthetic tests. You'll see much bigger gains in the real-world games below. 

Extra AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Game Benchmarks - GTA V, Project Cars 3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Far Cry 5, Borderlands 3 

This is, admittedly, not the best way to present this set of test results, but after seeing some of the large deltas in our test suite, we wanted to expand our view to a few more game titles that we don't normally test. Given the time pressure of the NDA lift, we threw together this quick table to give a basic view of a different mix of game titles with stock processor settings. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D comes out ahead in all but Grand Theft Auto V.

Far Cry 6 on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Far Cry 6 is sensitive to memory latency and throughput. However, it's still surprising that keeping more data close to the processing cores yields a massive 32% speedup over the similarly-equipped Ryzen 7 5800X and a 25% increase over the Ryzen 9 5900X. The gains are more muted against Intel's stable, but the 5800X3D still pulls out the win. 

F1 2021 on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Some game titles respond fantastically to the increased cache capacity, and F1 2021 definitely falls into that category. Here we can see that the stock 5800X3D is 11.6% and 20.4% faster than the stock 12900KS and 12900K, respectively, at 1080p. The 5800X3D is also 20.3% and 25.8% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 7 5800X, respectively. 

Hitman 3 on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Intel collaborated with the IO Interactive team to optimize Hitman 3's Glacier 2 game engine for Alder Lake's x86 hybrid architecture, a fact Intel heavily promoted during its launch. Intel takes the lead after overclocking, but the dead-simple stock Ryzen 7 5800X3D setup is 5.5% faster than the stock Core i9-12900KS and 9.6% faster than the 12700K. Those processors are technically faster than the 5800X3D after overclocking, but the 12900K only leads by 1%, while the 12700K pulls off a tie. 

Horizon Zero Dawn on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Horizon Zero Dawn is largely GPU-bottlenecked at the top of the chart, with the overclocked Core i9-12900K and Core i7-12700K marching in lockstep with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D holds a slim lead over the stock Intel configs.  

Red Dead Redemption 2 on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Red Dead Redemption 2 finds the Ryzen 7 5800X3D taking the lead again, though overclocking the memory and Infinity Fabric again gives us no real tangible benefit. The 5800X3D is 9.5% and 11% faster than the stock Core i9-12900K and Core i7-12700K, respectively. Overclocking shrinks the 5800X3D's lead to 5% and 6.5%, respectively. 

Watch Dogs Legion on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

Intel's Alder Lake has dominated Watch Dogs Legion since launch, but here we can see that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D carves out yet another impressive win, even in the face of heavily-overclocked Intel challengers. 

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AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Application Benchmarks — The TLDR

We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. These slides show the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each category, but be sure to look at the expanded results below.

These results clearly show that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a chip designed specifically for gaming, not for leading-edge performance in application workloads. We've highlighted the 5800X3D beating the 12900K in gaming, but we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that the 12900K is 29% faster in single-threaded work and 62% faster in threaded applications. That chasm grows even larger with the Core i9-12900KS.

In fact, even the newly-released Ryzen 7 5700X, which feels like a deep price cut for the 5800X in the disguise of a new product, beats the 5800X3D by 2.5% in threaded work, a byproduct of its 100 MHz higher boost speed. However, the 5700X's 65W TDP is lower than the 5800X3D's 105W, hampering its performance in multi-threaded work, giving the 5800X3D an 11.3% advantage.

The 5800X3D's lower clock speeds obviously take a toll, as the Ryzen 7 5800X is 7% faster in single-threaded work, but only 1% faster in threaded work. 

Given its $409 price point, the Core i7-12700K really shines in comparison to the 5800X3D. The Core i7-12700K is 28.8% faster in single-threaded work and 40% faster in multi-threaded work, showing that it is the best all-rounder in this price range. Yes, that's even after the Ryzen 9 5900X's recent deep price cut to $450. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D clearly isn't focused on performance in applications outside of gaming, so the below results are fairly predictable. As such, we'll limit our commentary throughout the application benchmarks.   

Rendering Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is capable but underwhelming compared to like-priced competitors throughout this spate of both single- and multi-threaded rendering tests. 

We've used the Blender command-line utility to automate our performance and power testing for four Blender scenes, building out an extensive library of results over the course of a year...and now the online utility doesn't work and returns an error. We've seen leaked reports of Blender speed-ups from the 3D V-Cache, so we ran a selection of tests with the manual GUI to suss out the differences.

We don't see any tangible benefits over the Ryzen 7 5800X here, and the 5800X3D trails all but the Ryzen 7 5700X. 

Encoding Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

It's easy to spot the lightly-threaded encoders in this lineup — the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is at the bottom of the chart for each of them. Without fail, the chip beats the Ryzen 7 5700X in all of the threaded tests. It also exhibits an advantage over the higher-clocked 5800X in the HandBrake tests, implying that the 3D V-Cache confers a slight advantage.

Web Browsing, Office and Productivity on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

The ubiquitous web browser is one of the most frequently used applications. These tests tend to be lightly threaded, so a snappy response time is critical. Again, the 5800X3D lands near the bottom of the test pool in lightly-threaded apps. 

Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

We've integrated the UL Benchmarks Procyon tests into our suite to replace the aging PCMark 10. This new benchmark runs complex Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Lightroom workflows with the actual software, making for a great real-world test suite. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D rises to the middle of the pack in the Lightroom and Photoshop benchmark, but it's clear that video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro is not its forte. 

Compilation, Compression, AVX Benchmarks on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

This grab bag of various tests finds the Ryzen 7 5800X3D largely trailing its similarly-priced competition, though the increased performance in the threaded y-cruncher test almost certainly results from the 3D V-Cache. However, the 5800X3D's lower clock speeds mean that the same trend doesn't carry over to the lightly-threaded y-cruncher benchmark. 

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The $449 Ryzen 7 5800X3D's 3D V-Cache tech represents an innovative engineering effort that conquered the technical challenges associated with bringing the first desktop PC chip with 3D-stacked SRAM to market, and to great effect. The end result is a comparatively low-power chip that delivers incredible gaming performance, dethroning Intel's $589 Alder Lake Core i9-12900K and $739 Core i9-12900KS from the top of our gaming charts.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a special chip optimized specifically for gaming, but it can't keep pace with similarly-priced chips in productivity applications. The 5800X3D also doesn't support Alder Lake's leading-edge connectivity options, like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. AMD won't have comparable connectivity until its 5nm Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ Zen 4 CPUs launch later this year.

Below, we have the geometric mean of our gaming test suite at 1080p and 1440p and a cumulative measure of performance in single- and multi-threaded applications. Remember that we conducted the gaming tests with an RTX 3090, so performance deltas will shrink with lesser cards and higher resolution and fidelity settings. However, it is noteworthy that a few of our tested titles are approaching a GPU bottleneck at 1080p, so we might see bigger performance deltas when new, more powerful GPUs arrive later this year.

The 3D V-Cache doesn't accelerate all games, so your mileage will vary. On average in our test suite at 1080p, the 5800X3D is ~9% faster than the 12900K which costs 30% more, and ~7% faster than the Core i9-12900KS which costs a whopping 64% more. The 5800X3D even manages to carve out a 3% lead in the face of the heavily-overclocked 12900KS, making it both the fastest gaming chip in our test suite and a better value for gaming than the Core i9 and Core i7 models.

The 5800X3D also beat AMD's previous-fastest gaming chip, the Ryzen 9 5900X, by 21% in gaming. The 5800X3D does command a sizeable $100 upcharge over the 5800X, but it was 28% faster in our test suite. In fact, despite its lower clock speeds, we didn't see any regressions in gaming with the 5800X3D.

Overall, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a great high-performance gaming chip, but its performance characteristics are bipolar when it comes to standard desktop PC applications: The Core i9-12900K is 29% faster in single-threaded work and 62% faster in threaded applications, and the 12900KS is even faster still. Additionally, the Ryzen 7 5800X is 7% faster in single-threaded work, but only 1% faster in multi-threaded applications.

If you're looking for a more balanced chip that does well at both gaming and applications, the $409 Core i7-12700K is a solid choice. The Core i7-12700K is 28.8% faster in single-threaded work and 40% faster in multi-threaded work than the 5800X3D, showing that it is the best all-rounder in this price range. For AMD fans, the $450 Ryzen 9 5900X is also a competent all-arounder, but the 12700K remains a better value.

The 5800X3D drops into existing socket AM4 motherboards dating all the way back to the 300-series that debuted in 2017, so it will make a great high-performance drop-in upgrade for Ryzen owners, provided they have a decent motherboard with solid power delivery and the right supporting components. That upgrade path is even more important given the recent shortages and price hikes we've seen, but it will likely be the last upgrade for socket AM4 platforms. Be aware that AM4 is on the way out to make room for the 5nm Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ Zen 4 chips in the AM5 socket. Should you upgrade or wait for Zen 4? Unfortunately, we can't answer that question yet.

AMD hasn't enabled overclocking the 5800X3D's core frequencies, probably for the reasons we outlined in our thermal throttling tests above, but you can tune the memory and Infinity Fabric. Given the 5800X3D's exceptionally high performance in gaming at stock settings, it might be easy for some to forgive this limitation. It's still a bummer, but not a deal-breaker. Also, be aware that memory overclocking for the 5800X3D is of limited to no utility — the gains aren't slim enough to justify the expense of a higher-end memory kit.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D has much lower power consumption than the Core i9-12900KS and 12900K, making it a far cooler processor that won't require as expensive accommodations, like a beefy cooler, motherboard, and power supply. We are talking about a chip that peaked at 130W compared to the 12900KS that topped out at over 300W, after all. That means the 5800X3D delivers top-notch gaming performance along with a cooler, quieter, and less expensive system than you'll get with a Core i9.

If you're willing to accept the lower but still competent performance in desktop PC applications, and also do your homework to make sure the Ryzen 7 5800X3D accelerates the types of games you play frequently, it's hard to go wrong with this chip — especially for upgraders. Stepping up from a Ryzen 7 1800X to a drop-in Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a no-brainer, for instance. We're sure that will keep plenty of folks from jumping ship to Intel's Alder Lake or upcoming Raptor Lake processors. 

Some will balk at the 5800X3D's price tag, and we still recommend that most gamers shop for Core i5 or Ryzen 5 processors for new dedicated gaming rigs. Still, if you have a taste for higher-end fare and a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is an impressive chip that delivers leading-edge gaming performance and leaves room for future GPU upgrades, joining our list of the Best CPUs for gaming as the best high-end value for gaming.

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It's Friday, and we have some great deals for the weekend! Starting with AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X which is available for only $285from Amazon — that's an amazing price for such performance. Check our review of the 5800X for more details.

Dell's S2721DGF 27-inch 165Hz gaming monitor is back down to $299. This monitor is one of our favorites and you can see more details in our review of the Dell S2721DGF. 

If you're looking for a great small-footprint keyboard, then how about picking up an NZXT Function Mini TKL mechanical keyboard for $99. Check out our NZXT Function review for more info.

More deals below on some great PC components. 

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU: was $449, now $285 at Amazon
• Dell S2721DGF 27-inch 165Hz Gaming Monitor: was $589, now $299 at Dell
• NZXT Function Mini TKL Mechanical Keyboard: was $120, now $99 at GameStop
• NZXT Kraken X73 RGB 360mm AER AIO CPU Cooler: was $224, now $199 at GameStop
• G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB RAM: was $66, now $57 at Newegg

Today’s best deals in detail

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The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-12700K and Intel Core i9-12900K is a surprisingly close battle for gaming dominance, but AMD has leveraged a completely new cutting-edge 3D SRAM packaging technology, called 3D V-cache, to fuse an additional slab of L3 cache atop the chips' die, thus bringing capacity up to an unheard-of 96MB of L3.

We’ll throw in the early spoiler: AMD’s $449 Ryzen 7 5800X3D is faster in gaming than the $409 Core i7-12700K and the $589 Core i9-12900K, but the chip comes with significant caveats as AMD tries to refuel its aging Zen 3 architecture for one more run at the top of our list of the best CPUs for gaming and CPU Benchmark hierarchy.

The Zen 3 architecture in the Ryzen 5000 chips was AMD’s first microarchitecture that fully surpassed Intel in every conceivable metric, vastly upsetting the AMD vs Intel competition. However, Intel’s counterstrike with Alder Lake last year flipped the tables.

Alder Lake’s new hybrid design represents the company’s most disruptive architectural shift in a decade, and it paid massive dividends as it beat AMD’s entire product stack in both performance and pricing. That’s not to mention that Intel also holds the connectivity lead with the latest interfaces, like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0, while AMD’s AM4 platform soldiers on with the previous-gen DDR4 and PCIe 4.0.

• Intel Core i9-12900K vs Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X: Alder Lake and Ryzen 5000 Face Off
• Intel Core i5-12600K vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and 5800X Face Off: Ryzen Has Fallen
• Intel Core i7-12700K vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and 5800X Face Off: Intel Rising
• Intel Core i5-12400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Face-Off: The Gaming Value Showdown

AMD’s new stacking tech yields amazing gaming performance improvements from Zen 3 that we would normally only expect from a new architecture. The 5800X3D drops right into existing motherboards, offering an affordable upgrade path for Ryzen owners, and it's also appealing to new system builders. The lower AM4 motherboard pricing is an advantage in the face of continued supply disruptions, inflation, and the fact that Alder Lake motherboards simply tend to be expensive due to their faster interfaces.

But the competition isn’t as close as this might lead you to believe. AMD’s 3D V-Cache tech comes with clock speed compromises, and the chip doesn’t support core frequency overclocking. Additionally, the extra L3 cache doesn’t confer benefits in standard desktop PC applications – the advantages come almost purely in gaming.

That makes this anything but the clear-cut victory it appears to be on the gaming benchmark charts. Below we’ve put the Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K through a six-round faceoff to see which chip takes the crown in our gaming and application benchmarks along with other key criteria like power consumption and pricing. Let’s see how the chips stack up.

Features and Specifications: Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the first consumer processor to feature 3D V-Cache, which uses a novel hybrid bonding to fuse an additional 64MB of 7nm SRAM cache vertically atop the Ryzen compute chiplet to create 96MB of total L3 cache. You can read a technical breakdown and deep-dive testing on the 3D V-Cache here.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is basically a souped-up version of the Ryzen 7 5800X. The X3D model comes with the same eight Zen 3 cores and 16 threads as the standard Ryzen 7 5800X but has a lower 3.4 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost frequency within its 105W envelope. AMD trimmed 400 MHz from the base clock and 200 MHz off the 5800X's boost frequency, but you get the additional cache in exchange. Naturally, the 3D V-Cache tech has tradeoffs, with the most obvious being the $449 price tag — you’ll pay an extra $100 for the same number of cores as you’d get in the vanilla Ryzen 7 5800X.

As with all other 105W Ryzen 5000 chips, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn't come with a cooler. The chip is compatible with the broad ecosystem of coolers for the AM4 socket and drops into 300-, 400- and 500-series motherboards (Socket AM4) if they have a BIOS with AGESA 1.2.0.6b (or newer). Like other Ryzen 5000 chips, the 5800X3D supports the PCIe 4.0 interface and up to DDR4-3200 memory.

The 5800X3D supports overclocking the memory and Infinity Fabric, but that isn’t very impactful. You also can't overclock the CPU cores or use the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature (more detail below). The company cites a voltage limitation, but our thermal testing certainly implies that heat dissipation is the source of the voltage limit.

The $449 AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D takes on the $589 Core i9-12900K and the $739 Core i9-12900KS for the title of the best CPU for gaming, but Intel’s chips are significantly pricier. The 12900KS represents Intel’s price-and-power be damned attempt at denying the 5800X3D the gaming crown, but it only delivers a few percentage points faster performance than the ‘standard’ 12900K in games and comes at a massive upcharge. The 12900KS simply isn’t worth it, so we'll limited commentary on that chip. On the pricing front, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D competes with the $409 Intel Core i7-12700K, which is particularly pertinent because the 12700K has a more balanced performance profile in applications.

Alder Lake fights off the exotic 3D V-Cache with its own unique tech – the hybrid x86 architecture mixes big and fast Performance cores (P-cores) for latency-sensitive work with small and powerful Efficiency cores (E-cores) for multi-threaded work and background tasks. As a result, Intel's hybrid architecture features 'odd' thread arrangements because the P-cores are hyper-threaded while the E-cores only have a single thread.

Intel's 16-core Core i9-12900K comes with eight P-cores that support hyper-threading, and eight single-threaded E-cores for 24 threads. The P-cores have a 3.2 GHz base, and peak frequencies reach 5.2 GHz with Turbo Boost Max 3.0 (this feature is only active on P-cores). Meanwhile, the E-cores have a 2.4 GHz base and stretch up to 3.9 GHz via the standard Turbo Boost 2.0. The chip is also equipped with 30MB of L3 cache and 14MB of L2 and has a 125W/241W base/boost power rating.

The Core i7-12700K has eight P-cores and four E-cores, for a total of 20 threads. The P-cores run at a 3.6 / 5.0 GHz base/boost, while the E-cores weigh in at 2.7 / 3.8 GHz. The chip is fed by 25MB of L3 cache and 12MB of L2 and has a 125W/190W base/boost power rating.

All Alder Lake chips support DDR4-3200 or up to DDR5-4800 memory. They also expose up to 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 storage. These new technologies add cost to the motherboards that house the chips, and the current pricing for DDR5 memory is eyewatering. However, Intel's chips support DDR4, too, so there are more affordable motherboard options.

The Alder Lake chips fully support every overclocking option. The 12900K and 12700K also come with the integrated UHD Graphics 770 engine with 32 EUs, a distinct advantage over the graphics-less 5800X3D; if you need an iGPU, Intel wins by default. If you don’t need integrated graphics, Intel's graphics-less F-series models are available at a lower price point.

Winner: Intel

The 5800X3D’s exotic 3D V-Cache delivers great gaming performance but results in lower clock speeds that can hinder performance in standard apps. Unfortunately, it also removes overclocking from the equation. AMD has supported its AM4 platform since 2017 (and counting), so enthusiasts don't have to upgrade motherboards every time they get a new chip, which is especially important as a value prop for the 5800X3D. But the AM4 socket has also restricted forward progress on the connectivity front, so the platform is a bit long in the tooth.

Intel's Alder Lake platform has a clear connectivity advantage: With DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 on the menu, AMD's aging AM4 platform is simply outclassed. Those new features do make for more expensive motherboards, but there are options for DDR4 variants to save you at least some coin. Additionally, Intel supports fully supports overclocking, and its chips come with integrated graphics by default, though you can opt for graphics-less models for a slightly lower price point. Meanwhile, AMD has no high-end options with integrated graphics, so Intel wins by default if you need an iGPU. None of these chips come with a bundled cooler, either. 

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K

This article is an overview of our much more in-depth testing in our Ryzen 7 5800X3D review. We're focusing on our Windows 11 test results in this article, but be aware that you could encounter isolated cases of odd performance with Alder Lake in Windows 10. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn’t have the same issue.

Below you can see the geometric mean of our gaming tests with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K at 1080p and 1440p, with each resolution split into its own chart. As per usual, we're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions. Because most of the titles below show little meaningful differentiation at higher resolutions, we only tested four of the seven titles at 1440p. Be aware that the limited selection of titles tested at 1440p can result in large swings in our cumulative measurements if there's a big increase in a single title.

The first few charts above comprise the geometric mean of our standard gaming test suite, but we also include the individual game benchmarks. It’s important to remember that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D only accelerates some game titles; it really boils down to how much the game code prefers a spacious L3, so results could vary widely. As such, do your due diligence to ensure the chip accelerates the games you frequently play.

On average at 1080p, the 5800X3D is ~9% faster than the 12900K, which costs 30% more, and ~7% faster than the Core i9-12900KS, which costs a whopping 64% more. That means the Ryzen 7 58000X3D is both the fastest gaming chip in our test suite and a better value for gaming specifically than the Core i9 models.

Intel’s chips fully support overclocking, but the Core i9 models require a beefy cooler and robust motherboard. Despite its much tamer overall power requirements, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is still ~3% faster than the overclocked 12900K in our cumulative measurement. For reference, we couldn’t overclock our 12900KS as high as the 12900K, so overclocking is still subject to the whims of the silicon lottery.

Overclocking the 5800X3D's memory yielded an average performance increase of only about 1%, which isn't too meaningful.

The 5800X3D is 13% faster at 1080p than the stock Core i7-12700K but is only 3.6% faster than the overclocked 12700K config. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is 10% more expensive than the 12700K, but the more value-centric AM4 ecosystem gives AMD a leg up over Intel's chip, at least if you're specifically interested in gaming.

The competition between Intel and AMD is much closer now, and not all games benefit from the 3D V-Cache or Alder Lake’s hybrid architecture, so it's best to make an informed decision based on the types of titles you play frequently. Be sure to check out the individual tests.

Winner: AMD

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D delivers the types of gains in gaming performance that we would normally expect from a new architecture, but it comes via the tried-and-true Zen 3 architecture and 7nm process. You’ll need to weigh the types of titles that you play frequently, but the 5800X3D is faster than Intel’s finest while maintaining the pricing advantage.

It’s hard to argue that matching or beating the $783 Core i9-12900KS with a $449 chip isn’t impressive. You’ll just have to keep in mind that you’ll sacrifice plenty of performance in other types of applications compared to the Alder Lake chips, as you’ll see in the next series of tests. 

Application Performance: Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K

We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. The first slide above shows the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each category, but be sure to look at the individual benchmark results in the deck.

After the commanding leads we saw in gaming, it's shocking to see the Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s bipolar performance trend when it comes to applications. Remember – the extra cache has little to no impact on performance in standard applications, and you lose some clock speed compared to the regular model. That gives the Ryzen 7 5800X a 7% lead in single-threaded work, while the 5800X3D trails the entire test pool.

The 12900K is 29% faster than the 5800X3D in single-threaded work, and that lead grows even larger with the Core i9-12900KS. However, given its $409 price point, the Core i7-12700K really shines in comparison to the 5800X3D – it’s 28.8% faster in single-threaded work, highlighting that Intel’s Alder Lake is exceptionally performant in latency-sensitive application work like web browsers and application startup times.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D offers decent multi-threaded performance, meaning it could more than handle most users’ common threaded use-cases, like streaming while gaming, but it can’t keep pace with the Intel competition in the heaviest work.

The Core i9-12900K is 62% faster in threaded applications than the 5800X3D, while the Core i7-12700K is 40% faster in multi-threaded work, showing that it is the best all-rounder in this price range. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D clearly isn't focused on performance in applications outside of gaming, so the results you’ll see throughout the above album are fairly predictable.

Winner: Intel

Our benchmarks clearly show that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a chip designed specifically for gaming, not for leading-edge performance in application workloads. The 7nm process paired with the Zen 3 architecture has proven to be a powerful contender in the past, but Alder Lake takes single-threaded performance to another level via its faster IPC and clock speeds. Meanwhile, the addition of the small E-Cores has paid off for Intel in threaded work, giving it the lead.

AMD’s 3D V-Cache is transformative, but it’s also expensive, leaving the 5800X3D competing against Intel’s more powerful chips. You’ll need far more powerful Ryzen 5000 chips to hang with the 12700K, while the 12900K beats AMD's finest.

