Everyone is more than aware of the rise in prices of everything, especially anything using RAM or storage. Just take a look at the cost of the recently released Steam Machine as a prime example of the tragic near-future of home computing for the masses. It's all a bit doom and gloom, and some people may try to choose to wait it out in the hopes that things may get cheaper in a few years, but there's no guarantee that's going to happen. Rather than building your own PC, it's now cheaper to purchase prebuilt gaming rigs, with some companies still offering discounts in the current economy. This Cyberpower GML 99653 gaming PC is just $2744.55, after receiving a $544 discount. Packed inside are some of the most powerful currently available PC hardware components for pure gaming.

● Check out this deal on Cyberpower

Cyberpower has stacked two deals together, first knocking off $400 off the $3289 total due to a $400 discount on any PC valued over $2500, and then giving you a coupon code GAMER2026 that allows you to take a further 5% ($144.45) off the price. This gives you a $544.45 (17%) total saving.

So what do you get for $2744.55? Well, you get some of the most powerful gaming hardware that's currently available, including one of the best CPUs for gaming - the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and Nvidia's RTX 5080 graphics card with 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM. Also, apart from those standout components, you're getting 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 2TB SSD for storage. All packed in an attractive Montech Curved glass-panel PC case.

The 9800X3D is one of the absolute best CPUs for pure gaming, especially at 1080p, where the large 3D V-cache helps the processor to output incredible frame rates. For multi-threaded performance, something like the Intel Core Ultra 270K Plus would be a far superior option, but if you are only concerned with pure gaming, then the 9800X3D is the CPU for you. See our CPU benchmarks below for an idea of relative performance between processors.

If you take into account the lowest price of a new RTX 5080 GPU ($1,256), 9800X3D ($444), 32GB of DDR5 memory ($394), and 2TB of SSD storage ($239), you're at $2,333 without even adding the case, power supply, cooler, motherboard, fans, and any other extras such as the operating system. Plus, you don't have to build it yourself or worry about the warranties for individual parts. So if you like the look of the Cyberpower GML 99653 gaming PC for $2,744.55, then grab this deal while the offer still stands.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Innovative London-based PC cooling firm Billet Labs is back with another water-cooled system, this time aiming for a completely passive, fanless build. The video below explains why this interesting build was conceptualized, how it was built, its benefits and drawbacks, and how it performs, all with an eye on thermals.

Felix from Billet Labs starts the video presentation standing next to another of the firm's special projects – Walley. This machine is wall-mounted and shows plenty of Billet Labs signature flair. Its multiple powerful fans can get rather noisy when the system is under duress, though. If the fan speeds are scaled back, things start to get uncomfortably warm. The new custom build, therefore, targets a gaming PC that is much quieter.

Regular readers may be familiar with Billet and founder Felix on YouTube, most recently for ‘Raddy,’ the Victorian radiator PC. However, Raddy proved to be a bit noisy for a living room gaming machine, and it included some fans, so its performance components are being reused here.

Felix reveals that the hulking cast-iron radiator cooled beast known as Raddy wasn’t silent due to cavitation bubbles in the pump, which necessitates radiator flushing once a week. Not a trivial task. Also, Raddy wasn’t a fully passive design as it incorporated fans.

So, the new PC and Raddy share a lot of the same components, particularly the performance parts like an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080, and an Aorus Pro B850 motherboard.

The new build used a trio of radiators in different sizes, ranging from large to very large. They were arranged above the heat-generating components, taking advantage of what Felix describes as a convection chimney effect.

For about the next 30 minutes of the video, we get to witness the skills behind the Billet Labs build process. The main stages roughly consisted of building the platform (based on an 8mm aluminum plate), mounting the PC parts, adding cooling, and then plumbing. From about 33 minutes in, we get to see the new living room gaming PC fire up Windows 11 for the ‘first time,’ and performance / thermal testing commences.

Felix isn’t satisfied with the silence of the building at first. So he had to turn off the motherboard fan and also adjust the pump speed to 80%. The machine was then tested until temperatures began to level off, over various workloads. Testing began with idling for half an hour, playing Peggle for a while, and then running Cinebench for half an hour. Things got serious as Halo 3 was fired up for a session. In the real gaming tests (Halo 3, Expedition 33, Cyberpunk 2077), the GPU never thermal throttled, but the CPU would a little as it hit 95 °C or more.

More stress testing was initiated, culminating in running Cinebench and FurMark simultaneously. This pulled over 450W of power and brought the radiator water temps up to 60C+, which is the maximum rated level for the pump. A throttling CPU was observed again in these tests. A full table of tests, power output, and temperatures is shared in the Reddit post embedded below.

Fan-less gaming PC - 5080/9800x3d/32gb/2tb - Yes I’ll probably add fans next from r/pcmasterrace

In conclusion, Felix reckons passive water cooling alone isn’t really enough for a powerful modern gaming rig. Even a single case fan would probably be enough to make a world of difference. So, stay tuned for a follow-up video where you can see how the same Billet Labs PC performs with a 120mm fan atop, pulling air upwards, accelerating that chimney effect.