Overclocking: Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K

As mentioned, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn't support overclocking via the CPU multiplier, so you can't change the core clocks via that method. You also cannot adjust the power limits (PPT, TDC, EDC) or CPU voltage. Additionally, the chip doesn't support the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature, and you can't undervolt or underclock.

AMD says this is the result of voltage limitation, but our thermal testing in our review certainly implies that heat dissipation is an exacerbating issue. AMD says this is the first iteration of the tech, and it is possible that overclocking could be enabled on potential future 3D V-Cache processors.

That hasn't stopped adventurous enthusiasts from trying to overclock the 5800X3D, though. It is possible to engage in limited BCLK overclocking that can eke out extra megahertz, but bear in mind that any significant alterations will require you to disable certain PCIe devices, which we consider extreme measures that aren’t practical for regular use. Workarounds can also alter the motherboard's voltage output to the CPU, thus feeding the chip more voltage than AMD intended. Of course, the latter could incur significant risk, and we’ve already heard plenty of stories of rampant stability issues when using any of these tactics. We’re no strangers to taking risks when overclocking, but the risks seem awfully steep for the 5800X3D, given there’s very little real performance payoff if you're not chasing world records.

Memory overclocking doesn’t really help, either. Yes, the 5800X3D fully supports overclocking the memory and Infinity Fabric, but as with most Ryzen chips, we could only reach DDR4-3800 with the fabric dialed in at 1900 MHz. This setting allows us to run the memory in the desired low-latency 'coupled' (1:1 ratio) mode. However, as we’ve seen, you won’t get very meaningful performance improvements by turning the dial – we saw a ~1% improvement after tuning. It seems the large L3 cache works so well that it obviates the need for faster memory, so sticking with a cheap DDR4-3200 kit with tight timings is your best bet.

Intel exposes a wealth of tunable parameters with Alder Lake K-series models and the XTU software overclocking utility. Intel also supports per-core frequency and hyper-threading control (enable/disable) to help eke out more overclocking headroom.

Intel's Dynamic Memory Boost adds a new wrinkle. This new tech works with both DDR4 and DDR5 and allows the system to dynamically switch between standard memory frequencies and timings and an XMP profile, meaning that it will auto-overclock the memory as needed based on the current usage pattern. And yes, this occurs while the operating system is running and doesn't require a reboot — it's a real-time dynamic adjustment. Intel also supports its existing mechanism for live memory timing adjustments from within the operating system, giving users a plethora of on-the-fly memory overclocking options.

Intel has long locked overclocking to its pricey K-series models, while AMD has freely allowed overclocking with almost all SKUs on almost any platform. However, we see some improvement here from Intel - it has now enabled memory overclocking on its B- and H-series chipsets. It actually pays off even though it has lower ceilings due to Intel’s completely irrational decision to lock the SA voltage.

Winner: Intel

Intel’s Core 7-12700K and 12900K have all the overclocking bells and whistles. Yes, you’ll pay more for the K-series chips and Z-series platform to unlock the full functionality, but it is there and yields performance benefits. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D has a locked core frequency and voltage. The unlocked memory and Infinity Fabric overclocking make a nice bullet point on a marketing slide, but it confers no meaningful performance benefit.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K

We put the Ryzen 7 5800X3D through an extensive battery of boost, power, and thermal throttling tests, of which you only see a subset of here. Be sure to check out the expanded test results in our full review.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D continues Zen 3’s streak of providing a great power-to-performance ratio. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D consumes far less peak power than the Core i7-12700K and the Core i9-12900K in heavily-threaded work like the multi-threaded AVX-heavy y-cruncher and the synthetic AIDA stress tests, at times consuming half the power of the Intel competition.

That solid efficiency carries over to the HandBrake rendering tests, too, where we see the chip again consume less power than its rivals and also score far better efficiency in our renders-per-watt metrics.

The last four slides in the above album tell us quite a bit about power efficiency. In these charts, we calculate the cumulative amount of energy required to perform the workloads. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart. These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart.

Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of those charts are best. It's easy to see that Intel has made a massive generational improvement here, but AMD still holds the advantage in all of the key power criteria, with the Ryzen 5000 models retaining the crown of the most efficient desktop CPUs that we've ever tested.

Winner: AMD

Intel has made progress, but AMD still has the most power-efficient chips. Not only do they consume less peak power, but they also accomplish more work per unit of power consumed. That results in an across-the-board win in power consumption, efficiency, and thermal output, so you'll end up with a cooler and quieter system.

None of the chips in our faceoff come with a bundled cooler, but you'll need a much better cooler to reign in the 12700K and 12900K than you will for the Ryzen processors. 

Pricing: Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D lands at $449, a $100 upcharge over the Ryzen 7 5800X that comes with higher clock speeds but less cache. Like the Intel chips, the 5800X3D also doesn’t come with a bundled cooler.

If you’re strictly interested in the highest-end gaming, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a far better deal than the $589 Core i9-12900K – the latter costs 30% more, but the 5800X3D offers 9% more performance. The 12900K can narrow that gap significantly after overclocking, but that’s a pricey affair that requires a strong cooler and robust (read: expensive) motherboard.

Meanwhile, the 5800X3D is 13% faster than the Core i7-12700K but costs 10% more. However, the 12700K can shrink the performance gap to 3.6% after overclocking, and it doesn’t require as lavish of cooling, motherboard, and power supply accommodations as the 12900K.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s real pricing advantage lies not in the cost of the silicon but in the affordable and plentiful AM4 ecosystem. AMD has enabled backward compatibility stretching all the way back to the first generation 300-series motherboards, so finding an affordable home for the 5800X3D is an easy task. In fact, first-, second-, and third-gen Ryzen upgraders can simply drop the chip into their existing motherboard, provided they have the right supporting components. That’s impossible for Intel to beat and will surely save AMD from losing some users to Alder and Meteor Lake.

That said, if you’re looking for both exceptional gaming performance and need better performance in other types of applications, too, the Core i7-12700K with a DDR4 motherboard is plenty capable and is a much better all-rounder.

Winner: AMD

The long-lived AM4 socket is both a blessing and a curse for AMD. The curse is that industry moves quickly (at least recently), and newer standards like PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 have left AM4 looking a bit dusty next to the gleaming DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 boards you’ll find for Alder Lake.

However, those same Alder motherboards can carry eye-watering price tags at the high end, and the blessing is that not a single one of them can compete on pricing with the previous-gen AM4 motherboards that you can find, well, just about anywhere. Newer AM4 boards are also less expensive than Intel’s Socket 1700 ecosystem.

In the end, the best motherboard is the one you don’t even have to buy. The 5800X3D holds the indisputable advantage here, with compatibility stretching back to most of the first AM4 models.

Bottom Line: Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K

Fitting of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s bipolar performance attributes, we have a three-to-three tie in this AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Intel Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K faceoff. Oddly, that’s a much-needed win for AMD after a series of crushing defeats in every single price band at the hands of Intel’s potent, plentiful, and affordable Alder Lake processors.

The $449 Ryzen 7 5800X3D's 3D V-Cache tech represents an incredible engineering achievement that conquered the challenges of bringing the first desktop PC chip with 3D-stacked SRAM to market. The result is a comparatively low-power chip that delivers incredible gaming performance, dethroning Intel's $589 Alder Lake Core i9-12900K and $739 Core i9-12900KS from the top of our gaming charts. On average at 1080p, the 5800X3D is ~9% faster than the 12900K, which costs 30% more, and ~7% faster than the Core i9-12900KS, which costs a whopping 64% more.

That’s not to mention its lead over the $409 Core i7-12700K, either. The 5800X3D is 13% faster at 1080p than the stock Core i7-12700K, but is only 3.6% faster after overclocking both chips. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is 10% more expensive than the 12700K, but the inexpensive AM4 ecosystem gives AMD a leg up, at least if you're specifically interested in gaming.

Overall, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a great high-performance gaming chip. Still, it isn’t nearly as impressive in standard desktop PC applications: The Core i9-12900K is 29% faster in single-threaded work and 62% faster in threaded applications, and the 12900KS is even faster. Additionally, the Ryzen 7 5800X is 7% faster in single-threaded work but only 1% faster in multi-threaded applications.

If you're looking for a more balanced chip that does well at both gaming and applications, the $409 Core i7-12700K is a solid choice. The Core i7-12700K is 28.8% faster in single-threaded work than the 5800X3D and 40% faster in multi-threaded work, showing that it is the best all-rounder in this price range.

The 5800X3D drops into existing socket AM4 motherboards dating back to the 300-series that debuted in 2017, making a great high-performance drop-in upgrade for Ryzen owners, provided they have a decent motherboard with solid power delivery and the right supporting components. That does come with the caveat that the 5800X3D also doesn't support Alder Lake's leading-edge connectivity options, like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. AMD won't have comparable connectivity until its 5nm Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ Zen 4 CPUs launch later this year.

If you're willing to accept the lower but still competent performance in desktop PC applications, and also do your homework to make sure the Ryzen 7 5800X3D accelerates the types of games you play frequently, it's hard to go wrong with this chip — especially for upgraders. Stepping up from a Ryzen 7 1800X to a drop-in Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a no-brainer, for instance.

We maintain that most gamers should buy Ryzen 5 or Core i5 processors for new gaming-focused builds. However, if you’re after the fastest possible performance and understand the Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s strengths and weaknesses,  it’s an impressive chip that delivers leading-edge gaming performance and leaves room for future GPU upgrades, joining our list of the best CPUs for gaming. 

• MORE: Best CPUs for Gaming
• MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
• MORE: AMD vs Intel
• MORE: Zen 4 Ryzen 7000

Today we have deals on two Zen 3 AMD CPUs: the Ryzen 7 5800X for $309 and the Ryzen 5 5600X for $199 both at their lowest price per ‘the Camelizer’. These are some of the best CPUs for gaming and productivity tasks, and a great upgrade if you already own a socket AM4 motherboard.  

To the delight of anyone requiring a graphics card, we have an MSRP-priced Asus Dual Radeon RX 6600 for $329 at Newegg. It's great to see the pricing of GPUs getting back to normal, here's hoping they fall even further. 

More deals are below.

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU: was $449, now $309 at Amazon
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU: was $309, now $199 at Amazon
• Asus Dual Radeon RX 6600 8GB GPU: was $399, now $329 with code SSBSAA34 at Newegg
• Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB RAM Kit: was $162, now $145 with code SSBSAA28 at Newegg
• EVGA Z15 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard: was $129, now $59 at Newegg

Today’s best deals in detail

Looking for more deals?

• Best deals on tech & PC hardware
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• Best SSD deals
• Best CPU deals
• Best Dell and Alienware deals
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Do you want a powerful laptop that can play the latest games or race through productivity tasks? Acer's Nitro 5 17-inch gaming laptop is down to $1,749 today at Newegg. This laptop features a Ryzen 7 5800H CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 with a nicely reduced price tag. 

Snag an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is only $329 on Amazon right now. The 5800X is a fantastic CPU and one of the best CPUs for gaming and productivity tasks.  

If you're looking to upgrade your RAM, you can get your hands on 16GBs of fast 4400MHz with the Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 RAM for just $72at Amazon. 

More deals are below so don't forget to scroll down and have a look.

TL;DR — Today’s Best Deals

• Acer Nitro 5 (Ryzen 7, 16GB, 1TB SSD) Gaming Laptop: was $2,100, now $1,749 at Newegg
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU: was $449, now $329 at Amazon
• Patriot Viper Steel 16GB DDR4 (4400MHz) RAM Kit: was $114, now $72 with coupon at Amazon
• Corsair iCUE 220T RGB Airflow PC Case: was $124, now $89 at Newegg after rebate
• ASRock Z590 Extreme Motherboard: was $247, now $175 at Newegg

Today’s best deals in detail

Looking for more deals?

• Best deals on tech & PC hardware
• Best gaming laptop deals
• Best monitor deals
• Best PC and laptop deals
• Best SSD deals
• Best CPU deals
• Best Dell and Alienware deals
• Best 3D printer deals
• Best Raspberry Pi deals

The official AMD online retail pages currently list the Radeon RX 6900 XT and Ryzen 7 5800X3D as available and for sale at their respective MSRPs. They are selling for $999 and $449, respectively. Or you can buy them both, together, for $1,448. The same prices apply in Europe, with the store using a 1:1 USD to EUR conversion.

While visiting the retail pages, we checked that there was stock and successfully added the titular GPU and CPU to a shopping basket before venturing to the checkout. However, adding another identical GPU or CPU to the basket didn't work – so it looks like AMD has smartly limited the shopping cart to stop folk from buying these up in bulk. It is a good move as not many ordinary PC enthusiasts and gamers will need to buy more than one product. However, we don't know what would happen if we completed checkout and revisited the store using the exact checkout details (name, address, and payment card).

Earlier this week, we happily reported that AMD was selling its newest RDNA2 GPUs, and the attractive new Ryzen 7 5800X3D, for MSRPs - at the PAX East expo in Boston. We pondered whether the sales of the reference design Radeon RX 6700 XT, RX 6800 XT, and RX 6900 XT Halo Infinite Edition GPUs, plus the recently released Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU at the show, at MSRPs, was a sign of things to come. It certainly seems to be playing out that way.

The terrible GPU availability and pricing saga has run for far longer than we care to recount. Moreover, we hope it won't be returning for a third season. The Tom's Hardware GPUs editor looked at the state of the market in some depth mid-week, considering what GPUs are available in reasonable quantities and which are the best bang-per-buck if you wish to read more. The next will be quite telling, so please check back for that.

On the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, this new 3D V-Cache enhanced CPU caused some waves at launch and quickly sold out, with various parties attempting to sell on chips at well over MSRP. We were slightly worried whether AMD had enough of these CPUs in the pipeline, as perhaps it had been taken by surprise by the demand. However, observing the PAX East sales and seeing the wide geographic availability of the 5800X3D direct from AMD has eased those worries.

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a particular 8C/16T CPU in some regards, with it being a first consumer PC processor with 3D-stacked SRAM technology – for 96MB of L3 cache. Moreover, its existence marks a satisfying gaming performance pinnacle to which users of older AM4 systems can aspire. That is why we feel stocks of this chip must be available and remain available for some time. The other note is that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a good product for its MSRP. Still, the silly post-launch pricing completely ruined it as a sensible proposition (against both AMD and Intel alternatives) to extend your AM4 system's working/gaming life.

When we reviewed the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, we deemed it the "the fastest gaming chip," but that was on our testbed. That chip will also appear in PCs from system builders and the Falcon Northwest Tiki is among the first available, placing that chip, along with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, into a chassis about the size of a PlayStation 5.

That fills a niche; not every gamer wants or has room for a mid-tower. But this desktop starts at $3,012 and we tested a config that goes for $5,357. This is a boutique system and it's priced like one. That has been common for these smaller systems, like the Corsair One i300, which has a similarly large price tag.

This also means the desktop is harder to upgrade then one you might build yourself. But for big power in a small package, some may be willing to look past that.

Design of the Falcon Northwest Tiki

In some ways, the Tiki reminds me more of a console than a typical desktop gaming PC. That's mostly due to its diminutive size compared to the mid-towers that typically come through our lab. It measures 13.6 x 13 x 4 inches, making it both shorter and thinner, but still longer, than the PlayStation 5 (15.4 x 10.2 x 4.1 inches).

But as far as gaming PC's go, this one is also pretty minimalist. I mean, sure, there's a big RGB Falcon on the front, but other than that it's all black metal and plastic. The only other adornments are the cutouts on each side for airflow. (Inside, the RAM is also RGB, but you can't see that with the system closed.) Unlike current-gen consoles, however, the Tiki needs to stand up tall. The base comes off for travel (you need to remove four screws),. Laying it down would black the airflow. 

If the Northwest Tiki is close to a PS5, perhaps its closest competitor, the Corsair One, is an Xbox Series X. That one is wider but taller at 14.96 x 7.87 x 6.93 inches. Both of those are smaller than the HP Omen 45L, which uses a more typical chassis that measures 21.85 x 18.5 x 8.03 inches.

Falcon Northwest Tiki Specifications

Ports and Upgradeability on the Falcon Northwest Tiki

On the top of the case, there are a pair of USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C port and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. That's on par with most mid-towers, but it would be nice to see separate headphone and microphone jacks for creators and enthusiasts.

The ports on the rear of the case are going to be entirely reliant on the motherboard you choose when you configure it. Our review unit packed an Asus ROG Strix B550-I Gaming motherboard, with four USB Type-A (three are USB 3.2 Gen 2, one is the slower USB 2.0), a USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 port, and, in a strange choice, a USB Type-C port meant specifically for audio output. There's also an Ethernet jack, audio jacks, and both HDMI and DisplayPort. But for video, you'll want to connect to the graphics card. Again, these ports depend on what you pick, but the RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition has three DisplayPort connections and HDMI.

Beyond the ports, the other area for expandability is opening up the PC, either to replace parts or add more storage down the line. Only the right side panel comes off, but it's really easy. There are two captive thumb screws that pop out when they're freed, but you don't need to worry about where you put them, because they're locked into the metal plate.

You have to be careful removing that plate, however. The fan and radiator from the CPU cooler are mounted to it. This is similar to the way that the Corsair One opens, and because the hoses are connecting the inside of the PC to the door, you can't separate it completely. But once you're in there, you have access to the RAM, motherboard, and GPU. The PSU is also there, but it's a tight space. Perhaps the most useful section is a small bracket where you could mount a 2.5-inch SSD for additional storage.

Closing the Tiki back up is also a pain. The cooler doesn't fit back in easily, and we had to do some careful massaging to get the side panel back on in a way in which the screws fit back in perfectly.

You could, in theory, rebuild the entire PC and keep the case. I think that even for skilled builders, that will be a challenge because of its size and the fact that the left side panel doesn't come off. Still, if you don't have a top-end configuration like we do, there are plenty of upgrades you could potentially make down the line with some patience (and perhaps a flashlight).

Gaming and Graphics on the Falcon Northwest Tiki

Between the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, the Falcon Northwest Tiki offered strong gaming performance at both 1080p and 4K resolutions in our tests, though only on one benchmark did it truly outshine Intel's Core i9-12900K. I do wonder if it would have performed even better with a stronger cooler in a larger case, but that defeats the purpose of the Tiki.

I used the TIki to play some Control, which is still a challenging game despite being a few years old .I ratcheted up the settings to their highest options, including ray tracing, and set the game's resolution to 4K. Still, the 5800X3D and RTX 3080 Ti ran the game at playable frame rates. The game ran between 38 and 42 frames per second as I explored the Oldest House as Jesse Faden, though it dropped a few frames, typically to around 34 fps during combat scenes with a lot of effects.

On the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark on very high settings, the Tiki tied with the Corsair One at 1080p (171 fps), at 66 fps The Tiki came out just one frame ahead in 4K. The HP Omen 45L, despite its RTX 3090, was just behind.

The Grand Theft Auto V benchmark was a similar story. The Tiki led the Corsair One by one frame each at 1080p and 4K. The Omen 45L was close in 4K but a few frames behind at 1080p.

But the Tiki really showed off in Far Cry 6, which is a bit more CPU intensive. With its Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the desktop took a huge lead at 1080p, hitting 181 fps, beating both the Corsair and Omen, tied at  142 fps. Here, all three desktops came within a frame of each other at 4K.

On Red Dead Redemption 2, which we run at medium settings, the systems became more competitive again. Here, the Tiki led the Corsair by a single frame again at both 4K and 1080p. The Omen continued to follow in its pattern of being competitive at 4K but a few frames behind at 1080p.

Lastly, on Borderlands 3, the systems remained competitive, with the Tiki just beating the other systems by a hair in both resolutions.

In addition to those benchmarks, we also ran a stress test by cycling through the Metro Exodus benchmark 15 times on the RTX preset, which simulates about half an hour of gaming. The system averaged 117.56 frames per second, and the system was pretty steady after dropping down from 119 fps in the first run.

During that stress test, the CPU ran at an average of 4.08 GHz and measured 63.97 degrees Celsius. The GPU reached 1,534.75 MHz and 66.42 degrees Celsius.

Productivity Performance on the Falcon Northwest Tiki

The Tiki, as we reviewed it, comes with AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which in theory is designed especially for gaming. That showed, to some degree, on our productivity tests where the Tiki, which also uses 32GB of RAM and 4TB of storage, fell behind.

For example, on Geekbench 5, an overall performance test that relies heavily on the processor, the Tiki achieved a single-core score of 1,640 and a multi-core score of 11,220. That was easily beaten by both the Corsair One i300 and the HP Omen 45L, both of which were tested with Core i9-12900K CPUs. Those won by hundreds of points in single-core and the Corsair One took the field at 17,965 in multi-core.

On Handbrake, in which computers Transcode a 4K video to 1080p, the Tiki took 4 minutes and 55 seconds, while the Corsair took 3:28 and the Omen took 3:39 — both more than a minute faster.

On our file transfer test, the Tiki copied 25GB of files at a rate of 2,902.45 MBps, The Corsair just beat it at 3,006.46 MBps, while the Omen's SSD ran at 2,522.49 MBps.

Software and Warranty on the Falcon Northwest Tiki

The TIki comes free of any bloatware, which should be the case for a gaming PC this expensive. If you spend this much money for something like this, you shouldn't be uninstalling Candy Crush from your system.

The only big addition to our configuration was Asus Aura Sync to control the RGB lighting on the front of the case. This software might be different if you order it with a motherboard from a different company. There's a shortcut to a customer survey on the desktop, but that's easy enough to drag to the Recycle Bin.

Otherwise, there was just one annoyance. The homepage in Microsoft Edge was set to Falcon Northwest's website. That's easy enough to fix, but I can't imagine someone who spends this much on a PC will be going back that quickly for more shopping.

Falcon Northwest sells the Tiki with a three year warranty covering parts and labor (as well as one year of shipping).

Configurations of Falcon Northwest TIki

We reviewed the Tiki in a monster configuration that would make my bank account cry in agony. With an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 64GB of RAM, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, a 4TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD and a 1,000 watt power supply (which is, to be fair, totally overkill), it costs $5,357.

As of this writing, the Tiki starts at $3,012 with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, 32GB of RAM at 3,200 MHz, an  Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition, a 1TB Crucial P2 PCIe Gen 3 SSD and an 800 watt PSU.

Most of it can be upgraded in some fashion, from the motherboard to UV printing on the case. There are also a variety of  CPUs to choose from, including an Intel option in the Core i9-12900, as well as extra storage drives, additional accessory bundles and more. The price you pay is highly dependent on the options you choose, but it will be premium. There aren't too many budget options here.

Bottom Line

Armed with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, the Falcon Northwest Tiki is a powerful force in a small footprint. These hard-to-get components all deliver in a system about the size of a PlayStation 5.

It's a privilege you have to pay for: the Tiki starts at over $3,000, and the one we reviewed at $5,357 didn't top everything out. Falcon Northwest does offer far more configurations than some other desktop vendors, so if you have that kind of cash, there are a ton of options. But while the Corsair One is also very expensive, if you're willing to go bigger for something like the HP Omen 45L, at least it has more affordable starting options.

In exchange for the size, you sacrifice some upgradeability, though here the Tiki has a few more options than the Corsair One, which is even tighter and doesn't use a standard graphics card.

While the GPU market is getting a bit better, a pre-built system like this is still a (slightly) easier way to get one of the best graphics cards. But if you're investing this much, you should also want a slim PC that fits everywhere. The Tiki is small, but don't let that fool you; it still gives you the full enthusiast PC experience.

While major hardware sites and YouTubers have been working with the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D since before its launch, these 3D V-Cache-enhanced, Zen 3 architecture processors only became available to the public yesterday. Today in the U.S., major outlets have no stock, and would-be purchasers will have to wait in the hope of extra stock — or pay an extortionate premium to a scalper.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor launched at $449 and stock has all but evaporated, we found in a search of online retailers.

Newegg has some overpriced options available in a column to the right of the main listing. Among these offerings are CPUs being shipped from China, some of which are priced up to $599. That pricing totally destroys the value proposition of AMD's newest CPU, as there are well priced alternatives readily available from both AMD and Nvidia.

Over on Amazon, there's nothing to be found; there aren't even any third-party resellers. In a LinkedIn post,  AMD's director of gaming marketing, Sasa Marinkovic, wrote that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D rocketed to position two in the CPU best seller charts on Amazon on its day of release. At the time of writing, it has dropped has to number three. Unless there's a restock, it will likely rapidly fall off the charts.

One of the winning features of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D was its price. At an MSRP of $449, it makes a great upgrade to those already invested in the AM4 platform with a good motherboard and fast RAM. With its cutting-edge 3D-stacked SRAM technology, it could lay claim to being the best gaming CPU available. If you check our gaming tests, you'll see that it outshines other members of the red team stables as well as Intel's best consumer chips like the Core i9-12900K ($589), and 12900KS ($739), across a range of modern games, on average. Probably the most realistic competitor choice for gaming would be the potent but relatively affordable Intel Core i7-12700K ($409, but has been on sale for as low as $299).

Some, store, like Amazon, Newegg and B&H Photo, have mechanisms where you can sign up for notifications of AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D stock arriving. (AMD itself doesn't seem to offer this.) We don't know how many of these chips AMD will be making, and with them selling out so fast the demand/supply equation appears to have taken AMD by surprise. Moreover, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the final fanfare for AM4, as AMD and desktop CPU partners turn their focus entirely to the 5nm Ryzen 7000 'Raphael' Zen 4 CPUs in the AM5 socket.

MSI team overclocker TSAIK has managed to push AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor past the fundamental milestone clock frequency of 5 GHz. Ahead of this processor's release, there was a lot of concern about whether it would be overclockable, making these feats all the more interesting to observe. Where there's a will, there's a way.

TSAIK's AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU-Z validated clock speed achievement was 5.14178 GHz, to be precise, and brought to our attention by Wccftech. Comfortably beyond 5 GHz, the achievement is also a sizable step above the HWBot verified world record we reported yesterday; the 4.74 GHz overclock by ScatterBencher, AKA Massman.

TSAIK's 5.14 GHz overclock of AMD's 3D V-Cache enhanced processor didn't offer much background information. However, the CPU-Z validation screen provides some tantalizing details. For example, we can see that TSAIK applied a BCLK of 113 MHz and a core voltage of 1.20V. The configuration contrasts against Massman's settings of a BCLK of 104 MHz and a core voltage of 1.294V.

Yesterday, we wrote about the 4.74 GHz AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D overclock achieved by SkatterBencher (Massman). As well as discussing the methods employed to achieve his HWBot verified top clock speed, we looked at the potential pitfalls and hazards of the only apparent route to overclock this interesting new chip - base clock (BCLK) overclocking. In brief, BCLK overclocking isn't very practical for any significant overclock. It will overclock not just your CPU but many other components connected to the motherboard, and some of these components don't take kindly to being stressed. Furthermore, BCLK overclocking can introduce "RTC Bugs," and system stability can be adversely affected if you push the BCLK away from the expected value of 100 MHz.

Considering the BCLK overclocking drawbacks, this may be the reason that TSAIK, who has a significant presence on HWBot, hasn't yet submitted this AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D clock speed to the site and hasn't done much else with it but run CPU-Z validator.

Being on the MSI team means that TSAIK has access to the best components from the company, and the motherboard behind the 5.14 GHz overclock was the alluring MSI MEG X570 Godlike. The motherboard was running the 1.G5T2 BIOS (AGESA 1.2.0.6 Patch C), but perhaps MSI facilitated some under-test BIOS tweaks that enhanced the overclocking capabilities of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D for its in-house OC expert.

We are sure there are more exciting feats to be achieved using the unique PC gaming champion that is the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Updated BIOS files and extra efforts from the extreme overclocking fraternity may precipitate more unexpected overclocking and benchmarking records from this CPU in the coming weeks.

YouTube channel SkatterBencher recently published a video on how to overclock AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, despite the chip being locked from conventional overclocking by AMD. In the video, Skatterbench managed to overclock the 5800X3D to an impressive 4.74GHz with all of AMD's voltage and multiplier limits in place.

For the uninitiated, AMD has purposefully locked out the Ryzen 7 5800X3D from conventional overclocking methods due to the 3D V-Cache technology the chip posses. AMD doesn't give exact details as to why the 3D V-Cache prevents overclocking, but there are a couple of variables that can cause potential issues.

One of the main side effects of adding 3D V-Cache is complications with heat, and additional heat generated from the extra cache directly. As a result, the 5800X3D runs hotter than AMD's conventional Ryzen 5000 CPUs.

Another could be an issue with the 3D V-cache's sensitivity to voltage, since AMD has limited the 5800X3D to a maximum voltage of 1.35v VID, which is significantly less than the 1.5v other Ryzen 5000 chips can utilize under optimal conditions.

Either way, this has not stopped overclockers from bypassing these restrictions and overclocking the 5800X3D. Since the core multiplier, along with Precision Boost Overdrive -- and the curve optimizer -- have been disabled or locked, this leaves base clock (BCLK) overclocking as the only other alternative to tune clock speeds. This is because the BCLK multiplier is controlled by the motherboard, not the CPU.

However, BCLK overclocking is a very inconvenient way of overclocking these days, as the BCLK frequency sets the frequency baseline for all other components on the motherboard, including RAM, USB ports, PCIe slots, SATA drives, NVMe drives, and more.

When you overclock the BCLK, you not only overclock the CPU but also the rest of the motherboard components that reference the BCLK. BCLK OCing is also prone to "RTC Bugs" that can inflate benchmarking scores as well.

The only exception to this is motherboards equipped with external clock generators. These boards can bypass overclocking all the components on the board, with the exception of the CPU and memory. However, these types of motherboards are exceptionally rare, especially on AMD platforms where every single CPU (with the exception of the 5800X3D) has an unlocked multiplier.

Overclocking Results

SkatterBencher's peak Ryzen 7 5800X3D overclock comes in at 4.74GHz, with a 104MHz BCLK. Overclocking was done on Asus' Crosshair VIII Extreme motherboard, with a custom loop running components from EK's Quantum watercooling lineup.

Thanks to voltage offsets and Asus's specialized Voltage Suspension feature, SkatterBencher was able to override AMD's maximum voltage output of 1.35v for the 5800X3D, to a maximum voltage of 1.375v.

Voltage Suspension is a unique feature offered by Asus that allows the user to set voltages against specific temperature targets, allowing the CPU to utilize higher voltages at lower temperatures, and pulling back voltage at higher temperatures to preserve the CPU's health.

In Prime95 testing with small FFTs and AVX enabled, the 5800X3D managed an all-core clock speed of 4.21GHz at 1.176 volts, with peak temperatures running at 93.4C.

With AVX disabled in the same test, that core clock jumps up to 4.36GHz on all cores and a voltage of 1.208, with temperatures hovering around 86-87C.

However, the CPU was able to achieve an absolute maximum core frequency of 4.74GHz under ideal conditions -- presumably under single-core workloads. This is a 240MHz frequency advantage over the 5800X3D's maximum default boost frequency of 4.5GHz.

Update 4/8/2022 02:24 PT:

CapFrameX has tweeted "It was actually Ultra details and Ultra shadows to stress CPU/RAM. AF/AA/AO and post processing min." and we have updated the story to reflect this correction.

Original Article:

XanxoGaming released the first benchmarks for AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. The Peruvian news outlet followed up a quick gaming benchmark in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where AMD’s L3 cache-heavy chip outperformed the Core i9-12900K and Core i9-12900KS.

XanxoGaming executed the benchmarks in conjunction with the developer of CapFrameX, a helpful tool to analyze frame times. The publication tested at a 720p (1280 x 720) resolution with ultra details and shadows to stress the CPU. It’s essential to consider that the Intel and AMD systems used different hardware, which XanxoGaming has admitted is not an apples-to-apples comparison.

The Core i9-12900K and Core i9-12900KS systems have a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti and DDR5-4800 C40 memory, whereas the Ryzen 7 5800X3D system was on a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti with DDR4-3200 C14 memory. So despite the Intel testbed having a better graphics card, the AMD system won by a fair margin, making the feat even more impressive.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D delivered an average frame rate of 231 FPS, while the Core i9-12900K and Core i9-12900KS finished with 190 FPS and 200 FPS, respectively. Therefore, AMD’s chip beat the Core i9-12900K by 22% and the Core i9-12900KS by 16%. Furthermore, let’s look back at AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D presentation. The chipmaker estimates that the processor offers up to 10% better gaming performance than the Core i9-12900K at 1080p (1920 x 1080) resolution with high image quality.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a title that relies heavily on memory speed and is sensitive to memory latency, which favors the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. It’s necessary to put the AMD chip through more titles to see whether it can be the “world’s fastest gaming CPU,” as AMD has been calling it. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D will hit the shelves on April 20 for $449. Therefore, we’re less than two weeks away from finding out whether AMD can take away the crown for the “fastest gaming CPU” from the Core i9-12900KS, which recently debuted at $799.99.

Peru-based tech site XanxoGaming has put what it claims to be a retail version of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D through a series of benchmarks (via VideoCardz). Sadly, for those eyeing the potential of the 5800X3D for gaming, no PC games were tested with the newly built system - just rendering and sys-info tool type standards.  

At the official unveiling of the 5800X3D in mid-March, AMD gave us the specs, pricing, and release date. Additionally, to build anticipation, it highlighted the PC gaming prowess of the upcoming 3D V-Cache infused processor. In a selection of modern games and older favorites, AMD's charts showed the new Ryzen 7 5800X3D was 15% better than the 5900X, wresting the upper hand from the Intel Core i9-12900K. 

So, it isn't easy to fathom why Xanxo should rush to release a review featuring the following; Cinebench, Geekbench, CPU-Z, and Blender. Perhaps it was just the quickest and easiest option. However, the site promises to add gaming benchmarks to its review shortly (it is working on them now).

Above is a selection of the benchmarking screenshots from the source, showing that the upcoming 3D V-Cache packing CPU is only about as fast as the Ryzen 7 5700X in many single- and multi-core tests. We reckon this is due to the lower clocks of the upcoming chip. However, when the V-cache comes into play in certain apps, like the rendering tasks in Blender, we see the Ryzen 7 5800X3D outpace the standard Ryzen 7 5800X by up to 11%.

Key confirmed specs of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D are available on the official AMD product pages. In brief, it is a Zen3 architecture 8C/16T CPU with a base/boost of 3.4 / 4.5 GHz, and a hefty L3 cache of 96MB. This 7nm processor has a TDP of 105W. Since the product launch we have learned that it is not overclockable.

AMD explained that the 3D V-Cache is sensitive to higher voltages, and has thus roped off core voltage tweaking and user CPU frequency adjustments. Memory and fabric overclocking remain enabled. All the motherboard vendors are preparing BIOS updates for full support of the new chip and some, like Gigabyte, seem to suggest they have implemented changes for AMD's new "V-Cache optimizer."

The official release of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is scheduled for April 20, a little under a fortnight from today. AMD says the new AM4 CPU has an MSRP of $449. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D will hit the market on April 20 at $449. Equipped with AMD's 3D V-Cache technology, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D will contend with the best CPUs for gaming.

AMD has promised that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D offers a 15% gaming uplift over its current Ryzen 9 5900X. It's a pretty big claim, considering that the Ryzen 9 5900X has four extra Zen 3 cores and higher clock speeds. It remains to be seen whether 3D V-Cache can provide such a substantial performance increase. However, hardware detective Benchleaks has uncovered two Ryzen 7 5800X3D benchmarks that offer us a small preview of what the L3 cache-heavy chip can do.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D has the same eight-core, 16-thread configuration as the regular Ryzen 7 5800X. It has 64MB more L3 cache due to the 3D V-Cache design. Although the Ryzen 7 5800X3D has the same 105W TDP, the processor has a 400MHz lower base clock and 200 MHz lower boost clock than the Ryzen 7 5800X. Robert Hallock, director of technical marketing at AMD, has already confirmed that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D ships with a lower voltage limit between 1.3V to 1.35V instead of AMD's other Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) parts that play between 1.45V to 1.5V. The design limits the Ryzen 7 5800X3D's clock speeds and contributes to the lack of overclocking support.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Benchmarks

Scores for the Core i7-12700K, Ryzen 9 5900X, and Ryzen 7 5800X are from Geekbench 5's processor database.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D's single-core performance didn't come as a shocker. Instead, the chip features lower clock speeds, explaining why the Ryzen 7 5800X delivered up to 2.3% higher single-core performance than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Therefore, it only makes sense that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D wouldn't beat the Ryzen 9 5900X or Core i7-12700K, often considered the direct rival to the Ryzen 7 5800X.

Once we switched over to the multi-core results, we saw the Ryzen 7 5800X3D outpaced the Ryzen 7 5800X by 8.9%. However, the soon-to-be-released Ryzen part was still no match for the Ryzen 9 5900X or Core i7-12700K, where there was almost a 25% margin.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D's forte is gaming, according to AMD. The chipmaker estimated that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is, on average, 15% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X and 7% more quickly than the Core i7-12700K. The question is whether it'll be worth it.

With the recent price cuts on Ryzen 5000, the Ryzen 9 5900X sells for $448.98 (cheaper if you live near a Micro Center). Meanwhile, the Core i7-12700K retails for $384.98. So if the Ryzen 7 5800X3D ($449) delivers, consumers can get a superior gaming chip at the same price as a Ryzen 9 5900X. The significant tradeoff is that they'll lose out on productivity performance since not even AMD's 3D V-Cache can compensate for the lower core count on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D looks like an even worse deal than the Core i7-12700K. Consumers would have to pay 17% more money for a mediocre 7% increase in gaming performance. Nonetheless, we're less than a month away from the Ryzen 7 5800X3D's launch, so we should keep an open mind before the reviews arrive.

AMD has confirmed that its upcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor with a 96MB L3 cache aimed at gamers will not support overclocking. The official reason is that AMD's 3D V-Cache cannot really work at high voltages. That said, it remains to be seen for how long the CPU will work at its boost clocks.

"As people know, this is our first CPU with 3D V-Cache technology [...] and that packaging technology in our space has different voltage and frequency scaling than people may be accustomed with," said Robert Hallock, director of technical marketing at AMD, during a HotHardware broadcast (45:44). "On the desktop parts you've seen us ship parts that range up to 1.45V or even 1.5V in boost and that is not the limit for 3D V-Cache. The voltage limit on that is more like 1.3V to 1.35V." 

AMD has never listed the overclocking capability of its Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, so it is not particularly surprising that the part does not support it. Meanwhile, this is the first time when AMD publicly acknowledges this, but 3D V-Cache voltage is a rather surprising reason. Initially, observers thought that because AMD installs its 3D V-Cache on top of Zen 3's 'built-in' L3 cache and then links them using through silicon vias (TSVs). This makes die surface non-uniform and to make it even, the company installs structural silicon spacers on top of Zen 3 general-purpose cores. These spacers trap some heat between the die, structural silicon, and integrated heat spreader. 

Perhaps, structural silicon and its effect on heat dissipation adds to AMD's unwillingness to enable overclocking of its Ryzen 7 5800X3D part, but it looks like 3D V-Cache voltage range is the main reason. 

In fact, to ensure stable operation of the CPU, AMD had to reduce base frequency of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D by 400MHz and boost clock by 200MHz when compared to the regular Ryzen 7 5800X, so overclocking might really be a bad idea of the processor. Good news is that AMD believes that the extra cache will not only compensate lower clocks, but will allow make the Ryzen 7 5800X3D part a better choice for gaming. Meanwhile, it should be noted that AMD stresses gaming performance, so 3D V-Cache may not be that efficient for other types of applications. 

"So, we are not going to allow CPU frequency overclocking or core voltage adjustment because out-of-the-box the design of the chip already uses ranges up to that voltage and frequency limit. On the other hand, fabric overclocking remains enabled, memory overclocking remains enabled, and we know that our parts get the most benefit from that anyway. […] We are working very hard to maximize our out-of-box performance for people and this is a very new thing we are trying."

Update: The flagship Ryzen 7 5800X3D is now available, you can see how it performs in our Ryzen 7 5800X3D review.

Original Article:

AMD fired back at Intel's Alder Lake today with seven new chips, with the $449 flagship Ryzen 7 5800X3D leading the way with V-Cache tech that brings a mind-boggling 96MB of L3 cache to boost gaming performance by 15% over the company’s current best CPU for gaming. AMD also bulked up its mid-range and low-end roster with six additional chips that span from a mere $99 up to $299, plugging key gaps in its product stack. The company will also finally support its Zen 3 processors on all 300-series motherboards, opening up a value option that’s a good fit for the new low-end Ryzen lineup.

The new 7nm Ryzen chips feel late, arriving a year and a half after the first wave of Ryzen 5000 chips, but they’re badly needed. Intel’s Alder Lake launch caught AMD uncharacteristically flat-footed, with its new hybrid processors wresting away AMD’s performance lead across nearly the entire Ryzen 5000 product stack and taking a clear lead in our CPU benchmarks hierarchy. Of course, we typically expect to pay a premium for leading performance, but Intel’s aggressive pricing also brought superior value in every price range while exploiting AMD’s glaring lack of any sub-$250 chips. In response to Intel’s bare-knuckle Alder Lake pricing, AMD finally responded by slashing prices on its existing 5000-series models earlier this month. Now its new Ryzen processors slot in to plug the remaining gaps. 

AMD’s new Cezanne and Renoir chips take a new approach of using Zen 3 and Zen 2-powered APU silicon with disabled integrated graphics units to tackle the low-end, while the Ryzen 7 5800X3D aims to retake the gaming performance crown. AMD’s six new low- and mid-range chips arrive April 4, 2022, while the Ryzen 7 5800X3D will be available on April 20, 2022. Additionally, the new BIOS updates that enable Zen 3 support on 300-series motherboards arrive in the April-May timeframe.

Paired with the deep price cuts that began a few weeks ago, AMD now has a drastically different competitive positioning against Intel’s entire Alder Lake lineup. Here’s what that looks like.  

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Specifications, Pricing, Release Date

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the first consumer processor to feature the 3D-stacked SRAM tech that AMD calls V-Cache, but the company also uses the tech for its Milan-X processors for the data center. As a quick refresher, 3D V-Cache leverages a novel new technique that uses hybrid bonding to fuse an additional 64MB of 7nm SRAM cache vertically atop the Ryzen compute chiplet, thus tripling the amount of L3 cache per Ryzen die. You can read the deep dive details here and here. Unfortunately, AMD’s recommended pricing has little correlation to reality, so we’ve included both MSRPs and street pricing in the below tables.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D comes with the same eight Zen 3 cores and 16 threads as the standard Ryzen 7 5800X but has a lower 3.4 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost frequency. That means AMD trimmed 400 MHz from the base clock and 200 MHz off the boost frequency. The chip will drop into existing 400- and 500-series motherboards, and AMD’s upcoming BIOS updates will also enable support on older 300-series platforms. That gives existing users an easy upgrade path while waiting for the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 chips.

Naturally, the 3D V-Cache tech has tradeoffs, with the most obvious coming as a $449 price tag. That means you’ll pay an extra $100 for the same number of cores as you’d get in the vanilla Ryzen 7 5800X, but you get an extra 64MB of L3 cache along with slightly lower clock speeds. As you can see in the album below, the 5800X3D’s primary attraction is the average 15% gain in gaming performance over the existing Ryzen 9 5900X that also currently retails for $450. Unfortunately, the 3D V-Cache doesn’t impact other types of work, so you’ll sacrifice four cores and eight threads in exchange for the 5800X3D's extra cache, thus losing performance in some productivity applications.

On average, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is roughly seven percent faster than Intel’s $589 Core i9-12900K, but those gains will vary by title. However, the Core i7-12700K delivers effectively the same gaming performance as the 12900K, but for ~$400. That means the 5800X3D’s extra gaming performance comes at a premium, especially considering that the gains might not apply to a large number of titles. Additionally, the chip drops into aging AM4 motherboards. As a result, the $449 price tag doesn’t appear to be a clear slam dunk — we’ll have to wait for reviews to see how the chip stacks up.

The 3D V-Cache tech also has other implications — the 5800X3D’s lower clock speeds speak volumes. As you can see in the above album, AMD stacks the additional SRAM directly in the center of the compute die to isolate it from the heat-generating cores on the sides of the chiplet. However, AMD has to use silicon shims on top of the cores to create an even surface for the heat spreader that sits atop the chiplet. Silicon is an excellent thermal conductor, but the shims and extra SRAM die will inevitably trap some heat, thus resulting in less thermal headroom. The extra memory also consumes more power. Both of those factors contribute to the lower clock speeds.

These factors could also impact overclockability. AMD tells us the 5800X3D fully supports overclocking the memory and Infinity Fabric, but hasn’t confirmed that the CPU core frequencies are overclockable or that the chip supports the auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive feature. AMD says it will share more details about core overclocking as we get closer to launch on April 20, 2022.

At first glance, AMD’s reluctance here seems to confirm the rampant rumors that the chips aren’t overclockable — a theory plausibly backed up by AMD’s lack of an ‘overclockable’ bullet point on its 5800X3D spec sheet as it does with its other chips. However, the company could simply be weighing the benefits of overlocking versus the risks of enabling the feature. The jury is still out for now.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, Ryzen 5 5600 and 5000 Pricing, Specifications, Release Date

AMD’s new lineup consists of three Zen 3 parts and three Zen 2 parts, with both parts exhibiting all of the hallmarks of their predecessors, like socket AM4 support and the respective PCIe capabilities (PCIe 4.0 for Zen 3 Vermeer, PCIe 3.0 for Zen 3 Cezanne and Zen 2). These chips come to market on April 4, 2022. 

The new Zen 3 silicon comes in three variants, with the $299 Ryzen 7 5700X slotting in as an eight-core 16-thread part with a 3.4 GHz base and 4.6 GHz boost clock. The 5700X will square off with Intel’s Core i5-12600K. This $299 chip is the highest-priced 65W part from AMD, filling in the gap between the powerful 105W Ryzen 7 5800X that retails for $350 and the $225 Ryzen 5 5600X that also comes with a 65W TDP. As you’d expect, the Ryzen 5700X uses the chiplet-equipped Vermeer design we see with other Ryzen 5000 models. Like the other new Vermeer model, it comes with one core complex die (CCD).

The other new Vermeer model comes in the form of the $199 Ryzen 5 5600 — the long-awaited and badly-needed ‘non-X’ version of the Ryzen 5 5600X. The 5600 clocks in with a 3.5 GHz base and 4.4 GHz boost, so it only sacrifices 200 MHz for both the base and boost clock rate compared to the 5600X. That makes what looks to be a well-rounded chip that will grapple with Intel’s popular Core i5-12400 that dominates most best CPU for gaming lists.

For its low-end Zen 3 chip, the $159 Ryzen 5 5500 finds AMD employing a new tactic of repurposing its monolithic (single-chip) Cezanne silicon that it typically uses for APUs. That means the six-core 12-thread Cezanne chip’s integrated Ryzen Vega graphics engine has been disabled. Naturally, that leads one to believe that AMD probably has quite the supply of Cezanne dies that have suffered manufacturing defects in the integrated GPU. Of course, it’s also possible that the company could simply disable fully-functioning graphics units on some chips if it needs more supply, but that seems unlikely.

Aside from the disabled iGPU, the 5500 shares many of the same characteristics as other Cezanne chips, including support for PCIe 3.0 instead of PCIe 4.0. That means this chip will make a great pairing for older, lower-end AM4 motherboards — you certainly wouldn’t want to pay for functionality you don’t need by pairing it with a PCIe 4.0-supporting motherboard.

The Ryzen 5 5500 also comes with 16MB of cache, half that of the Ryzen 5 5600 that has the same number of cores and threads. This will result in reduced performance in several workloads, but we’ll have to suss that out in the review. However, the 5500 should be very similar to the Ryzen 5 5600G that has the same architecture but comes with an active iGPU — there’s only a 200 MHz difference in CPU base/boost clock rates between the two chips. AMD’s new Zen 2-powered Ryzen 5 4600G also slots in with similar pricing, but we’ll cover that in the next section.

AMD Ryzen 5 4600G, Ryzen 5 4500 and 4100 Pricing, Specifications, Release Date

AMD’s new 4000-series chips all feature the monolithic (single-chip) 7nm Renoir design that comes with Zen 2 CPU cores and the Radeon RX Vega graphics engine. This design has shipped into OEM and SI markets since 2020, but it never came to retail like the Cezanne models. You can see an example of what the performance of these chips looks like in our Ryzen 7 Pro 4750G review. These three chips come with support for PCIe 3.0 and come to retail on April 4, 2022. 

The $154 Ryzen 5 4600G has been shipping to OEM and SI markets for some time, but now makes its way to retail. This chip comes with six Zen 2 cores and 12 threads that operate at a 3.7 GHz base and 4.2 GHz boost clock. The Vega graphics engine comes armed with seven CUs that operate at up to 1.9 GHz. The 65W 4600G will slot in as a lower-tier APU to complement the Ryzen 5700G and 5600G, so it really doesn’t have a directly-comparable Intel competitor. Given the $159 Ryzen 5 5500’s similar price point, AMD basically offers you the choice of either an APU with Zen 2 or a standard CPU with Zen 3 at the $150-$160 price point.

The lowest-end Ryzen 4000 models come with the Renoir design. However, while they have a Vega graphics engine on the die, the iGPU has been disabled. As such, we end up with two of AMD’s lowest-end chips with Zen 2 cores to tackle the $122 Core i3-12100 and $97 Core i3-12100F. These chips are unofficially referred to as ‘Renoir-X’ in enthusiast circles, but AMD says this isn't the official codename.

The $129 Ryzen 5 4500 slots in with six cores and twelve threads, outweighing the 12100’s four cores and eight threads. The Zen 2 cores operate at 3.6 / 4.1 GHz base/boost clocks. The Ryzen 3 4100 slots in with four cores and eight threads that operate at 3.8 / 4.0 GHz base/boost clocks.

The 4500 and 4100 chips are a wild card – the Zen 2 architecture isn’t nearly as adept at gaming as Zen 3, and Intel’s Alder Lake is even faster still. We’ll have to wait for reviews to see if these chips make sense for the productivity-focused part of the retail market, though it is obvious they will find some success in OEM and SI markets. 

AMD Brings Ryzen 5000 Support to All 300-Series Motherboards

AMD told us earlier this year that it was working on a strategy to bring support for its Ryzen 5000 processors to all 300-series motherboards, and now it has delivered on those intentions.

AMD’s AGESA code serves as the codebase that motherboard makers use to develop new firmwares. As of AGESA version 1207, all 300-series motherboards will support Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 processors after a BIOS update (make sure the BIOS has AGESA 1207 or newer). AMD says that Ryzen 5000 support will vary by vendor, as will the timeline for new BIOS revisions. However, we should see them in the April-May timeframe. Notably, these BIOS revisions will also include the fix for AMD’s fTPM stuttering issues.

As a bit of history, AMD promised to support its AM4 ecosystem for five years, but motherboard limitations ultimately restricted its ability to continue supporting every Ryzen chip on every AM4 platform. That eventually led AMD to decide to limit its Ryzen 5000 processors to only new, pricey 500-series motherboards, igniting a firestorm of criticism from its vocal fanbase and casual users alike. The company eventually reversed course and compromised by supporting 400-series motherboards but left 300-series motherboards off the table, fomenting claims that AMD was engaging in unnecessary segmentation. The new BIOS versions rectify that long-simmering issue.

Thoughts

AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips fully eclipsed Intel's performance dominance in desktop PCs when they launched back in 2020, but to the dismay of enthusiasts, the company has long neglected to launch any sub-$250 chips with the potent Zen 3 architecture. That's kept the bar for entry unattainably high for value seekers.

The new Zen 3 models should go a long way to addressing those concerns, and paired with AMD's recent price cuts on other models, Ryzen 5000 is now far more accessible. However, AMD's new chips are somewhat late to market, given that Intel has already retaken the performance and value crown with its Alder Lake chips. Nevertheless, the Ryzen 5 5600, the long-awaited 'non-X' version of the popular 5600X, could be a winner — If the price is right, it could be a great alternative to Intel's Core i5-12400. The 5700X also appears impressive at its price point.

It's nice to see AMD add support for the Ryzen 5000 chips to older 300-series motherboards, and it makes perfect sense for the lower-end processors. However, that sign of goodwill is a bit late and signifies part of AMD's challenge: These new Ryzen chips all drop into what is now an aging AM4 platform with less sophisticated connectivity tech than Intel's PCIe 5.0 and DDR5-supporting Alder Lake platforms.

AMD also didn't release a Zen 3-equipped Ryzen 3 model — AMD's Ryzen 5000 stack bottoms out at $159. Instead, the company has turned to its older Zen 2 silicon to address the low end of the market with Ryzen 4000 models. This marks a new shift in the company's strategy to using a monolithic die for the low end, a necessity for these lower price points because chiplet-based designs are more costly to produce in terms of packaging and logistics.

However, this strategy could prove to be a liability: Even with heftier core counts, the Zen 2 chips with disabled iGPUs likely won't be too competitive in gaming with Intel's potent Core i3 and its Golden Cove architecture. AMD didn't release any benchmarks of its new chips against Intel's, which could be telling. We'll have to wait for reviews to see how the new Zen 2 chips compete, but regardless of how they fare in the retail market, they will surely find a home in OEM and SI systems.

AMD's new tactic of repurposing its monolithic Zen 3 and Zen 2 APU designs by disabling the graphics units doesn't seem like the best use of die area, but 7nm is mature and yields exceedingly well. It's also fair to assume the company has built up enough chips with defective iGPUs over years of production to meet the initial demand. However, given AMD's focus on prioritizing premium high-margin segments during the chip shortage, we doubt the company will defeature any new fully-functioning chips that come off the production line, at least not in great quantities. That means the supply of these de-featured APUs could dwindle rather quickly, much as we've seen with the company's other low-end models (like the Ryzen 3 3300X and 3100).

Finally, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D looks to be an incredibly interesting beast that could retake the overall gaming crown, if only by a slim margin. The proof is in the silicon, though. We'll have to wait for reviews to see how many titles benefit from the new design.  

Asus and MSI have started releasing new firmware for certain X570 motherboards to prepare for AMD's upcoming Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. The update lends credence to the rumor that the cache-stacked chip may arrive as soon as April 20.

Asus has rolled out updates for the brand's ROG Crosshair VIII series, including the Dark Hero, Impact and Extreme models. The new firmware is directly available from the product pages. On the other hand, MSI has liberated firmware for the X570 Godlike, X570S Ace Max, and X570S Torpedo Max. However, the company hasn't uploaded the files to the corresponding product pages, but Twitter user HXL managed to find some Google Drive links for them. At any rate, we recommend users thread with caution since these are beta firmware.

Motherboards with the X570 chipsets typically receive firmware before the other 500-series models. However, it's uncertain if Ryzen 7 5800X3D support will arrive for non-X570 chipsets. Besides the difference in L3 cache, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D doesn't differ a lot from the regular Ryzen 7 5800X. However, one feature that many users will miss is the overclocking ability.

The product page for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D points to the lack of overclocking support, and it would be the only X-series chip not to have it. For example, AMD specifies that the Ryzen 7 5800X supports overclocking, whereas there's no mention of it on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D's product page. So it's safe to assume that Ryzen Master won't let you overclock the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. TechPowerUp reported that AMD has allegedly asked motherboard vendors to disable the overclocking options for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. However, that probably won't stop third-party developers from working up a utility to overclock the chip.

AMD's Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) processors recently enjoyed some succulent price cuts up to 25%. The Ryzen 7 5800X, which used to cost $449, now retails for $349.95. The rumored MSRP for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is $449, the same MSRP for the Ryzen 7 5800X. Nonetheless, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D has already emerged at an overseas retailer for the equivalent of $475. We'll have to wait to see the chip's official MSRP and whether it's worth picking it up over its vanilla counterpart.

AMD's enthusiast-grade Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor with a massive 96MB L3 cache supports everything that the company's latest CPU series has to offer in an attempt to be the best CPU for gaming, but according to a post on Bilibili that also features the first known picture of the chip, the chip doesn't support overclocking. A recent video interview with AMD representatives also implies that this could be the case (below). 

As you can see above, the Bilibili poster claims the chip isn't overclockable, which makes plenty of sense. When AMD announced its Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor several months ago, it emphasized its gargantuan 96MB L3 cache and increased single-thread performance thanks to fast memory accesses, an important factor for games. However, AMD didn't emphasize overclocking capabilities or clock rates compared to the regular Ryzen 7 5800X model.

Apparently, to add cache, AMD had to sacrifice clock speeds and may have also cut overclocking support. Additionally, AMD's website doesn't list the chip as overclockable, while it does list other models, like the standard 5800X, as overclockable. 

TechPowerUp also claims that AMD is asking its motherboard partners to disable overclocking support for its Ryzen 7 5800X3D chip, as despite the X letter in its model number, it is not exactly overclocking friendly. 

There are technical reasons why AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D had to lower clocks and disable overclocking. First, AMD places its 3D V-Cache on top of Zen 3's 'native' L3 cache and then connects them using through silicon vias (TSVs). This creates a non-uniform surface of the die, complicating positioning the integrated heat spreader (IHS) on top of the chip. To make it even, AMD places structural silicon spacers on top of Zen 3's processing cores, which limits their ability to dissipate heat. Yes, silicon does serve as a good thermal conductor, but it still traps a non-zero amount of heat between the die, structural silicon, and IHS. 

Because a 64MB 3D V-Cache tile also adds to the power consumption, AMD had to lower the base clocks by 400 MHz to maintain a 105W default TDP. For the same reason, overclocking capabilities are likely also affected, so disabling overclocking support on X3D CPUs makes sense.

Finally, a recent video interview with AMD's Robert Hallock and Frank Azor could also be telling. As you can see at 7:55 in the above video, Azor asked Hallock about Ryzen 7 5800X3D overclocking back in January, but Hallock didn't confirm the feature. That implies that perhaps X3D models were simply not designed to be overclockable.

AMD has been talking about advantages of its 3D V-Cache for gaming for several months without disclosing the actual launch date of its Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU or its price. According to a new leak from VideoCardz, AMD will formally launch its Ryzen 7 5800X3D chip on April 20 and the CPU will cost $449. This will be the first 3D V-Cache processor from AMD, and will look to compete with the best CPUs for gaming.

AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor will feature eight Zen 3 cores clocked at 3.40–4.50 GHz and will be equipped with 32MB of on-die L3 cache, as well as 64MB of 3D V-Cache in a stacked tile that operates as a part of L3 cache and expands the L3 capacity to 96MB. Add in the eight cores with 512KB of L2 each and the chip will feature a whopping 100MB cache. Large caches improve memory bandwidth and single-thread performance, just what the doctor ordered for games, which is why AMD positions its Ryzen 7 5800X3D primarily for gaming and even prices it below $500 as so not to scare off potential buyers.

As expected, alongside its Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD plans to introduce a number of cheaper Ryzen 5000-series and Ryzen 4000-series desktop offerings with eight, six, or four cores targeting gamers in budget as well as mainstream PCs.

AMD's Ryzen 7 5700X, Ryzen 5 5600, and Ryzen 5 5500 will complement the existing Ryzen 5000-series lineup and will make it slightly more accessible. Keep in mind that the Ryzen 5 5500 will use codenamed Cezanne silicon (still Zen 3) with disabled graphics, so it will feature a considerably smaller cache than its Ryzen 5600 counterpart that relies on the Vermeer die.

Also coming in April, AMD will officially offer its Ryzen 5 4600G in retail and will add Ryzen 5 4500 and Ryzen 3 4100 parts without graphics for inexpensive PCs. 

AMD has not officially revealed the above details, so take the April 20 launch date and prices with a helping of salt. Still, that date coincides with a previously rumored Radeon RX 6950 XT/6750 XT/6650 XT launch date. Obviously, both the date and prices may change. Meanwhile, AMD's EPYC 'Milan-X' with 3D V-Cache is set to be available in March, so it makes sense for Ryzen CPUs with 3D V-Cache to arrive shortly after.

We've put together the following table showing the rumored specifications and prices for AMD's upcoming CPUs.

While Zen 4-based processors are still expected to launch sometime in 2022, AMD's executive implied that it has some new Ryzen 5000 offerings in the pipeline that will address market segments that AMD has not properly addressed yet, such as premium and commercial notebooks.

"We have more platforms coming with Ryzen 5000 in our next generation," said Su when asked about AMD's performance in the PC space should demand for computers slow down. "We are still underrepresented across the board in the markets that we play in, whether you are talking about datacenter or PCs, or gaming. On the PC side […] we are making very good progress in commercial, premium gaming notebooks, premium consumer [laptops]."

AMD's CEO did not elaborate on how the company plans to improve its next-generation Ryzen 5000-series APUs and CPUs. A frequency hike is one of the options for mainstream processors. For the high-end market segment AMD plans to introduce CPUs with 3D V-cache it showcased earlier this year. 

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is a great CPU for gamers looking for high gaming performance at a great price, and now this chip, which is one of the best CPUs for gaming, is currently on offer at Amazon for £300.

The 5800X comes with eight cores and 16 threads which run between 3.8 GHz and 4.7 GHz. The 5800X also comes with a 32MB L3 cache. AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X will work on most AM4 socket motherboards with the appropriate BIOS updates. 

This particular CPU does not come with a stock cooler - so you will need to supply one of the best cooling solutions. 

You can read our AMD Ryzen 7 5800X review for our thoughts on the capability that this CPU can bring to a mid-tier build. The 5800X has strong gaming performance and impressive power efficiency -  the 5800X is also unlocked for overclocking and has PCIe Gen4 support.

Our main criticism in the review was the price, which is negated in this discount, so don’t miss out on this limited offer. 

More AMD Ryzen 7 5800X Deals

For pay day weekend, pick up a powerful RTX 3060 gaming laptop from MSI for under $1,000 after a hefty 20% discount.

Not only that, but with the Intel Core i7-12700K at its lowest price and a surprise saving on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, this is a good weekend for deals!

TL;DR — Today’s best deals

• MSI GF65: was $1,249, now $999 at Newegg
• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (3 months): was $44.99, now $37.11 at Newegg with code 93XSJ37
• Intel Core i7-12700K: was $414, now $364 at Newegg with code 93XSJ87
• MSI GP66 Leopard gaming laptop: was $2,599, now $1,849 at Newegg
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: was $309, now $259 at Amazon
• MSI GS66 Stealth gaming laptop: was $2,899, now $2,299 at Newegg
• Element Electronics 27-inch gaming monitor: was $319, now $229 at Best Buy

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Today, you can get an AMD Ryzen 5600X CPU for its lowest ever price, and while you're at it, this is one of those rare times the RTX 3060 GPU is in stock!

Not only that, but you can get $100 off the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, a huge $90 saving on a 27-inch QHD gaming monitor and much more.

TL;DR — Today’s best deals

• AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: was $309, now $259 at Amazon
• Zotac Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 AMP White Edition: in stock at $599
• Element Electronics 27-inch gaming monitor: was $319, now $229 at Best Buy
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: was $449, now $349 at Amazon
• Gigabyte M27Q 27-inch gaming monitor: was $359.99, now $299.99 at Newegg with code SFLBN2622
• MSI GP66 Leopard gaming laptop: was $2,299, now $1,999 at Newegg with rebate

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Thanks to a new listing on MilkyWay@Home (via Tum_Apisak), we have our first third-party benchmark of AMD's new Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor, which has yet to be released. However, according to AMD, the new 3D V-cache technology built into the chip promises to offer up to 15% better gaming performance.

MilkyWay@Home is a BOINC platform -- similar to Folding@Home, that harnesses the power of multiple PCs volunteered by a dedicated community to create one gigantic supercomputer for processing a highly accurate 3D model of the Milky Way Galaxy. This benchmark doesn't resemble real-world performance, and we don't have any CPU comparisons for competing Alder Lake options from MilkyWay@Home. So don't take these results too seriously.

Specs show that the system packing the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is in the same system with 16GB of memory and a Radeon RX 6800 XT graphics card. The system runs on Windows 11 Pro but states that virtualization is not supported. The reading is probably an error on Microsoft's part, as most AMD motherboards come with virtualization disabled at the BIOS level, which you can enable manually. The L2 cache is also specified at just 512KB since the software doesn't list the L3 cache for processors. However, we already know that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D has 96MB of L3 cache.

Performance measurements state that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D system can deliver floating-point and integer speed performance of one billion operations per second. Additionally, the average processing rate consists of 11.09 GFLOPS for the vanilla separation workload, 492.80 GFLOPs for the OpenCL separation workload (which utilizes the 6800 XT), and the N-Body simulation with an average processing rate of 272.02 GFLOPS.

Comparisons against this score are incredibly vague at best. However, according to MilkyWay@Home's official CPU performance charts, the Ryzen 9 5950X scores 11.07 GFLOPS, the Ryzen 5 3600 scores 16.59.

Hopefully, we'll get more benchmark results with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D from a reputable benchmarking program sooner than later. Unfortunately, MilkyWay@Home isn't suitable for benchmarking, explaining the rather wonky comparisons.

Today, you can pick up the Razer Blade 15 with RTX 3070 for its lowest ever price of just $1,799! Add a slew of other amazing real deals into the mix and you've got the best Thursday of this year (so far).

Other top deals include a huge saving on WD's Black SN850 SSD with a free heatsink, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X back to its lowest ever price and more.

TL;DR — Today’s best deals

• Razer Blade 15 Advanced: was $2,599.99, now $1,799.99 at Microsoft
• WD Black SN850 1TB: was $229, now $164.99 at Newegg with free Enermax heatsink
• Acer Nitro XV270 27-inch gaming monitor: was $249.99, now $199.99 at Newegg
• Logitech G502 Hero: was $79, now $35 at Best Buy
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: was $399, now $355 at Newegg with code SSBNAZ23

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It's only day 2 of our new daily Real Deals coverage and we're already seeing some must-have savings including the esports tier Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 with RTX 3080 GPU for less than $2,000 (its lowest ever price).

Today's special offers also include getting $70 off the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, a 30% saving on a modular PSU, cheap Crucial Ballistix DDR4 RAM and more!

TL;DR — Today’s best deals

• Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 Gaming Laptop: was $2,399, now $1,999 at Newegg
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: was $423, now $368 at Newegg with code LGBSNZ442
• Crucial Ballistix 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM (16GB) memory kit: was $75, now $46 at Newegg
• Xbox Stereo Headset 20th Anniversary Edition: was $69, now $59 at Walmart
• Super Flower Leadex III 750W Modular Power Supply: was $129, now $89 at Newegg

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AMD’s Zen architecture propelled it to the top of the desktop PC market, but Intel’s Alder Lake CPUs have now taken the lead on our list of Best CPUs for gaming. Not to be outgunned, today AMD teased renders of the coming 5nm Zen 4 chips that will come with Ryzen 7000 branding and a radical new design that will drop into the new AM5 LGA socket. In addition, AMD demoed a Ryzen 7000 ‘Raphael’ chip running Halo Infinite with all cores surpassing 5.0 GHz during the benchmark. AMD says the Ryzen 7000 processors will arrive in the second half of the year. We have more in-depth details below.

In the interim, AMD will fire back at Alder Lake this spring with its Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor. This new chip features AMD’s new 3D V-Cache tech that packs a whopping 96MB of L3 cache onto a single processor via 3D-stacked SRAM, which AMD says will boost gaming by an average of 15% across a selected range of game titles at 1080p. AMD says the 5800X3D will be the fastest gaming chip in the world, and it provided its own benchmark results against Intel’s flagship Core i9-12900K to prove it.

AMD also announced its Ryzen 6000 ‘Rembrandt’ series mobile chips with the Zen 3+ CPU architecture, RDNA 2 graphics, and the 6nm process. You can read about those chips here.

The X3D Era Begins - Ryzen 7 5800X3D with 3D V-Cache

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the first AMD chip that will come to the consumer market with its 3D V-Cache technology, though AMD already uses this tech on its Milan-X processors for the data center. As a quick refresher, 3D V-Cache leverages a novel new technique that uses hybrid bonding to fuse an additional 64MB of 7nm SRAM cache stacked vertically atop the Ryzen compute chiplet, thus tripling the amount of L3 cache per Ryzen die. You can read the deep dive details here and here. 

As AMD CEO Lisa Su demoed at Computex last year, 3D V-Cache can enable up to 192MB of L3 cache on a single consumer chip. However, the 192MB of L3 only applies to Ryzen models with two dies, and AMD’s new Ryzen 7 5800X3D only has a single die. That means it comes with 64MB of cache stacked atop the 32MB of cache already present on the chip, thus yielding 96MB of L3 cache. It remains unclear if AMD will bring another ‘X3D’ model based on the higher-end Ryzen 9 5900X or 5950X to market in the future. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D comes with the same eight Zen 3 cores and 16 threads as the standard Ryzen 7 5800X, but has a lower 3.4-GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost frequency. That means AMD has reduced the base clock by 400 MHz and trimmed 200 MHz off the boost frequency. The chip will drop into existing 400- and 500-series motherboards, offering a hassle-free upgrade path for AMD users as they wait for Zen 4. AMD hasn’t announced pricing yet, but as we’ll explain below, it could be tricky.

The 5800X3D’s lower clock speeds are an inevitable tradeoff — AMD stacks the additional SRAM directly in the center of the compute die to isolate it from the heat-generating cores on the sides of the chiplet. However, due to the need for a uniform mating surface with the integrated heat spreader, AMD has to use silicon shims on top of the cores to provide an even surface for the top of the chiplet. Silicon is an excellent thermal conductor but it will inevitably trap at least some heat, thus resulting in less thermal headroom. It also consumes more power. That’s likely the source of the slightly lower clock speeds, but as you can see below, the net result is a big win for gaming performance.

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Gaming Benchmarks

AMD’s stacked SRAM delivers 2TB/s of throughput between the two dies and minimal latency impact. Along with the additional cache capacity that’s kept closer to the cores, it leads to the types of performance gains that we would expect from the jump to a new chip architecture. Above we can see AMD’s internal test results, and as with all vendor-provided benchmarks, take them with the requisite grain of salt.

AMD measured an average of 15% more performance against the company’s fastest gaming chip, the Ryzen 9 5900X, and claims the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is now the fastest gaming chip in the world. Most of these games are sensitive to memory latency, so keeping data close to the execution cores yields big wins. However, the impact of the additional cache remains to be seen in games that aren’t as sensitive to latency.

Flipping over to AMD’s gaming benchmarks against the Core i9-12900K brings slimmer leads for the 5800X3D, and three of the titles end up in a tie. However, we see a 20% advantage in Final Fantasy XIV, and a 10% advantage in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 6. Overall, that works out to an average gain of ~7% across all six titles. Again, this is a relatively limited selection of game titles that tend to be sensitive to memory latency, meaning they play well to the 5800X3D’s strengths.

We’ve seen how the EPYC Milan-X chips profit in data center workloads from the increased cache, but it’s unclear how the 5800X3D will respond in typical desktop PC applications. We’re sure AMD would provide plenty of examples if there were significant uplift, so it’s possible the extra cache doesn’t provide much uplift for PCs in non-gaming tasks.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D represents AMD’s attempt at taking back the gaming crown from Intel, but pricing will be tricky. If the Ryzen 7 5800X3D outperforms the 12900K in a broader range of games, it will command a much higher price tag than the $390 Ryzen 7 5800X. However, given that it has fewer cores than the Core i9-12900K and resides on the AM4 platform with older connectivity tech, it won’t be able to command a similar $590 price tag. It will be interesting to see pricing, especially given the fact that this type of packaging tech inevitably adds cost, and if AMD plans to bring more X3D models to market. We’ll certainly learn more before the launch in spring of this year.

5nm Zen 4 Chips for the Ryzen 7000 Family

AMD also announced that the 5nm Zen 4 ‘Raphael’ chips would come to desktop PCs in the second half of 2022. These chips will fall into the Ryzen 7000 family and come with a completely redesigned integrated heatspreader (IHS) with cutouts along the periphery to accommodate the unique capacitor/SMD layout spread around the PCB. This design is somewhat similar to Intel’s older Skylake-X Core i9-7980XE HEDT models, but has more extensive cutouts. 

The Raphael processors will drop into a new AM5 socket that supports both the PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 interfaces, matching Alder Lake on the connectivity front. This new socket marks a big departure for AMD — the company is moving from its long-lived Pin Grid Array (PGA) AM4 sockets to a Land Grid Array (LGA) AM5 layout. Despite the entirely different LGA1718 socket interface (1718 pins), the AM5 socket will still support AM4 coolers.

Rumors have long proliferated that you’ll need a conversion kit due to the AM5 socket’s higher Z-Height, but even if it requires a conversion kit, it’s encouraging that the AM4 cooler ecosystem will be alive and well for quite some time.

TSMC says its N5 process, the node AMD will presumably use for Raphael, offers a 30% power reduction or 15% performance improvement along with a 1.8X increase in density compared to the 7nm process that AMD currently uses in its Ryzen 5000 chips. AMD also has 5nm Zen 4 designs destined for the data center, too, but plans to use an HPC variant of N5 that has twice the density and performance of the standard N7 node, along with 1.25X the performance.

During the keynote, AMD demoed a Zen 4 processor running Halo Infinite in real-time, and all the cores boosted beyond 5.0 GHz, signaling the N5 process has some room for higher clocks.

The Ryzen 7000 branding marks another leapfrogging of Ryzen’s generational monikers — AMD is jumping from Zen 3-powered Ryzen 5000 chips for the desktop PC to Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 models, with no apparent 6000 series for desktop PCs. That comes because the new Ryzen 6000 processors also announced at the show come with the Zen3+ architecture with the 6nm process. But it does cloud the branding scheme again after the company recently corrected a similar issue and re-unified its stack after the Ryzen 4000 series that never came to mainstream client PCs.

Overall, AMD has a busy year ahead with the rollout of its Ryzen 6000 Rembrandt chips, Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and Zen 4 desktop PCs. As evidenced by the Zen 4 gaming will all cores hitting over 5.0 GHz, AMD is obviously far down the development road with its next line of processors. Now, all that’s left to do is execute on its roadmaps, and AMD has a pretty good track record of doing just that.

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As Tweeted by Geekbench 5 expert @Benchleaks, a new Alder Lake mobile chip has appeared in Geekbench 5's benchmark results, this time relating to the Core i5-1250P featuring 12 cores and 16 threads. Despite being optimized for power efficiency, this CPU achieved a single-threaded score similar to AMD's desktop-grade Ryzen 7 5800X.

Intel's Alder Lake mobile CPUs will feature up to 14 cores, consisting of six P-cores and eight E-cores. The H-series chips, such as the Core i7-12700H, will be geared towards high-performance notebooks with high TDPs and high core clock speeds. On the other hand, the P-series chips like the Core i5-1250P are focused on power efficiency instead, featuring lower core clocks and presumably lower TDPs.

The Core i5-1250P reportedly has 12 cores, 16 threads, and 18MB of L3 cache. So the Alder Lake chip potentially sports four P-cores and eight E-cores. But, according to leaked benchmarks, that doesn't make Intel's new Alder Lake-P chips very slow at all. For example, in Geekbench 5, the Core i5-1250P managed a single-threaded score of 1,611 points and a multi-threaded score of 8,789. For reference, a standard Ryzen 7 5800X outputs a single-threaded score of 1,672 points (or just 6.8% higher than the Core i5-1250P), which you could argue is close enough to be within the margin of error.

The Core i5-1250P does lose out big time on the multi-threaded score, which is 10,347 for the Ryzen 7 5800X. Still, its single-threaded score is impressive, to say the least, and arguably more important for a CPU that will find itself in notebooks designed for causal usage rather than professional workloads.

The surprising fact is that the Core i5-1250P is doing all this with just a 2.10 GHz reported base frequency, which is significantly lower than the Ryzen 7 5800X's 3.8 GHz base clock. Unfortunately, Geekbench 5's report does not specify a boost frequency for the Core i5-1250P, but we speculate that it's probably in the mid 4 GHz range to get as close as it did to the Ryzen 7 5800X.

If these results are any indication of actual performance, then Intel's mobile Alder Lake CPUs are going to pack quite a punch, even in thin and light notebooks.

When it comes to picking the best gaming CPU for your high performance build, AMD’s Ryzen chips are a good way to go , and they're even better with discounts like this.

Right now, the current-gen AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU is available for just $368 at Newegg, which is a big $45 saving.

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As you can read in our AMD Ryzen 7 5800X review, we’re big fans of the capability this CPU brings to any build. From its strong gaming performance and impressive power efficiency, to the ease of overclocking and PCIe Gen4 support, it rightly earned a 4-star rating.

Our main criticism was the price, which this discount goes some way towards answering, so don’t miss out!

The Intel Core i5-12600K vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X rivalry is a pitched battle for dominance right in the heart of the gaming desktop PC market — the $275 to $300 price point. That might make it seem odd to throw the decidedly more expensive ~$390 Ryzen 7 5800X into the pit with the $289 Core i5-12600K and $299 Ryzen 5 5600X, but make no mistake, Intel's Alder Lake chips punch far above their pricing weight class. That's allowed them to score key upsets against higher-priced Ryzen 5000 chips in the suddenly more competitive AMD vs Intel battle.

AMD's Ryzen chips have absolutely dominated our list of Best CPUs for gaming and our CPU Benchmark hierarchy for the last year, but Intel's new design philosophy is a game-changer. As seen in our previous Intel Core i9-12900K vs Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X faceoff, Intel's hybrid x86 Alder Lake design represents the company's most disruptive architectural shift in a decade, upsetting AMD's highest-end mainstream chips. 

However, this same design is even more disruptive in the mid-range and value segments, too. Alder Lake combines big and fast Performance cores (P-cores) for latency-sensitive work with a smattering of small and powerful Efficiency cores (E-cores) that chew through background and multi-threaded workloads. Intel also baked in new next-gen connectivity tech like the DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 interfaces that outstrip AMD's venerable AM4 platform.

Intel is on the pricing attack with Alder Lake, perhaps looking to smash AMD's Ryzen once and for all. The $289 Core i5-12600K is $10 less than AMD's mainstream champion, the $299 Ryzen 5 5600X, and $210 less than the suggested $449 pricing for the Ryzen 7 5800X, though we often see the 5800X on sale for ~$390.

Even though Intel's chip pricing game is strong, it made a few decisions that impact overall pricing, like launching the Core i5-12600K without the affordable B- and H-series motherboards that tend to be the favorite for mainstream gamers. That means you'll have to pony up for a pricey Z690 motherboard for a mainstream chip, and DDR5 pricing continues to be a sore spot — if you can even find it in stock. The new hybrid design also has a few early performance teething pains in Windows 10.

This means the rivalry is anything but the clear-cut victory it appears to be on the benchmark charts. Below we've put the Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X in a six-round faceoff to see which chip takes the crown in our gaming and application benchmarks, along with other key criteria like power consumption and pricing. Let's see how the chips stack up. 

Features and Specifications: Intel Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X

Intel's hybrid architecture brings what we would normally consider 'odd' thread arrangements. That's because the P-cores are hyper-threaded, while the E-cores only have a single thread.

As a result, the $289 10-core 12600K comes with six threaded P-cores that operate at 3.7 / 4.9 GHz and four E-cores that run at 2.8 / 3.6 GHz, for a total of 16 threads. That's a 33% increase in the number of threads over the Core i5-11600K. The chip also has 20MB of L3 and 9.5MB of L2 cache.

The 12600K comes with the integrated UHD Graphics 770 engine with 32 EUs that run at a 300 MHz base and boost to 1,450 MHz. That's a big advantage over the graphics-less 5600X and 5800X. If you don't plan to use a discrete GPU, Intel wins by default. Intel also has the Core i9-12600KF, an identical chip that lacks the integrated graphics engine, for $264. That might not sound like much of a discount, but a $25 price reduction is tempting if you plan to use this chip for a gaming rig that doesn't need integrated graphics — you'll end up paying $35 less than you would for the similarly graphics-less Ryzen 5 5600X.

Intel has replaced its old TDP rating and now uses a Processor Base Power (PBP) value (PL1) in place of TDP and a secondary Maximum Turbo Power (MTP) value that represents the highest power level during boost activity (PL2). You can read more about that change here.

The 12600K comes with 125W PBP (base) and 150W MTP (peak) power ratings, but be aware that Intel changed its default boost duration for all K-series chips to an unlimited value. This means the 12600K can always operate at the 150W MTP when under load, but actual power consumption will vary by application.

The 12600K goes toe-to-toe with the 6-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600X that has long been the favorite for enthusiasts because of its incredible blend of pricing and performance. The 12600K also rivals the 8-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 5800X that has been a tough sell in the face of its closely-priced Ryzen 5000 siblings. These chips come with 65W and 105W TDP ratings, respectively, 32MB of L3 cache, and have only high-performance cores. Both chips support DDR4-3200 memory and the PCIe 4.0 interface.

Like the rest of the Alder Lake chips, the Core i5-12600K has the most cutting-edge connectivity options that money can buy. All Alder Lake chips support DDR4-3200 or up to DDR5-4800 memory (odd DDR5 population rules apply). Alder Lake chips also expose up to 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 storage. These new technologies add cost to the Z690 motherboards that house the chips, and the current pricing for DDR5 memory is eyewatering. However, Intel's Z690 supports DDR4, too, but it appears that you'll only find DDR4 support on lower-end Z690 boards. Intel hasn't launched the value-centric B- and H-series chipsets yet, so platform pricing will be high for now. That's particularly painful down at the 12600K's price point, but it is noteworthy that there is quite a pricing spread between the flagship and bottom-of-the-barrel Z690 options.

Intel also added 12 lanes of PCIe 4.0 to its chipset (in addition to its 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0), and now offers a total of 28 lanes. Intel has also widened the DMI connection between the chip and the chipset, which now serves up twice the throughput. The increased DMI throughput is also beneficial for Z690's bolstered connectivity options, like the new second USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps connection (other new features are listed here).

The 5600X comes with a bundled Wraith Stealth cooler that will serve basic needs, while the Core i5-12600K comes without a cooler. The 12600K comes with graphics, or as a graphics-less variant that's $35 less than the 5600X, helping offset that cost delta.

Winner: Intel

AMD's AM4 platform has soldiered on for five long years (and counting), earning the company plenty of cachet with enthusiasts because they didn't have to upgrade motherboards with every new chip generation. However, even though we did see the move from PCIe 3.0 to 4.0 a few years ago, the AM4 platform has restricted forward progress on the connectivity front — there's only so much you can do with a fixed number of pins.

As such, Intel's Z690 platform has a clear connectivity advantage: With DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 on the menu, AMD's aging AM4 platform finds itself simply outclassed. Intel's new features do make for more expensive motherboards, though, and the lack of B- and H-series boards at launch stings. Fortunately, there are options for DDR4 variants to save you at least some coin.

Given its new hybrid architecture with two types of cores, Intel's core counts aren't directly comparable to AMD's due to their different capabilities. Our performance results will dictate the value of the overall designs.

The Core i5-12600K comes with integrated graphics by default, though you can sacrifice those for a lower price point. Meanwhile, you'll have to look to AMD's Ryzen 7 5700G APUs if you want integrated graphics. 

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: Intel Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X

This article is an overview of our much more in-depth testing in our Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K review. We're focusing on our Windows 11 test results in this article, but be aware that you could encounter odd performance in some cases with Windows 10. We have the full details and Windows 10 testing in our review. 

Below you can see the geometric mean of our gaming tests with the Core i5-12600K vs the Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X at 1080p and 1440p, with each resolution split into its own chart. As per usual, we're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions. 

In Windows 11, the $289 Core i5-12600K with DDR5 memory is ~2.7% faster than the $299 Ryzen 5 5600X, but that gap widens slightly with less expensive DDR4 memory. The Core i5-12600K also effectively ties the Ryzen 7 5800X, but for ~$100 less. And that's with both the DDR4 and DDR5 memory configurations.

Naturally, moving over to 1440p pushes the bottleneck to the GPU, so the difference between the chips shrinks tremendously. Here the Core i5-12600K effectively ties the 5600X and 5800X, so you might pay closer attention to overall pricing if you plan to game at higher resolutions. Gamers with lower-resolution panels with high refresh rates will benefit more from Alder Lake's faster frame rates.

Flipping through the 99th percentile charts shows larger deltas between the chips, but we have to view those with caution. Windows 11 is still a bit raw and seems to suffer from more framerate variability than Windows 10. This could stem from yet-to-be-updated game code, the relatively new GPU drivers for Windows 11, or some other combination of factors that could improve in the future.

Intel's E-cores could come in handy for gamers and streamers alike. The Intel-sponsored Hitman 3 offloads low-priority tasks like audio and physics to the small cores, giving the chips a big advantage. We could see more games adopt that type of tuning in the future. In addition, Intel says that streaming your gaming session with OBS, which runs on the smaller E-cores, can result in 84% more fps than its prior-gen chips. We're working on putting that to the test, but it does show that the E-cores could have a big impact on gaming as more games and applications add support.

We also included our overall gaming results with Windows 10 at the end of the album. We used a different set of games from our previous Windows 10 test suite, and here DDR4 memory yielded better gaming results than DDR5.

As a result, the 12600K was roughly 8% faster with DDR4 than with DDR5, which is the difference between beating the Ryzen 5 5600X or losing to it. That could be from the motherboard firmware on the board we used for testing, or just some tuning that's needed in Windows 10 to extract the most from the higher-bandwidth memory. Conversely, it could just be that the higher latency of DDR5 has a bigger impact on Windows 10, but that could improve as DDR5 matures.  

The AMD vs Intel gaming competition is closer now, with some games favoring one architecture over the other. As such, it's best to make an informed decision based on the types of games that you play frequently. Be sure to check out the individual tests in the above album. In either case, Intel holds the lead.

Winner: Intel

The Core i5-12600K speeds past AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X and the Ryzen 7 5800X during almost all of our gaming tests in Windows 10 and 11, but there is a caveat: The 12600K led with DDR4 memory in both operating systems, but our DDR5 test system didn't respond as well in Windows 10. In either case, the 12600K led convincingly in 3 of the four configurations, which is impressive given its price point.

Of note: The Denuvo DRM falsely identified Intel's E-cores as a separate system, and thus ~20 Denuvo-enabled game titles currently don't work with Alder Lake chips. You can read about the simple fix and find the impacted games here. Denuvo says that all affected games will be patched soon.  

Application Performance: Intel Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X

We're focusing on Windows 11 application test results for this article, but be aware that we encountered subpar performance in Windows 10 with some of the programs that worked perfectly in Windows 11. These problems arise due to a lack of software optimizations for hybrid architectures. 

There are methods to correct those issues in Windows 10, but it could require some manual adjustment until more patches arrive from software vendors. Aside from the odd performance in the Handbrake x264, y-cruncher, Corona and POV-Ray tests, our comparative Windows 10 performance results largely mirrored what we see in Windows 11. Head to our review for more detailed information. 

We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. The first slide above shows the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each category, but be sure to look at the expanded results below.

The deltas in favor of Alder Lake are plenty convincing — the Core i5-12600K is 21% faster than the Ryzen 5 5600X and 15% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X in the single-threaded tasks listed in the chart title. That's impressive. 

Naturally, those big performance deltas won't carry over to every type of workload, but flipping through the album reveals that the Core i5-12600K delivers amazing performance for its price point. The chip regularly beats the Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X, not to mention the much less-expensive chips we're focusing on, the 5600X and 5800X. The Core i5-12600K trailed the 5800X in a single test (application start-up) but won every other benchmark. 

Intel clung to its single-threaded advantage for several chip generations as Ryzen destroyed it in threaded work and then slowly took the lead in single-threaded performance, too. Now that Intel has regained the single-threaded lead quite convincingly, the onus is on the company to retake the threaded crown in the lower price ranges. 

The Core i5-12600K succeeds in that mission. Overall, the chip is an incredible 38% faster than the 5600X in threaded work, and 7% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X. That 7% might not sound very impressive, but bear in mind that the 5800X costs $100 more than the 5600X — and that's when the 5800X is on sale.

Flipping through the album finds the 12600K beating the Ryzen 5 5600X in every threaded benchmark, while the Ryzen 7 5800X scored slight wins in one Blender render, v-ray, and Corona. We also see the 5800X edge past the 12600K with DDR4 memory in y-cruncher and Adobe Lightroom, but DDR5 gives the 12600K the lead in both of those tests. 

Overall, it's quite impressive to see the sheer amount of threaded heft unleashed from the 10-core 12600K, especially in the exceedingly branchy code in the LLVM compilation workload and the massively parallel molecular dynamics simulation code in NAMD. These heavily-parallelized high-throughput applications respond very well to the E-cores. The 12600K also shines in more standard fare, like threaded encoding tasks, like Handbrake x264 and x265, SVT-HEVC, and SVT-AV1.

Winner: Intel

The Core i5-12600K wins in nearly every single-threaded benchmark, meaning the chip will deliver exceedingly snappy performance with many of the lighter types of work, like web browsers and office applications. At its price point, the 12600K is untouchable for this type of work. 

The 12600K also beat the Ryzen 5 5600X in every multi-threaded workload, it really wasn't a contest at all, but the Ryzen 7 5800X put up more of a fight. However, given the 5800X's sale pricing, which is still $100 more expensive than the 12600K, those few narrow wins aren't worth the pricing delta.

The 12600K's superior blend of both single-and multi-threaded performance creates quite the compelling chip, especially given its price point. However, it is noteworthy that the Core i5-12600K can suffer in some multi-threaded workloads in Windows 10 due to difficulties with code with certain prioritization settings. You can correct those issues either via command-line utilities or third-party software, like Process Lasso, and receive the full expected performance. We expect the industry to correct many of those issues over time. Still, it is important to know that Windows 10 could require additional handholding to extract the utmost performance from the Alder Lake processors. 

Overclocking: Intel Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X

Overclocking has become a lot more complex with the addition of a myriad of new knobs to turn, and much of that has to do with the shrinking frequency headroom. Over the last few years, both Intel and AMD have rolled more of their frequency headroom right into the stock settings, a byproduct of fierce competition. Luckily for mid-range system builders, you tend to find the most headroom in mid-range parts, like the Core i5-12600K and Ryzen 5 5600X. Enthusiasts have also turned to wringing out extra bits of performance from memory and fabrics as the companies expose more tuning knobs.

Both Intel and AMD expose a wealth of tunable parameters, along with sophisticated software overclocking utilities like XTU and Ryzen Master. Both companies also support per-core frequency and hyper-threading control (enable/disable) to help eke out more overclocking headroom.

Intel's Dynamic Memory Boost adds a new wrinkle. This new tech works with both DDR4 and DDR5 and allows the system to dynamically switch between standard memory frequencies and timings and an XMP profile, meaning that it will auto-overclock the memory as needed based on the current usage pattern. And yes, this occurs while the operating system is running and doesn't require a reboot — it's a real-time dynamic adjustment. Intel also continues to support its existing mechanism for live memory timing adjustments from within the operating system, giving users a plethora of on-the-fly memory overclocking options.

Intel has long locked overclocking to its pricey K-series models, while AMD freely allows overclocking with all SKUs on almost any platform. However, we see signs of some improvement here from Intel, as it has now enabled memory overclocking on its B- and H-series chipsets with the 500-series chipsets, and it appears that the same policy will hold true with the 600 series.

AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips come with innovative boost technology that largely consumes most of the available frequency headroom, so as we see with Intel's flagship, there is precious little room for bleeding-edge clock rates. In fact, all-core overclocking with AMD's chips is lackluster; you're often better off using its auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) feature that boosts multi-threaded performance. AMD also has plenty of Curve Optimization features that leverage undervolting to increase boost activity.

Intel generally has higher attainable peak frequencies, while AMD's more adaptive auto-overclocking tends to have less headroom. However, it's always important to remember that chip quality can vary for both vendors, so the silicon lottery always comes into play.

Winner: Tie

Both platforms have a wealth of tunable parameters for enthusiasts, their respective overclocking advantages, and a suite of both auto-overclocking and software utilities.  However, there's still room for a sizeable performance boost from overclocking the core, fabric, and memory, so this contest will often boil down to personal preference.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: Intel Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X

Intel's Alder Lake marks a much-needed drastic improvement to the company's power consumption and efficiency metrics. Those improvements come not only from the new architecture that shuffles heavily-threaded work to smaller, more efficient cores but also the new Intel 7 process that reduces power consumption and improves efficiency. As a result, the Core i5-12600K is far more power-efficient, meaning it draws less power for each unit of work done, than its predecessor. 

The Ryzen 5 5600X remains one of the most power-efficient chips we've ever tested, and Alder Lake still sucks more power than AMD's Ryzen 5000 series chips. However, the Intel 7 process marks a big improvement over the old power-guzzling 14nm Rocket Lake chips — we measured a peak of 135W with the 12600K, while the previous-gen 11600K peaked at 203W. 

Peak power consumption isn't the end-all-be-all, though. The Core i5-12600K is also much faster than its predecessor, earning it some leeway. As you can see in our renders-per-day measurements, the Core i5-12600K is roughly twice as efficient as the 11600K. 

Overall, Intel has reduced its power consumption from meme-worthy to an acceptable level. The Core i5-12600K ran just fine with our 280mm liquid cooler, but you could get away with a 240mm or equivalent air cooler and still get the full performance.

The last four slides in the above album give us a different view of power efficiency. Here we calculate the cumulative amount of energy required to perform a given task. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart. These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis) to give us a better look at efficiency. 

Bear in mind that faster completion times and lower task energy are ideal. That means processors that are closest to the bottom left corner are best. It's easy to see that Intel has made a massive generational improvement here; the Core i5-11600K serves as quite the contrast to the 12600K.

However, AMD still holds the advantage in all of the key power criteria, with the Ryzen 5000 models retaining the crown of the most efficient desktop CPUs that we've ever tested.

Winner: AMD

Intel has made plenty of progress, but AMD still holds the crown of the most power-efficient chips. The Ryzen 5000 chips consume less peak power and also accomplish more work per unit of power consumed. That results in a clean sweep in power consumption, efficiency, and thermal output, so you'll end up with a cooler and quieter system. 

Pricing: Intel Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X

Given the performance we've seen in our testing, the Core i5-12600K lands with an amenable $289 price tag. You can also snag the $264 graphics-less Core i5-12600KF for $25 less. The 12600K destroys the $299 Ryzen 5 5600X in every meaningful performance metric and beats the $390 Ryzen 7 5800X in most workloads.

However, the CPU is but one factor in the equation — you also need a motherboard and memory. Naturally, DDR5 memory is the elephant in the room, but that is pretty simple: You should expect to pay a massive early adopter premium for DDR5 memory, and more for the higher-end DDR5 motherboards. If you plan on going the DDR5 route, be ready to open your wallet wide — DDR5 memory is mostly out of stock or up to 50% more expensive than DDR4. If you're looking for bang-for-the-buck, DDR5 is off the table for now. Besides, we're not sure that DDR5 makes sense for this class of chip. Luckily, DDR4 offers nearly the same performance in most applications and faster gaming performance in Windows 10 (at least in our test environment). 

Core i5-12600K systems will be built on Z690 motherboards for now, as Intel hasn't released the B- or H-series chipsets yet. That's particularly painful in this chip price class. In addition, all high-end Z690 motherboards support DDR5, but most (if not all) of the DDR4-compatible Z690 boards land in the lower- to mid-ranges of the Z690 stack. 

For now, if you're looking to build a Ryzen 5 5600X system on a B- or A-series chipset, you'll have a lower overall platform cost than you'll see with the 12600K. We expect the pricing delta to decline significantly when Intel releases its own H- and B-series chipsets. However, the Ryzen 7 5800X's higher price point means you'll still pay more for a system built with that chip. 

We can make a few comparisons with X570 and Z690 boards, though. It's still a bit early to get the complete picture on motherboard pricing; we're seeing the normal spotty availability in the wake of a big launch. Here are a few like-for-like comparisons, but this could vary (pricing is valid only at the time of publication):

As you can see, we're looking at price deltas that range from $26 to $86 between the X570 and Z690 DDR4 motherboards, with the latter being more expensive. Of course, you'll have to add in those costs if you plan to build around the 12600K. 

However, there are a lot of factors in play. While you will pay more for a DDR4-equipped 12600K system than you would with the Ryzen 5 5600X, you get 5% faster gaming performance, 21% faster performance in single-threaded work, and 38% more performance in multi-threaded applications. Additionally, the Z690 platform offers more robust connectivity options. 

Winner: Tie 

Intel Core i5-12600K systems outfitted with DDR5 memory will come at a big premium that might not be worth the slim performance gains over DDR4 in most applications, especially with Alder Lake chips with lower core counts. Given the early state of DDR5 availability, it's hard to nail down firm estimates. However, the high pricing of DDR5 isn't worth it for most users, which removes one of the key reasons to go with an Alder Lake system. 

Suppose you're building around a DDR4-based system. In that case, a Ryzen 5 5600X system will come in at considerably lower pricing if you opt for B- and H-series chipsets that aren't available yet for the 12600K, but the Alder Lake platform provides more than enough extra performance and connectivity to justify the price tag. The Ryzen 7 5800X is also competitive here, but its higher chip pricing means that platform costs could equate to a wash, giving the nod to the 12600K due to its faster performance and superior connectivity.

Bottom Line: Intel Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X 

The Core i5-12600K vs Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 7 5800X battle ends in a five to three win in Intel's favor, with much of that advantage coming from the 12600K's outstanding performance for its price point. 

In performance testing, the $289 Core i5-12600K beat the $299 Ryzen 5 5600X in every meaningful test by large margins, with 5% faster gaming performance, 21% faster performance in single-threaded work, and 38% more performance in multi-threaded applications. That makes for an incredibly well-balanced system. 

Additionally, even though the ~$390 Ryzen 7 5800X is ~$100 more than the 12600K, the Alder Lake chip was 3% faster in gaming, 15% faster in single-threaded work, and 7% faster in multi-threaded productivity applications. Yes, the Ryzen 7 5800X beats the Core i5-12600K in a few threaded tasks, but by comparatively slim deltas given its higher pricing.

With DDR4, the Core i5-12600K is the fastest gaming chip in its price bracket in both Windows 10 or 11, but it does lose some steam with DDR5 on Windows 10. AMD will fire back with its 3D V-Cache processors that will come with up to 192MB of L3 cache per chip, which the company says imparts up to 15% more gaming performance. Those chips arrive next year, but the impact on gaming beyond eSports titles is unknown.

The Core i5-12600K's advantages also include platform additives, but the DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 interfaces add cost to the overall picture. Support for DDR4 can help reduce that premium, but we haven't seen any flagship DDR4 motherboards yet; the highest-end models appear to be confined to DDR5. If you're going with a DDR5 build, prepare yourself for eye-watering pricing, at least until supply improves. Luckily, you won't need expensive DDR5 memory to unlock the best gaming performance — unless you have a very specific need for DDR5, it's probably best to skip it until it matures further.

But even lower-end Z690 platforms don't make the best sense with the 12600K. Intel needs to solidify the 12600K's value prop with B- and H-series motherboards, but they aren't on the market yet. Intel's decision to launch with only the Z690 series leaves some pathways to less expensive Ryzen 5 5600X systems with a pretty competitive price-to-performance ratio. If you're on a budget, you can still find great motherboard deals on B-series AMD boards that will be perfectly serviceable if you aren't after the absolute best performance. We could also see price cuts for the Ryzen 5 5600X in the future. 

That means that while Intel has delivered a staggering blow on the performance front, it has deferred the Ryzen 5 5600X's complete execution by delaying its own B- and H-series boards. That said, Intel's competitive chip pricing does take some of the sting out of the high platform costs. 

AMD still holds the power and efficiency crown, but the 12600K's 'Intel 7' process reduces peak power consumption by up to 33% and roughly doubles power efficiency, reducing AMD's overwhelming lead. Overall, if we take performance into account, Intel has reduced its power consumption from meme-worthy to an acceptable level.

Software updates should help resolve many of the early issues in Windows 10, but you might need to engage in some manual tweaking for the 12600K with some specific programs. However, despite those early hiccups with Windows 10, Intel's gamble to adopt a hybrid x86 architecture has clearly paid off.

Overall, Alder Lake marks a massive generational leap forward, allowing the 12600K to lead its price class in all performance metrics, like gaming and lightly- and heavily-threaded work, while also punching up against the more expensive Ryzen 7 5800X in incredibly convincing fashion. 

Whip in the improved power consumption and efficiency, cutting-edge platform connectivity options, and aggressive chip pricing, and the Core i5-12600K wins the faceoff with the Ryzen 5 5600X and the Ryzen 7 5800X.

• MORE: Best CPUs for Gaming
• MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
• MORE: AMD vs Intel
• MORE: All CPUs Content

AMD’s long-awaited Ryzen 5000 line of processors has finally launched, and like the RTX 3000 launch before it, the CPUs sold out almost instantly at launch. Unlike Nvidia with its RTX 3000 graphics cards, though, AMD quickly promised more stock to come soon. That's already come to fruition for lots of the Ryzen 5000 line, though the situation differs from chip to chip.

Also, different stores all have different approaches to selling AMD’s hottest new processors, including AMD's own store. Since we might see even more stock coming in the future, let’s run through America’s major component retailers to get you ready to buy AMD's new chips as soon as they become available again.  

 AMD Ryzen 5 5600X: Where to Buy

US Ryzen 5 5600X retailers at a glance: AMD I Amazon I Newegg I B&H I Best Buy | Micro Center

US Ryzen 5 5600X resellers at a glance: eBay

The Ryzen 5 5600X is the most affordable of the Ryzen 5000 processors and has 6 cores/12 threads of power with base/boost speeds of 3.7/4.6 GHz and a 35MB cache. It’s also the only Ryzen 5000 CPU to come with an included Wraith Stealth cooler, as AMD no longer packs coolers with CPUs that draw over 65W in power. With a $299 MSRP, it was easy for bots to snatch up at launch without much of an overhead cost, but stock has since heavily recovered.

The Ryzen 5 5600X is currently in stock at most stores, including Amazon, Newegg, Best Buy, B&H and even AMD's own website. It's also on sale at some sites, with the cheapest price we could find being $272 at Amazon and Newegg.

Microcenter also has stock, but it's limited depending on location and can only be purchased in-store. You can check if your local store has stock here.

Be wary when checking stock on Amazon and Newegg, though. Among the official listings, there's also inflated prices from third party sellers.
 

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X: Where to Buy

US Ryzen 7 5800X retailers at a glance: AMD I Amazon I Newegg I B&H I Best Buy | Micro Center

US Ryzen 7 5800X resellers at a glance: eBay

The Ryzen 7 5800X is, according to numbers from Scan UK, what might be the most popular Ryzen 5000 series chip (although that’s only one retailer). Its 8 core/ 16 thread core count and 3.8 / 4.7 GHz base / boost clock make it an appealing choice given its $449 MSRP, not to mention its 36MB cache.

Luckily, this CPU is currently in stock at most stores. It's also on sale at many stores, with its cheapest price right now being $394 at Amazon.

AMD also has stock if you want to buy directly, but you won't get any discounts.

Microcenter has limited availability in some stores, but you can only buy your processor in person.  You can check your local store for stock here.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X: Where to Buy

US Ryzen 9 5900X retailers at a glance: AMD I Amazon I Newegg I B&H I Best Buy | Micro Center

US Ryzen 9 5900X resellers at a glance: eBay

The Ryzen 9 5900X is where the Ryzen 5000 CPU series starts to get premium. It’s got 12 cores/ 24 threads and 3.7 / 4.8 GHz clock speeds all for $549. It’s also got a 70MB cache, as opposed to the 35 and 36MB caches on the 5600X and 5800X, respectively.

Among official retailers, the Ryzen 9 5900X is technically only in stock at AMD's own store right now. Antonline does have Amazon and Newegg third-party listings for it, though, but the Amazon listing is $10 more than the ones on Newegg or AMD's own site.

Microcenter is promising limited in-store availability depending on location. You can check your local store here.

AMD Ryzen 9 5950X: Where to Buy

US Ryzen 9 5950X retailers at a glance: AMD I Amazon I Newegg I B&H I Best Buy | Micro Center

US Ryzen 9 5950X resellers at a glance: eBay

Finally, the Ryzen 9 5950X is the most premium Ryzen 5000 CPU available. It’s got 16 cores / 32 threads and clock speeds of 3.4 / 4.9 GHz, plus a 72MB cache. All of that comes at a $799 MSRP.

All the usual official retailers currently have this chip in stock, aside from Amazon. They're also all selling it for $749, aside from AMD's own store, which is still keeping the $799 pricing.

Microcenter's stock depends on your location, which you can check here.

Even with the overall better stock situation, AMD is promising more Ryzen 5000 CPU stock to come in soon. Bots might eat that up first as well, but hopefully now you’re a little more prepared to strike as soon as new deals come in.  

The Ryzen 7 5800X began selling at a new all-low price of $399 the week before Amazon Prime Day, and surprisingly, the chip is still in stock. That's important because buying a Ryzen 5000 series processor hasn't been easy since they first launched in December of last year, but that's been changing lately. Unlike RTX graphics cards and other recent tech, some Zen 3 chips have been slowly coming into stock across certain retailers, with one of the most common being the Ryzen 7 5800X.

Now, with the release of the Intel Core i7-11700K giving it some new eight-core competition, AMD's chip, the recent winner of our AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-10700K showdown, is suddenly coming at a more forgiving price point. 

This Ryzen 7 5800X sale is pretty impressive, considering that this is one of the best CPUs and has been rare up until recently. $50 off can even get you started on buying a cooler, since AMD's stopped bundling coolers with its 65W+ CPUs this generation.

As for whether the Ryzen 7 5800X is still relevant against the Intel Core i7-11700K, we're actually confident saying that it beats it. While these chips tied across categories like overclocking and general specs in our recent face-off, AMD still came ahead in gaming and efficiency. The Ryzen 7 5800X earned 11 fps more than the i7-11700K on average in our gaming test suite and used a maximum of 118W at stock settings vs the i7-11700K's 207W.

And now, with this continued sale, it can also easily take on the i7-11700K's $399 MSRP. 

The Intel Core i7-11700K vs AMD Ryzen 7 5800X rivalry is a heated battle for supremacy at the ~$400 price point. These two chips jockey for positioning on our CPU Benchmark hierarchy to score a spot on the list of Best CPUs for Gaming, but they both come with their own eccentricities.

With the emergence of the Ryzen 5000 family, AMD shifted to premium pricing for its admittedly premium products. That's a sound business decision, but it hasn't been particularly popular with enthusiasts. AMD also left a glaring gap in its product stack that exacerbates the issue — there's a massive $150 gulf between the six-core $299 Ryzen 5 5600X and the eight-core 16-thread $449 Ryzen 7 5800X. As a result, you either have to settle for a six-core or pay up big time to jump to an eight-core. Odder still, you can step up to the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X for a mere $100 more.

To make matters worse, the global pandemic and unprecedented demand conspired to create chip shortages that led to unavailability and scalper pricing for the 5800X, making an otherwise stellar processor, well, not so stellar.

Luckily some of these issues have subsided over time, and the Ryzen 7 5800X is now widely available and often sells for $30 below its recommended pricing. At $420, the Ryzen 7 5800X is hard to beat if you need an eight-core chip, but there's still room for a cheaper competitor.

Enter Intel's Core i7-11700K. Intel's new chip strides into the ring with eight cores and 16 threads, the Cypress Cove architecture that grants a 19% increase in IPC,  a friendlier $399 price tag, and broad availability. However, Intel's Rocket Lake family remains on the 14nm process, which means the 11700K consumes far more power than the 5800X, requiring a more expensive cooler and robust motherboard power circuitry to extract the best the silicon has to offer.

However, the 11700K can more than hold its own where the rubber meets the road in our benchmarks, setting up a pitched battle in the $400 price range.

We put the Core i7-11700K up against the Ryzen 7 5800X in a six-round faceoff to see which chip takes the crown in our gaming and application benchmarks, along with other key criteria like power consumption and pricing. Let's see how the chips stack up. 

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Core i7-11700K Features and Specifications

The eight-core 16-thread Ryzen 7 5800X comes with a 3.8 GHz base and 4.7 GHz boost clock paired with a beefy 32MB of L3 cache. AMD specs the chip with a 105W TDP, but bear in mind that it isn't comparable to the 11700K's TDP rating because both chipmakers use different measurement criteria.

Intel's Core i7-11700K also arrives with eight cores and 16-threads, but Intel etches those cores on the 14nm process. That means this chip undoubtedly consumes far more power than its peak 125W rating, especially if you allow the motherboard to ignore the power limits (which most do by default). We'll have power testing below to suss out the most efficient chip, but it's a given that AMD's Zen 3-powered 7nm chips hold the advantage over Intel's competing chips.

Neither chip comes with a cooler and both support PCIe 4.0, though it is noteworthy that Intel's chipset doesn't support the speedier interface. Instead, devices connected to Intel's chipset operate at PCIe 3.0 speeds. Unfortunately, that means you'll only have support for one PCIe 4.0 m.2 SSD port on your motherboard. In contrast, AMD's chipset is fully PCIe 4.0-enabled, providing you with more connectivity options for faster devices.

Both chips support two channels of DDR4-3200 memory, but Intel's new Gear memory feature does involve a few tradeoffs. The Core i7-11700K supports DDR4-2933 in Gear 1 mode at stock settings, which provides the best latency and performance for most tasks, like gaming. On the other hand, you'll have to operate the chip in Gear 2 mode for warrantied DDR4-3200 support. That results in performance penalties in some latency-sensitive apps, like gaming, which you can read about here.

For some users, the 11700K does have an insurmountable advantage over the Ryzen 7 5800X: The 11700K comes with the UHD Graphics 750 engine that comes armed with 32 EUs based on the Xe graphics engine, while all Ryzen 5000 processors come without integrated graphics. That means Intel wins by default if you don't plan on using a discrete GPU.

Notably, you could also buy Intel's i7-11700KF to save some cash. This chip comes with disabled integrated graphics, saving you $25 off the suggested price. That's a decent discount if you plan on using a discrete graphics card and don't need Intel's Quick Sync functionality. 

Winner: Tie

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-11700K battle is close if boiled down to the spec sheet alone, so this category lands as a tie. Both chips come with the same number of cores and threads and ship without a cooler. AMD's support for DDR4-3200 memory without the need for a separate gear mode is a plus, but the Core i7-11700K also has the advantage of integrated graphics, so it wins by default if you don't plan to use a discrete GPU.

Conversely, you can go with the Core i7-11700KF and sacrifice the graphics to save some cash. Unfortunately, AMD's high-end Ryzen 5000 chips don't come with integrated graphics, though that will change in August when the Ryzen 5000 Cezanne APUs arrive. 

Gaming Performance on Core i7-11700K vs Ryzen 7 5800X

Below you can see the geometric mean of our gaming tests at 1080p and 1440p, with each resolution split into its own chart to give us a decent overall view of the Core i7-11700K vs Ryzen 7 5800X battle.

As per usual, we're testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions. These are cumulative metrics, so individual wins vary on a per-title basis. We don't include the synthetic benchmarks in our overall performance measurements (first four slides). We tested the stock Core i7-11700K with the power limits lifted, which is a warrantied configuration. You'll find test configurations at the bottom of the article and more fine-grained setup details (including performance with enforced power limits) in our Intel Core i7-11700K review. 

Our faceoff covers the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Core i7-11700K, but the Ryzen 5 5600X is the elephant in the room due to its exceptional gaming performance and lower price point. If you're only interested in gaming, the Ryzen 5 5600X is hands-down the best chip for the job, provided you can find it near its recommended pricing. Keep that in mind as you flip through the test results.

At 1080p, the stock Ryzen 7 5800X is 5% faster in our selection of tests than the stock Core i7-10700K. After overclocking, the 5800X is 2.5% faster, but the differences here can vary based on the silicon lottery.

The deltas between the two chips shrink to the imperceptible range at 1440p: The stock Ryzen 7 5800X leads by 2%, but the overclocked 11700K takes a 2fps lead. Both of these results are largely meaningless — you would be hard-pressed to notice the difference during a normal gaming session.

The chips offer similar 99th percentile measurements at stock settings, but the 11700K opens up a 3.4% lead after overclocking. We didn't detect any noticeable difference in smoothness between the two chips, and these measurements can vary based on overclockability (silicon lottery).

The extra $50 you pay for the 5800X buys you essentially the same gaming performance as the Ryzen 5 5600X, both at stock and overclocked settings at 1080p and 1440p, along with an additional two cores that help out if you're after more than just gaming. Given the 5800X's big markup over the 5600X, it remains a tough sell for the gaming-focused, though.

We can say the same thing about the Core i7-11700K — it offers solid performance in our gaming test suite, but you should look to less expensive alternatives, like the Ryzen 5 5600X or Core i5-11400, if gaming is your primary goal.

Winner: AMD

AMD wins this round. Be aware that the leader in the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-11700K gaming battle can swing wildly based on the title that you play. As you'll see in the album above, Intel and AMD processors often clump together at the top or bottom of the chart for any given game, showing that different game code could favor either processor. However, when taken as a cumulative measure, the Ryzen 7 5800X comes out on top.

That said, unless you specifically need an extra two cores, we don't recommend either of these chips if you're building a system for gaming only; the six-core Ryzen 5 5600X is the hands-down champ at the $300 price point, while the Core i5-11400 is the uncontested value champ in the sub-$200 market. 

Application Performance of AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-11700K

We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. The first slide in the above album has a geometric mean of performance in several of our single-threaded tests. As with all cumulative measurements, use this as a general guide and be aware that performance will vary based on workload.

The stock Core i7-11700K is 1.5% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X in our cumulative measure of lightly-threaded work. The Ryzen 5 5600X is a competitor here, but the Core i7-11700K is 5.7% faster. Tuning the Zen 3 silicon gives the Ryzen 7 5800X a slight advantage, but the Ryzen 5 5600X can't match the 11700K in any configuration. 

You would need to step up to the Core i9-11900K if you wanted a substantial/noticeable increase in single-threaded performance over the 5800X, 11700K, or 5600X. The 11900K comes with a much steeper price tag for what is arguably a small return. Rocket Lake's higher single-thread performance in applications doesn't seem to translate to increased gaming performance as much as we've seen in the past, and differences could be tough to spot in typical applications.

The Core i7-11700K trails the Ryzen 7 5800X in our LAME tests at stock settings, but the overclocked 11700K suffers an odd tendency to drop into its AVX offset during a few single-threaded tests, like the LAME and FLAC encoders. That causes the chip to actually run slower after overclocking. 

Web browsers are the quintessential example of lightly-threaded work, and the Core i7-11700K is surprisingly strong in these tests — it even beats the Core i9-11900K in Speedometer. The 11700K sweeps the Ryzen competition, with the lone AMD win coming from the overclocked Ryzen 7 5800X in WebXPRT 3. 

The geometric mean of our threaded applications finds the Core i7-11700K offering a slight boost over the stock and overclocked Ryzen 7 5800X, but it accomplishes that feat in its stock configuration. The 11700K is 5.7% faster than the 5800X after overclocking, but we'd consider the two chips very closely matched at stock settings.

The Ryzen 5 5600X has two fewer cores, so it trails by quite a bit more — the 11700K is ~31% faster at stock settings and 22% faster after we overclock both chips.

The Core i7-11700K is competitive with the Ryzen 7 5800X, though as you can see in the slides, that does vary based on the type of application. The 5800X leads in a broader spate of threaded rendering applications, like Corona, Cinebench, and Blender. Overclocking the 11700K either significantly reduces the deltas in those applications or grants it the lead, as we see in V-Ray, two of the Blender renders, and Cinebench.

The Core i7-11700K and Ryzen 7 5800X tie in the HandBrake x264 workload at stock settings, but the 5800X is noticeably faster in the x265 test that has a heavier distribution of AVX instructions. The Core i7-11700K beats the Ryzen 7 5800X in the timed LLVM compilation workload by decent margins at both stock and overclocked settings. The Ryzen 7 5800X turns the tables in the NAMD test, a highly parallelized benchmark that serves as the gold standard for quantifying the performance of simulation code.

Winner: Intel

The Core i7-11700K comes with a slightly more forgiving price tag than the Ryzen 7 5800X and carves out a decent lead in lightly-threaded apps while maintaining a slight edge in our cumulative measure of threaded workloads. That gives the Core i7-11700K the win, but only because we measure by the absolute best performance available.

Looking through the full gamut of our tests shows that the best performer varies based on workload, and the differences between the two chips can be slight. As a result, you should examine benchmarks for your specific workload if you're most concerned about performance in specific creativity and productivity applications.

Overclocking AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-11700K

We have reached the land of diminishing returns for overclocking the highest-end chips from both AMD and Intel, largely because both companies are engaged in a dogfight for superiority. As a result, much of the overclocking frequency headroom is rolled into standard stock performance, leaving little room for tuners, making memory and fabric overclocking all the more important. However, those limits are typically the most restrictive with the highest-end chips, while mid-range and low-end silicon still have room for pushing the voltage and extracting a bit more performance. Just bear in mind that your mileage will vary.

Intel has long restricted overclocking to its pricey K-series models, while AMD freely allows overclocking with all SKUs on almost any platform, earning plenty of cachet with enthusiasts. Intel's new paradigm of Gear 1 and Gear 2 modes does reduce the value of memory overclocking, which you can read more about here, but Intel's chips still offer the highest attainable all-core frequencies. Of course, how that translates to performance can vary by application, and we do see a diminishing point of returns as we climb up the frequency/voltage curve. Additionally, you'll need an exceptionally robust cooler to push the limits.

AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips come with innovative boost technology that largely consumes most of the available frequency headroom, so there is precious little room for bleeding-edge all-core overclocks. As a result, all-core overclocking with AMD's chips is lackluster; you're often better off using its auto-overclocking Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) feature that boosts multi-threaded performance. AMD also has plenty of Curve Optimization features that leverage undervolting to increase boost activity.

However, as we can see in our performance results, AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X still has some room on the table for additional performance via automated overclocking, so you'll get a solid return from the automated features when combined with a basic memory overclock.

Speaking of which, Ryzen 5000's improved fabric overclocking, which allows you to tune in higher memory overclocks, is vastly improved over the prior-gen Ryzen models. We hit a 1900 MHz fabric speed on our chip, allowing us to run the memory in a 1:1 mode at a higher DDR4-3800 memory speed than the DDR4-3600 we could pull off with the 11700K with the same 1:1 ratio. Naturally, that could vary by chip.

It also isn't uncommon to see enthusiasts hit DDR4-4000 in 1:1 mode with Ryzen 5000 processors. There's no doubt that Intel's new Gear 1 and 2 memory setup isn't that refined — you can adjust the 5800X's fabric ratio to expand the 1:1 window to higher frequencies, while Intel does not have a comparable adjustable parameter.

Winner: Tie

The Intel Core i7-11700K and Ryzen 7 5800X both come with unlocked multipliers and have more overclocking headroom than their flagship counterparts. There's also still room for a sizeable performance boost from overclocking the core, fabric, and memory. Both platforms have their respective overclocking advantages and a suite of auto-overclocking and software utilities, meaning this contest will often boil down to personal preference.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling of Intel Core i7-11700K vs Ryzen 7 5800X

The winner of this category will be no surprise to enthusiasts familiar with the Intel vs AMD landscape. AMD tends to score an easy win here due to the benefits of its Zen 3 architecture paired with the 7nm process. On the other hand, Intel's Rocket Lake comes with the Cypress Cove architecture (originally designed for 10nm) etched on the now-ancient 14nm process, equating to higher power consumption.

The Intel Core i7-11700K comes with the same 125W TDP rating as its predecessor, but that rating is a rough approximation of power consumption during long-duration workloads. To improve performance in shorter-term workloads, Intel increased the PL2 rating (boost) to 251W, a 27W increase over the previous-gen 10700K. As usual, Intel allows its motherboard partners to exceed those power limit recommendations and remain within warranty, so it isn't uncommon to see Intel chips exceed those values during peak activity — even at stock settings. For example, we recorded a peak of 207W during extended workloads, well over the 125W rating.  

Heat and power consumption are interrelated, so you'll have to accommodate Intel's increased power consumption with a robust cooler. The Core i7-11700K ran fine with our 280mm liquid cooler, and we recommend you budget for an equivalent or better cooler.

The Ryzen 7 5800X is downright green in comparison, reaching a maximum of 118W at stock settings. In fact, a quick look at the renders-per-day charts reveals that AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X is in another league in terms of power efficiency — you get far more performance per watt consumed, resulting in lower power consumption and heat generation. Due to the lower power requirements, the Ryzen 7 5800X isn't as demanding in terms of cooling, though you should plan for a 280mm liquid cooler or greater if you plan on overclocking.

Winner: AMD

AMD wins this round easily with lower power consumption, higher efficiency, and less thermal output. In stark contrast, Intel has turned the power up to the extreme to stay competitive with AMD's 7nm Ryzen 5000 chips, and as a result, the Core i7-11700K pulls more power and generates more heat than the Ryzen 7 5800X.

Pricing and Value of Intel Core i7-11700K and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X

We're in the midst of a global chip shortage, so pricing is volatile and can change hourly. As such, you'll need to make sure to check current pricing for the most up-to-date information.

We don't like the Ryzen 7 5800X's suggested pricing — at launch, its $449 suggested price was $150 more than the six-core 5600X and only $100 less than the 12-core 5900X, meaning you could score a far better value by moving either up or down the Ryzen product stack. It also left the door open for competitors, not to mention the addition of a crushing shortage and scalper pricing that made the 5800X a tough sell.

Since then, things have changed a bit, though, and now we regularly see the Ryzen 7 5800X sell below its suggested pricing — you can often score the chip for $420.

That does a lot to assuage our pricing concerns, but the Core i7-11700K still lands with a lower $400 tray price. In fact, you can find it at retailers for ~$390, a solid deal for an eight-core chip. 

However, while the 11700K's lower retail price is a factor, we also have to take platform pricing into account. You'll need a motherboard with robust power circuitry to take full advantage of the 11700K and attain the results you see in our tests. Given the current pricing deltas between Intel and AMD motherboards, that largely levels the playing field. You'll also need to plan for a capable cooler to grapple with the 11700K's prodigious power draw. 

Finally, although it isn't normally a huge concern for most buyers, platform upgradeability is an important aspect in the Core i7-11700K vs Ryzen 7 5800X battle. You can step up to 12- or 16-core Ryzen 5000 models in the future with 400- and 500-series motherboards, while the only option for a Rocket Lake upgrade consists of moving up to the 11900K, an overpriced piece of silicon that comes with the same eight cores as the 11700K.

Additionally, though AMD hasn't confirmed that it would bring its new 3D V-Cache processors to existing platforms, the company has confirmed that Zen 3 Ryzen processors with 3D V-Cache will enter production later this year. These chips come with an additional 64MB of 7nm SRAM cache (called 3D V-Cache) stacked vertically atop the core complex die (CCD) to triple the L3 cache. This tech enables up to a whopping 192MB of L3 cache on a single Ryzen chip, delivering up to a 15% improvement in gaming.

AMD demoed a Ryzen 9 5900X prototype with 3D V-Cache bolted on, and it had the standard AM4-compatible design. All these things mean that it's rational to think we'll see chips with 3D V-Cache come to AM4 platforms, but that remains unconfirmed. 

Winner: Tie

AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X currently comes with a street price of $420. That's $30 more than the lowest-priced Core i7-11700K we could find, but the difference in broader platform pricing largely levels the playing field. As a result of its higher power consumption, the Core i7-11700K requires motherboards with more robust power circuitry and a more powerful cooler than you'll need for the Ryzen 7 5800X, meaning the chips are pretty closely matched in terms of overall platform costs.

AMD also has a clear-cut upgrade path to 12- or 16-core Ryzen 5000 models, while Intel's only upgrade path consists of the 11900K with the same number of cores, and thus a comparatively small performance increase. 

Bottom Line

Here's the tale of the tape: The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X vs Intel Core i7-11700K battle boils down to a four-to-five victory in favor of the Ryzen 7 5800X, but that win comes with plenty of caveats. 

Our faceoff considers these two chips as your only buying options, but given proper availability of alternatives, we typically recommend that you consider stepping up or down the product stack from either of these chips. For example, if you're looking for a gaming-only rig, the Ryzen 5 5600X is the hands-down best chip (if you can find it near recommended pricing). Additionally, for the productivity-minded, the Ryzen 9 5900X offers a superior price-to-performance ratio over competing chips (including the Ryzen 7 5800X).

These aren't normal times, though. We're in the unforgiving grip of the global chip shortage, so the alternative AMD chips suffer from spotty supply and price gouging. Unfortunately, that means the chip that you actually can buy often wins by default.

The Ryzen 7 5800X and Core i7-11700K are both good all-rounder chips and have been widely available over the last month, often below suggested pricing. Assuming you can find it at reasonable pricing, the Ryzen 7 5800X is the better chip.

The Ryzen 7 5800X is slightly more expensive than the Core i7-11700K, but it's worth it. The 5800X is faster in gaming and offers close-enough performance in the full span of our application test suite. Additionally, you'll also benefit from the advantages of the Ryzen 7 5800X's lower power consumption, like the ability to extract the full performance of the chip from less expensive motherboards. Not to mention that its lower power consumption results in a cooler and quieter system. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X also drops into the same AM4 sockets that support the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X and 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X, leaving room for a future upgrade. There's a chance that current-gen AMD motherboards could support future AMD 3D V-Cache chips, but that shouldn't influence your purchasing decision unless AMD makes it official.

Intel's 500-series motherboards leave your only upgrade option as the eight-core Core i9-11900K that comes with the same eight cores as the 11700K. That isn't an attractive option, as you'll pay much more cash for a slim performance upgrade. But, as usual, Intel is the only option if you need an eight-core chip with integrated graphics. AMD looks to correct that issue with the Ryzen 7 5700G 'Cezanne' APUs that will come to market in August.

Overall, the Ryzen 7 5800X provides the best blend of overall platform costs, performance, and power consumption, winning the Core i7-11700K vs Ryzen 7 5800X battle.

AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X slots into AMD's Zen 3-powered product stack with eight cores and sixteen threads, serving as the mainstream workhorse of the Ryzen 5000 series processors that have taken our list of Best CPUs by storm and realigned our CPU Benchmarks Hierarchy. Powered by the Zen 3 architecture that delivers a ~19% increase in instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput, the Ryzen 7 5800X delivers the impressive gains over the previous-gen models that we've come to expect, resetting our performance expectations for an eight-core processor. 

However, balancing a product stack is all about selecting the right price point for any given chip, and the Ryzen 7 5800X's relatively high price point ($50 more than the previous-gen model) not only puts it into contention with bruising competition from within AMD's own product stack, it also allows Intel's $374 Core i7-10700K to slot in as a value alternative. 

The $449 Ryzen 7 5800X is the next step up the ladder from the $299 six-core 12-thread Ryzen 5 5600X, the best gaming CPU for the money, but the 5800X provides roughly the same gaming performance for $150 more. AMD also stopped bundling air coolers with its chips with a TDP rating that exceeds 65W, so the 105W Ryzen 7 5800X comes without what used to be one of AMD's most prized value-adds for the Ryzen 7 series – the Wraith Prism RGB cooler. 

AMD's cooler-less Ryzen 5000 series models require a 280mm AIO cooler (or equivalent air cooler), adding plenty of cost into the equation. That will likely dissuade gaming-focused enthusiasts from dropping the extra cash for the 5800X's two additional cores that don't deliver meaningful gaming performance gains over the Ryzen 5 5600X. 

Conversely, the $549 Ryzen 9 5900X is an alluring chip for the productivity-minded. The 5900X comes armed with 12 cores and 24 threads for $100 more than the 5800X, and the extra four cores and eight threads equate to ~37% more performance in threaded workloads for 22% more cash. The Ryzen 9 5900X is also the fastest gaming chip in the Zen-3 powered stack, so there aren't any tradeoffs from moving up to the competitively-priced 12-core model.

Intel's $440 Core i9-10850K comes into the picture with ten cores and 20 threads. This chip serves as the gaming equivalent to the $490 Core i9-10900K and is $10 cheaper than the Ryzen 7 5800X. The aging Skylake microarchitecture doesn't have enough gas left in the tank to match the Ryzen 7 5800X's stellar performance in gaming or lightly-threaded work, but it does offer roughly 3% more performance in threaded performance. Given its other deficiencies, we don't see Core i9's extra threaded horsepower wooing away many Ryzen 7 5800X shoppers. 

AMD's Zen 3 suffers from a noticeable gap in its product stack: Based upon product naming alone, it appears there is a missing Ryzen 7 5700X to plug the $150 hole in the stack, but we aren't sure if AMD will actually bring a 5700X to market. For now, that gap allows the $374 Core i7-10700K to weigh in as a cheaper alternative to the 5800X, but you'll make plenty of tradeoffs for the lower price point. Given the 10700K's low price point, it makes a solid value alternative - just be aware that you'll sacrifice performance.

AMD's premium could be a disadvantage if Intel becomes more aggressive on pricing, but AMD's suggested selling prices rarely manifest at retail, and continuing shortages have found Ryzen 5000 chips selling far over recommended pricing. History indicates that, given sufficient supply, AMD's processors typically retail for far less than the official price points. That makes it hard to predict how pricing will shake out over the next months as supply normalizes.

Meanwhile, Intel's response won't come until the first quarter of 2021 when its Rocket Lake chips blast off. These new chips bring a back-ported Cypress Cove architecture that grants a “double-digit” IPC increase paired with Intel's never-ending line of 14nm chips. Early indicators point to these chips flaunting their own impressive gains in per-core performance. 

Intel's Rocket Lake tops out at eight cores, so while those chips won't be able to challenge AMD's core-heavy Ryzen 9 processors, they could be worthy rivals for AMD's Ryzen 7 and 5 models. For now, Zen 3 has caught Intel flat-footed with its Comet Lake chips, so you should only consider them as alternatives if they're retailing below the official MSRPs.  

Ryzen 7 5800X Specifications and Pricing

The Ryzen 5000 series processors come as four models that span from six cores and twelve threads up to 16 cores and 32 threads. With the exception of the Ryzen 7 5800X, AMD increased its Precision Boost clock rates across the board. However, the Ryzen 7 5800X has the same 4.7 GHz boost clock as its predecessor, the Ryzen 7 3800XT. 

As before, AMD only guarantees its boost frequencies on a single core, and all-core boosts will vary based on the cooling solution, power delivery, and motherboard firmware. Given sufficient accommodations, the chips could exceed their specified boost clocks - our Ryzen 7 5800X sample frequently boosted to 4.85 GHz on a single core, which is well above the rated 4.7 GHz boost. It's clear that AMD has spec'd the Ryzen 5000 processors conservatively. 

AMD also reduced Zen 3's base frequencies compared to the previous-gen processors. For instance, the Ryzen 7 5800X comes with a 3.8 GHz base frequency compared to the previous-gen 3800XT's 3.9 GHz, but in practice, that isn't a meaningful distinction. AMD says that if you top the chip with an adequate cooler, it will rarely (if ever) drop to the base frequency. We recorded many cases of a 4.5 GHz all-core boost with the Ryzen 7 5800X, which certainly wasn't possible with the previous-gen chips. We'll cover that more in-depth below.

The Ryzen chips continue to expose 20 lanes of PCIe 4.0 to the user and stick with DDR4-3200 memory as the base spec. However, if the silicon lottery shines upon you, we found that the chips offer much better memory overclocking due to improved fabric overclocking capabilities. We achieved DDR4-3800 with a 1:1 memory/fabric clock ratio, which wasn't possible with the previous-gen Ryzen 7 3800XT, but still short of the DDR4-4000 we achieved with the Ryzen 9 5900X. Overall the 500-series motherboard firmwares are mature, but there is continuing development on the memory and fabric overclocking front. That means we could see further improvements here with newer BIOS updates. 

The Ryzen 5000 chips drop into existing AM4 motherboards with 500-series chipsets, like X570, B550, and A520 models. AMD is adding support for 400-series motherboards starting in Q1, 2021, but that comes with a few restrictions. Regardless, some motherboard vendors have jumped ahead and already offer support on 400-series motherboards, so that initiative is well underway. Just remember that you'll lose support for the PCIe 4.0 interface on those older motherboards. 

We've covered AMD's Zen 3 microarchitecture more in-depth in our Ryzen 9 5950X and 5900X review. The highlight reel is that AMD has unified its L3 cache into one 32MB contiguous cluster, which vastly reduces memory latency, thus boosting performance in latency-sensitive workloads, like gaming. AMD also made a number of fine-grained optimizations to the microarchitecture. 

AMD leverages its existing Ryzen SoC for the 5000 series chips. Zen 3 uses the same 12nm I/O Die (IOD) paired with either one or two 8-core chiplets (CCD) in an MCM (Multi-Chip Module) configuration. For the Ryzen 7 5800X, the chip comes with one CCD with all eight cores enabled, while CPUs with 12 or 16 cores come with two chiplets. 

The IOD still contains the same memory controllers, PCIe, and other interfaces that connect the SoC to the outside world. Just like with the Matisse chips, the IOD measures ~125mm^2 and has 2.09 billion transistors. 

The chiplets have been redesigned, however, and now measure ~80.7mm^2 and have 4.15 billion transistors. That's slightly larger than Zen 2's CCDs with ~74mm^2 of silicon and 3.9 billion transistors.  For more details of the magic behind the 19% increase in IPC, head here. 

MORE: Best CPUs

MORE: Intel and AMD CPU Benchmarks

MORE: All CPUs Content

Here we'll take a closer look at the Ryzen 7 5800X's boost clock mechanisms. Our testing shows that the chip exceeds its advertised clock speeds within the power limits of the AM4 socket, but it generates quite a bit of heat in the process.

As per our normal routine, we put AMD's boost clocks to the test in both single- and multi-threaded workloads (methodology here). The lightly-threaded test regimen is designed to extract the highest boost clock rates possible as we step through ten iterations of the LAME encoder, then single-threaded POV-Ray and Cinebench runs, PCMark 10, and GeekBench. To keep the charts 'clean,' we only plot the maximum and minimum frequency recorded on any one core during the test. 

There really isn't too much to cover in the lightly-threaded series of tests; the big takeaway is that the Ryzen 7 5800X regularly exceeded its 4.7 GHz boost clock spec, albeit with our 280mm Corsair H115i cranking away at full speed, and hit 4.85 GHz very regularly during our test sequence. 

Unlike with the Ryzen 3000 series processors, the unused cores (plotted in black) dropped as low as 2.2 GHz during the test (previous-gen chips tended to bottom out at 3.8 GHz). With Zen 3, AMD added the ability for individual idle cores to drop into sleep states quickly to reduce overall chip power consumption and heat generation. That technique allows the active cores can boost to higher frequencies, and they can boost more frequently and for longer durations. 

The second series of tests plots our custom multi-threaded stress test that consists of multiple iterations of HandBrake, POV-Ray, Cinebench, v-ray, y-cruncher, and Blender renders. This is basically throwing the heaviest real-world workloads we have in our arsenal at the chip to see if we can push any active cores below the 5600X's 3.7 GHz base clock. It's important to note that all-core workloads that fully stress all the cores are represented in the areas where the red (maximum) and black (minimum) frequencies converge.

We recorded all-core boosts that generally landed in the 4.5 to 4.55 GHz range, and temperatures peaked (albeit for a short period) right at 90C, the maximum allowed temperature for AMD's 105W processors. Power consumption peaked at 140W, which is close enough to the 142W PPT limit (given expected variance) to say the processor, at stock settings, has the capability to extract the utmost power potential from the socket. That comes with the caveat that thermal conditions have to allow the chip to operate within that range - temperatures peaked at 90C, the limit, during the same time frame, indicating the chip was constrained by both thermal and power limits. 

We recorded higher temperatures during our tests than we've seen with previous-gen Ryzen chips, but don't get too excited about the higher stock temperatures. AMD tuned its boost algorithms to fully leverage every last bit of the thermal headroom available, resulting in higher chip temperatures – even during comparatively lighter workloads. This doesn't pose any danger to chip longevity and ultimately results in better performance.  

To help align expectations, AMD issued the above guidelines for expected temperatures for various kinds of coolers and the expected voltage ranges for various workloads. Naturally, lesser coolers at more mundane settings will peak at higher temperatures. 

Test Setup and Ryzen 7 5800X Overclocking

We've included our test system breakdown at the end of the article, and we also have the frequency, boost, and thermal testing following the gaming and application testing below.

Much like their previous-gen counterparts, the Ryzen 5000 series processors rarely achieve all-core overclocks that exceed the single-core boost frequency, so manual all-core overclocking results in less performance in lightly-threaded tasks. As such, we stuck with AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO), which boosts performance in multi-core workloads while maintaining the high single-core boost clocks. AMD has also announced its new Precision Boost Overdrive 2, which confers a slight performance boost in single-threaded work while also improving multi-threaded performance. Final BIOS revisions with the new feature roll out later this month, so be aware that our testing below leverages the standard Precision Boost Overdrive feature.

We've had great results with memory overclocking with the Ryzen 5000 series. However, while motherboard firmware is solid for stock and general overclocking use, it is still very much a work in progress for fabric overclocking. That impacts the peak memory frequencies you can attain while still using the 1:1:1 fclk/uclk/mclk ratio that provides the best results. 

We've reached DDR4-4000 with a 2000 MHz fabric with other Ryzen 5000 processors, but we're limited to a 1900 MHz fabric speed for the Ryzen 7 5800X. As such, we dialed in DDR4-3800 at 16-16-16-36 timings for our 5800X PBO configuration. We had to dial the CCD and IOD voltage to 1.15V to stabilize the fabric frequency. 

We conducted our testing with Windows 10 Pro (2004 build 19041.450) with the newest versions of each benchmark - with the exception of Cinebench R23 and v-ray 5, both of which recently launched. We'll add those tests in future reviews. 

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Ryzen 7 5800X Power Consumption, Thermals

Notably, AMD's decision to stick with the AM4 socket still constrains its maximum power consumption to 142W, which means that it could not increase power consumption for the new flagship models. However, Zen 3's IPC gains allow the Ryzen 5000 chips to stay within the same TDP thermal and electrical ranges as the Ryzen 3000 series CPUs while delivering more performance.  

As such, the 105W Ryzen 7 5800X must adhere to the same 142W PPT limit as its 105W predecessor. As you can see in the y-cruncher threaded benchmark results, the Ryzen 7 5800X consumes a peak of 112 watts at stock settings in this heavy AVX workload, which is much higher than the previous-gen Ryzen 7 3800XT. We also see more power consumption during the HandBrake and Blender runs, but the deltas aren't as pronounced in these heavily-threaded workloads.

The increased power consumption comes as a natural byproduct of AMD's revamped boosting algorithms that let the chip skirt the limits of its thermal envelope during stock operation, consuming more power to maximize performance potential. 

Naturally, more effectively consuming that extra thermal headroom results in higher performance. In tandem with Zen 3's higher IPC, this typically exposes higher efficiency, but we did catch an exception to the rule. Our measurements indicate that the Ryzen 7 3800XT is just as efficient as the 5900X in our HandBrake x264 tests, but the 5800X is more efficient in other types of workloads, like the AVX-heavy HandBrake x265 benchmark. Interestingly, the Ryzen 7 3800X beats the 5800X in terms of efficiency, but it also operates at a much lower overall clock rate of ~4.1 GHz during the test, while the 5800X runs at ~4.5 GHz. As a result, the 3800X lands further down the voltage/frequency curve, granting it an efficiency advantage in these specific workloads, but that results in reduced performance. Conceptually, think of this as akin to the 3800X being a 3800XT running in AMD's Eco Mode. As always, there are tradeoffs associated with design goals, and here it seems that AMD's decision to push the performance envelope results in slightly lower efficiency in a few rare workloads.  

Intel's chips are rather inefficient in comparison, which is a natural byproduct of using the older and less-dense 14nm node. Intel has also turned the dial up on the voltage/frequency curve to remain competitive, throwing efficiency out the window in exchange for higher performance. 

The net-net is that the Ryzen 7 5800X, like other Zen 3 processors, will draw far less power per unit of work than any of Intel's 14nm chips, which results in a cooler and quieter system.  

Here we take a slightly different look at power consumption by calculating the cumulative amount of energy required to perform x264 and x265 HandBrake workloads and two Blender renders. We plot this 'task energy' value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart.

These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a handy power chart. Bear in mind that faster compute times and lower task energy requirements are ideal. 

This measure really separates the wheat from the chaff, and the best results fall to the lower left-hand corner of the chart. You'll notice the modern Ryzen chips all populate the desirable bottom portion of the chart, while Intel's power-hungry chips climb to the top of the chart. Check out the Ryzen 7 1800X to see how far AMD has come in the efficiency department in a relatively short period of time. 

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Ryzen 7 5800X Gaming Performance — The TLDR

Here you can see the geometric mean of our gaming tests at 1080p and 1440p, with each resolution split into its own chart. We tested with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 to reduce the impact of graphics-imposed bottlenecks. Be aware that these deltas will shrink with either higher resolutions or lesser GPUs. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X and the Ryzen 5 5600X essentially tie in our overall measure of 1080p gaming performance at both stock and overclocked settings. Although the 5800X does post slightly better 99th percentile framerates, the deltas aren't significant enough to alter the purchasing decision. We see a similar trend in our 1440p results, making the decision easy if you're only interested in gaming - the Ryzen 5 5600X, our current top pick in our list of Best CPUs for Gaming, is the chip to get. In a nutshell, there's no meaningful difference between these two chips in gaming. 

Turning to Intel, the $375 Core i7-10700K is $75 (20%) cheaper than the 5800X and trails in 1080p gaming by 15%, and 7% at 1440p. The 5800X also offers better 99th percentile frame rates. Given the Ryzen 5 5600X's low price point, that doesn't really leave the 10700K much room to operate for gaming-focused rigs. Go with the Ryzen 5 5600X if you're looking for a cheaper chip than the 5800X for gaming, specifically.  

The Core i9-10900K is $40 more expensive than the 5800X, but it also trails in average frame rates in gaming, even after tuning both processors. The overclocked 10900K does squeeze out 3% and 5% higher 99th percentile frame rates in 1080p and 1440p gaming, respectively. Still, it's important to note that overclocking raises platform costs in the form of beefier cooling requirements, and for most enthusiasts, these small gains in 99th percentile frame rates aren't worth the extra cost. Given the price delta associated with the 10900K, it isn't a better value for gaming than the Ryzen 7 5800X. 

However, the Core i9-10850K offers nearly the same performance as the 10900K in gaming, and is $10 cheaper than the 5800X. The 10850K is compelling due to its overclockability. Once tuned, we've found that it offers the same performance as the 10900K at 5.1 GHz, which we use as a stand-in for the overclocked 10850K because gaming performance is virtually identical. At stock settings, the 10850K isn't quite as competitive against the Ryzen 7 5800X as the 10900K. The 10850K lags the 5800X by 11% in 1080p gaming and 5% at 1440p, which doesn't make a compelling case for choosing it over the 5800X, either, unless you're dead set on building an Intel-powered gaming rig or need integrated graphics, of course. 

You'll see a few differences between the Ryzen 7 5800X and 5600X in the titles below, largely where games prize either core counts or other factors. However, those deltas rarely exceed 3%. Given the similarities between the two processors, we're going to skip the blow-by-blow commentary for the individual benchmarks below. We'll dive in a bit deeper during the synthetic gaming tests and the application testing results, both of which have larger performance deltas due to the Ryzen 7 5800X's more generous core counts.

Do pay attention to the previous-gen Ryzen models (Ryzen 7 1800X, Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen 7 3800X, and Ryzen 7 3800XT) as you flip through the gaming charts - they tell quite the story of how far AMD has come in just a few short years of refinements to its Zen architecture and manufacturing process.  

3D Mark, VRMark, Stockfish Chess Engine

We run these synthetic gaming tests as part of our main application test script. We use an RTX 2080 Ti for these tests to facilitate faster testing, but we use an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 for all other gaming benchmarks (we don't include these tests in the preceding cumulative measurements). 

AMD's core-heavy processors tend to dominate in threaded synthetic tests, like the Stockfish chess engine and 3DMark's DX11 and DX12 CPU benchmarks, but Intel's Core i9 models come with ten cores and twenty threads compared to the Ryzen 7 5800X's eight-core 16-thread design. As such, the Intel i9 processors carve out significant wins at stock settings in Stockfish, which scales nearly linearly with core count, and overclocking doesn't help the 5800X. 

The DX11 tests don't scale nearly as well with additional core counts, allowing the Ryzen 7 5800X and its large unified cache to take the lead over the competing chips. The DX12 test scales better than the DX11 variant, so here the Intel processors carve out a win at stock settings, and overclocking grants the 10900K a 17% lead over the tuned Ryzen 7 5800X.  

VRMark again proves to be a bright spot for the Zen 3-powered chips. This benchmark leans heavily on per-core performance (a mixture of IPC and frequency). As you can see from the previous-gen Ryzen processors, AMD has traditionally trailed in this benchmark, but the Ryzen 7 5800X takes the uncontested lead, at least over the Intel processors. That reverses the long-held trend of Intel domination in this benchmark, and the 5800X's win is quite convincing - the stock 5800X, by virtue of its higher IPC and unified cache, beats the overclocked Core i9-10900K by a comparatively large margin. 

Borderlands 3 on Ryzen 7 5800X

Far Cry 5 on Ryzen 7 5800X

Hitman 2 on Ryzen 7 5800X

Hitman 2 doesn't seem to scale well from 1080p to 1440p, at least not at the heightened fidelity settings we use for the benchmark. We stuck with the 1080p test for this title because the same trends carry over to 1440p. 

Microsoft Flight Simulator on Ryzen 7 5800X

We're just as excited as anyone else about Microsoft's long long-overdue release of Flight Simulator, and we're sure that serious flight sim fans will want to crank up the resolution on this title. Hence our tests at 1440p, which typically bring graphics bottlenecks into play. Expect these deltas to widen with 1080p testing. 

Project CARS 3 on Ryzen 7 5800X

Red Dead Redemption 2 on Ryzen 7 5800X

Shadow of the Tomb Raider on Ryzen 7 5800X

The Division 2 on Ryzen 7 5800X

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Ryzen 7 5800X Application Performance - The TLDR

This geometric mean of both the most lightly- and heavily-threaded tests in our application suite speak volumes. We're quite accustomed to seeing AMD's chips lead in the multi-threaded rankings while trailing, sometimes by sizeable margins, in the single-threaded performance ranking. That isn't the case anymore. 

Although the Ryzen 5 5600X is incredibly potent in gaming performance given its price point, if you want the fastest possible single-threaded application performance possible without dropping $800 for the Ryzen 9 5950X, the Ryzen 9 5900X and Ryzen 7 5800X are your chips. However, the 5950X nudges past the 5800X by less than 1%. On the other end of the spectrum, at stock settings, the Ryzen 7 5800X beats the Ryzen 5 5600X by 4%, which doesn't sound like much unless you consider the relatively slim deltas we're accustomed to in this ranking. 

Intel's Core i7-10700K and i9-10900K aren't very impressive by comparison - in lightly-threaded work, they trail by 14% and 10%, respectively, and even overclocking the chips doesn't bring them up to par with the stock Ryzen 7 5800X. In contrast, after tuning, the Ryzen 7 5800X offers the fastest single-threaded performance of AMD's Zen 3 stable. 

Threaded applications fall more into the target area of content creators, and here we see that the Ryzen 7 5800X beats the Core i7-10700K easily, but the 10700K's lower price point, not to mention AMD's $150 gap between the Ryzen 7 and 5 families, allows it to slot in as a value alternative for the productivity-minded.

In terms of threaded performance, the Ryzen 7 5800X faces the most competition from the comparably-priced Core i9-10850K. At stock settings, the 1085K leads by 3% in our cumulative threaded performance measurement, and assuming your chip overclocks as well as ours did (we use the 10900K @ 5.1 for the stand-in because the chips are identical after tuning), that could jump to a 10% improvement in threaded work. 

That does complicate matters for those that prioritize threaded horsepower, but here the 10850K's comparably-lackluster single-threaded performance enters the equation. Overall, the Ryzen 7 5800X offers a better blend of performance in both single- and multi-threaded workloads given the similar price points, and that's only if you're considering the application performance side of the equation. Despite the 10850K's $10 price advantage, the 5800X's excellent gaming performance sweetens the deal.

In reality, the Ryzen 7 5800X's biggest competitor comes from within the Ryzen stack - the Ryzen 9 5900X offers far superior threaded performance, along with better performance in gaming and lightly threaded applications, but for only $100 more. That's a 22% increase in price for 37% more threaded performance. Given that impressive return, $100 isn't a bridge too far for most high-end builds, so pay attention to the 5900X in the charts below.     

Rendering Benchmarks on Ryzen 7 5800X

Cinebench has long been AMD's favorite benchmark for a simple reason; the Zen microarchitecture has always performed extremely well in the threaded benchmark. However, AMD has steadily improved its performance in the single-threaded benchmark and slowly worked its way up the chart. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X continues to flaunt its single-threaded prowess with a big gain over the Ryzen 5 5600X in the single-threaded Cinebench benchmarks, placing it far ahead of Intel's competing chips - even after they've been heavily overclocked. The Core i9-10900K and 10850K leverage their extra two cores and four threads to take the lead in the threaded Cinebench test, but by surprisingly thin margins given their core counts. For instance, the 10900K leads by 5% at stock settings but has 25% more cores. Overclocking widens the delta, though, giving the 10900K a 10% lead over the 5800X. 

Intel's per-core strength in AVX-heavy workloads comes into play during the single-threaded POV-Ray test, giving the 10900K a 6% lead, and that scales to a 30% lead for Intel in the threaded version of the benchmark. The Core i9-10850K also performs admirably here with a 27% lead over the Ryzen 7 5800X. 

The LuxMark OpenCL test finds the 5800X leading the Intel comparables by an impressive margin, but those roles reverse in the C++ run. The Intel i9 processors also lead in most of our Blender renders (Koro being the exception) and the C-Ray and Corona tests. Meanwhile, the Core i7-10700K can't offer the 5800X's level of performance in these threaded tests. 

We recently integrated the Intel Open Image Denoise Benchmark into our suite. This ray-tracing test uses Intel's oneAPI rendering toolkit. Hence, it provides an interesting take on performance that's more of an academic exercise than an indication of real-world performance – at least for now. OneAPI is still in the early days of development, not to mention adoption, but it is an interesting display of Intel's latest approach - but in a decidedly Intel-friendly test. Here we can see that the 5600X beats the stock Core i5-10600K at stock settings, and the Ryzen 7 5800X strides past the 10700K. However, the Core i9-10900K and i7-10700K lead over the 5800X in this admittedly Intel-favorable test. 

Encoding Benchmarks on Ryzen 7 5800X

Our encoding tests include benchmarks that respond best to single-threaded performance, like the quintessential examples LAME and FLAC, but the SVT-AV1 and SVT-HEVC tests represent a newer class of threaded encoders. Regardless of the type of encoder, though, AMD's Zen 3 chips impress.

The Ryzen 7 5800X takes an easy lead in the LAME tests, beating the fastest comparable Zen 3 chips in the short test, but trailing the 5950X slightly in the extended benchmark. The Intel chips trail by surprising margins. Again, take a glance at the previous-gen AMD chips for a sense of how far the company has come in a few short years. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X leads the Intel i9 and i7 models in the AVX-light x264 HandBrake benchmark, but the Core i9 chips take the lead in the AVX-heavy x265 flavor of the test due to their heavier core counts. The Intel i9 models also take the lead in the SVT-HEVC benchmark and essentially tie the 5800X in the AV1 workload at stock settings.

Web Browsing on Ryzen 7 5800X

We test all of these benchmarks in a version-locked Chrome browser, with the notable exception of the Edge test. Intel has really taken quite the performance haircut in web browsers over the last two years, largely due to mitigations for its nagging security concerns. 

Regardless, these benchmarks are almost exclusively lightly-threaded, so Intel has long held the top of the charts despite the mitigations. From the AI-heavy ARES-6 to WebXPRT3's Javascript tests, and even extending to Jetstream 2, the Ryzen 7 5800X. like the rest of the Zen 3 lineup, beats every overclocked Intel chip - but at stock settings.  

The Edge browser, which typically responds well to high core-count chips without threading, stands out as the lone exception to Zen 3's domination of the web tests - the overclocked Core i7-10700K takes the lead over the stock Ryzen 5 5600X. However, the Ryzen 7 5800X maintains its lead over the Intel roster. 

Office and Productivity on Ryzen 7 5800X

AMD's Ryzen 5000: Come for the gaming and rendering performance, but stay for the Office experience? OK, probably not. If you're looking to build a screaming-fast computer, you're probably not doing it to run office applications like Word at breakneck speeds. However, these types of applications are ubiquitous the world over, and snappy performance is important for daily tasks. This is another area that AMD has long offered middling performance, but as you can see from the previous-gen models in the charts, Zen 3 climbs the ranks impressively. 

For a perfect example of how the Ryzen 5000 chips deliver new levels of snappiness, look no further than the application start-up benchmark. The Ryzen 7 5800X leads the field in this benchmark, surpassing all other Ryzen 5000 models at stock settings. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X also puts up a strong show in threaded benchmarks, like photo editing and video conferencing, and ekes past the overclocked 10900K in the overall score of the Microsoft Office test suite. 

Compilation, Compression, AVX Performance on Ryzen 7 5800X

The LLVM compilation benchmark stresses the cores heavily with branchy code. Here we see that, like with the other Ryzen 5000 chips, the Ryzen 7 5800X doesn't offer much performance uplift over the previous-gen Ryzen 7 3800XT. These muted gains imply that the bottleneck lies elsewhere, and we imagine that future software optimizations could bring about larger performance gains.

After overclocking, the Ryzen 7 5800X takes the overall lead in the AVX-heavy single-threaded y-cruncher benchmark and easily beats the Intel processors across the board. The Ryzen 9 models beat the 5800X in the threaded version of y-cruncher, but that isn't surprising due to their higher core counts. The Ryzen 7 5800X more than holds its own against the Intel comparables, though, easily besting them even after overclocking. 

The Intel i9 chips scrape past the Ryzen 7 5800X in the NAMD simulation, with overclocking conferring a substantial lead. You'll also notice that the Ryzen chips outstrip the Intel series by massive margins in the hashing and AES encryption benchmarks. This comes as a byproduct of AMD's hardware-accelerated encryption support, an optimization that didn't make its way into Intel's Skylake microarchitecture. 

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The Ryzen 7 5800X is yet another compelling piece of AMD's Zen 3-powered 7nm silicon, delivering the types of generational performance gains that we've come to expect from Ryzen 5000 and easily outclassing Intel's price-comparable chips with a better balance of single-threaded and multi-threaded performance. 

However, AMD increased the price for its eight-core Ryzen 5000 chips by $50 over the previous-gen processors, leaving the Ryzen 7 5800X susceptible to competition from within AMD's own product stack. AMD's excessively-large $150 gap between the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 families also opens the door for the Core i7-10700K to slide in as a lower-priced and lower-performance alternative.

As we can see in the cumulative numbers above, the Ryzen 7 5800X offers the same level of gaming performance as the Ryzen 5 5600X. If gaming is your primary intention, the Ryzen 5 5600X is a much better value and remains our top pick for gaming. That said, as we've noted with previous AMD CPU reviews, many of those gains won’t be noticeable to users with lesser graphics cards. The tables have turned, and now Intel CPUs are the ones that are "basically just as fast as AMD" with anything short of the RTX 3080. But if you're looking for longevity, the Ryzen 5 5600X has plenty of horsepower to push future generations of graphics cards. As usual, if you need a powerful high-end chip with integrated graphics, Intel's Comet Lake is the only modern option. 

Turning to our single-threaded performance measurements, the Ryzen 7 5800X easily tops the field of Intel contenders and provides a slight gain over the Ryzen 5 5600X. The 5800X is plenty snappy but there is a point of diminishing returns here, so expect to 'feel' a similar level of performance compared to other Zen 3 chips. 

Obviously, Intel's Comet Lake processors can't match the Zen 3 chips in lightly-threaded work. Still, the Core i9-10900K and 10850K, which are very similar, are slightly faster in threaded applications, potentially making them a viable alternative for the productivity-minded. However, Core i9's deficiencies in single-threaded work take some of the shine off of the gains in multi-threaded performance. Given Core i9's price points, most users are better served with the Ryzen 7 5800X's better blend of performance, not to mention its more amenable power consumption. 

The Ryzen 9 5900X slots in as an attractive upgrade to the Ryzen 7 5800X, though. An extra $100 scores four more cores and ~37% more performance in threaded workloads, but for 22% more cash. That relatively slim $100 pricing delta blurs the lines for creativity-focused users that do a lot of threaded work. The 5900X is actually slightly faster in gaming than the 5800X, so you won't sacrifice if you go with the 5900X's heavier core counts. 

The Ryzen 7 5800X suffers from a precarious pricing position, and the $150 no-mans-land between Ryzen 7 and 5 series leaves the door open for the Core i7-10700K to slot in as a value alternative between the 5800X and 5600X. The $374 Core i7-10700K brings solid gaming performance, you probably won't notice the difference between it and the 5600X if you have anything short of an RTX 3080, but the 10700K also adds a bit more threaded horsepower. The 10700K isn't as potent in threaded applications as the 5800X, but the $75 savings makes it a compelling value alternative if you're interested in more than just gaming.

AMD has redefined the market's mainstream segment to chips with 6 or 8 cores, but it has left little wiggle room for enthusiasts to step up to eight cores without a much higher price tag. AMD really needs the 'missing' Ryzen 7 5700X to plug the big pricing gap in its product stack. Such a chip would likely remove the Core i7-10700K from the conversation, not to mention make it more palatable to step up from Ryzen 5 to Ryzen 7.

Overall, we're impressed with the Ryzen 7 5800X's performance, but its price tag leaves a lot to be desired. Given the ongoing shortages, AMD can continue to charge a premium and sell every chip nearly immediately. However, as supply improves, the Ryzen 7 5800X's pricing could prove to be the Achilles heel for an otherwise stellar processor. 

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Update 12/03/2020 6:00 pm PT: Hardware detective Tum_Apisak just unearthed two Ashes of the Singularity (AoTS) entries for the Intel Core i9-11900K. The processor purportedly sports a 3.5 GHz base clock, which could be the mysterious octa-core chip that appeared earlier today.

Original Story:

A new octa-core Rocket Lake processor has graced Geekbench 5's benchmarking grounds. The submission (via Tum_Apisak) looks promising as the unidentified chip appears to be a serious opponent for the Ryzen 7 5800X (codenamed Vermeer)

Unlike Comet Lake, Rocket Lake will go back to Intel's past practices of maxing out at eight cores. Therefore, the chip from the Geekbench 5 submission is more than likely to be an 11th Generation Core i9, although it remains to be seen whether it's the unlocked "K" model or one of those locked non-K or T-series parts. In either case, the Rocket Lake processor comes armed with Cypress Cove cores, and Intel has gone as far as promising a two-digit instruction per cycle (IPC) uplift.

Although the multi-core performance wasn't up to par, a previous octa-core Rocket Lake processor bested the Core i9-10900K by up to 18% in single-core performance. It would appear that the Cypress Cove microarchitecture could be a major gamechanger, just like AMD's Zen 3 microarchitecture. We've already confirmed AMD's IPC claims, while Intel's numbers still need to be verified.

Intel 11th Generation Rocket Lake Benchmarks

The Rocket Lake processor reportedly features eight cores, 16 threads, and 16MB of L3 cache, identical to the previous Core i9-9900K. This has been the maximum configuration pre-Comet Lake days. According to Geekbench 5, the Rocket Lake chip finished the benchmark run with a 3.41 GHz base clock and 4.98 GHz boost clock. These could be early specifications for an engineering sample, so treat the values with caution.

In addition to the core difference, the Core i9-10900K has an 8.5% faster base clock than the Rocket Lake processor. Assuming that the Rocket Lake's maximum boost clock is 4.98 GHz, the Core i9-10900K's boost clock is around 6.4% faster. If we pitch the Rocket Lake processor against the Core i7-10700K, the latter flaunts an 11.4% and 2.4% better base and boost clock speeds, respectively.

At least for the moment, Rocket Lake doesn't seem to have high clock speeds as the boost in performance will come from the new Cypress Cove cores.

The Rocket Lake processor's single-core score was up to 16.9% higher than the average single-core for the Core i9-10900K. The difference between the Rocket Lake chip and the Ryzen 7 5800X was less than 1%, suggesting that both processors' single-core performance might be in the same alley if benchmarked under the same system with equal specifications.

As per Geekbench 5's data, the Core i9-10900K's average multi-core score was around 12.6% higher than the Rocket Lake. Nonetheless, the margins are less if we compare the octa-core Rocket Lake against other rivals with a similar eight-core, 16-thread configuration, like the Ryzen 7 5800X and Core i7-10700K. The Rocket Lake lost to the Ryzen 7 5800X as the Zen 3's average multi-core score was 6% better. However, Rocket Lake did outperform the Core i7-10700K by up to 8.8%.

Barring any misfortunes, Intel aims to unleash Rocket Lake in the first quarter of next year. If the whispers are accurate, we could be looking at a potential late March launch, which, of course,  will likely be accompanied by a new legion of Intel 500-series motherboards.