The PC component market is pretty dire right now, but this fantastic Newegg bundle on a set of core AM5 parts is a great way to kickstart a build without spending the earth. Right now at Newegg you can get a Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6400 RAM, a 1TB Samsung 9100 Pro SSD, and a Corsair 750W power supply for just $979.

Check out this deal on Newegg

The inflated pricing of RAM and SSDs can make it hard to piece together the value of a bundle like this. The whole bundle is $979, with a saving of $210 on buying the parts individually, not to mention the extra $65 you're saving on the PSU.

Subtract the cost of the CPU, which is holding its regular market price of $439, and you're left paying $540 for 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a power supply. You can think of it as paying $259 for the RAM, rather than the list price of $469 (or the going rate for 32GB of DDR5, which is currently $359). Or you can think of it as paying $69 for a 1TB SSD, rather than the list price of $279. The prices are inflated, but they're not going away anytime soon, making this one of the best ways to build a gaming PC in 2026.

The 9800X3D is one of the best chips in the world for PC gaming. It even scores ahead of the newer 9850X3D and the new 9950X3D2 in terms of efficiency for gaming, as you can see from our latest testing data below. In terms of performance across our testing suite of 17 games, it only sits behind the 9850X3D for raw performance, while drawing significantly less power.

Otherwise, this bundle includes Corsair's Vengeance 32GB DDR5 6400 RAM, which is pretty snappy and features timings of 36-48-48-104, as well as RGB for that all-important custom PC glow.

The Samsung 9100 Pro is a Gen 5 solid-state drive boasting some of the most impressive speeds on the market, with on-paper read speeds of up to 14,800 MB/s.

Buying this bundle means you'll just have to find a solid AM5 motherboard to piece it all together. While the bundles we often cover contain motherboards, buying one separately is no bad thing, with a real glut in the market driving down prices. Newegg has a range of discounted AM5 boards, including X870 options from $170.

The free Corsair CX750M power supply included in the build is a little on the older side (we reviewed it back in 2022), but it scored four stars in our review and offers decent performance and reliability for the cost, which in this particular case is naught. The power supply might be worth upgrading, especially if you're pairing the CPU with a serious graphics card, in which case you can reallocate some of the savings from this bundle to that instead.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

If you are planning to upgrade or build a powerful new gaming PC, this Newegg bundle should definitely be on your radar. Priced at $949.99, the limited-time combo includes the mighty AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, a G.Skill Trident Z5 32GB DDR5-6400 memory kit, and a Samsung 9100 Pro 1TB PCIe Gen 5 SSD. Altogether, the bundle saves you around $290 compared to purchasing each component separately.

• Check out this deal on Newegg

Looking at individual pricing, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is currently listed at $439.99, while the Samsung 9100 Pro SSD is listed at $279.99. Thanks to the ongoing memory crisis, the most expensive item of this combo is the DDR5 memory kit at a whopping $519.99. Notably, the bundle also includes a free Corsair CX-M CX750M 750W 80 Plus Bronze semi-modular power supply and a one-year subscription to NordVPN VPN service. With this combo deal, you've essentially got the makings of a powerful modern gaming PC. All you need to complete the build is a motherboard, CPU cooler, graphics card, and a PC case.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is currently one of the best gaming CPUs on the market, offering outstanding performance thanks to its onboard 3D V-Cache. While it isn’t technically the fastest gaming chip on the market, as the newly launched Ryzen 7 9850X3D is marginally faster, it is still a formidable processor. It comes with eight cores and 16 threads, with a 4.7 GHz base clock and a 5.2 GHz boost clock. The massive 96MB L3 cache helps reduce latency, thereby significantly boosting frame rates and providing smoother overall performance in demanding games.

At $949.99, this Newegg bundle is a solid deal for PC gamers and enthusiasts who are looking to upgrade to a high-performance AM5 setup. Do note that deals like these are usually available for a limited period and may sell out quickly. Thus, it may be worth grabbing the bundle before the price changes or the stock runs out.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

More ways to save money on precious RAM: this Newegg combo bundle pairs a premium Asus ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi Motherboard with 32GB of Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR5-6400 RAM and AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU for $1,054.98. The combo deal saves you a tidy $208.99 off the list price of $1263.97 and gets you the RAM for a relative price of less than $200. Not only are these combo bundles a great way to save money, but this deal in particular is the start or a very potent gaming PC build, plus, any purchase also comes with two "free" gifts: an MSI MAG Coreliquid A13 240mm AIO ($84.99) and a copy of the Crimson Desert ($70) video game, for added value.

• Grab this deal at Newegg

That 32GB of Corsair's Vengeance RAM is one of the most popular brands when it comes to building your own PC, and a popular choice for memory in the PC building community. The RAM kit in this deal is the DDR5-6400 kit (2x 16GB) model number: CMH32GX5M2N6400C36. 6400MT/s also happens to be the sweet spot for RAM speeds for AMD processors on the AM5 platform.

We've reviewed the Asus ROG Strix X870E-E Gaming WiFi motherboard in this deal, awarding it 4 out of 5 stars as one of the best motherboard options in the $500 bracket. The Asus ROG Strix X870E-E comes with three PCIe 5.0 M.2 sockets, two additional PCIe 4.0 M.2 sockets, and an abundance of USB ports. Benchmark testing revealed excellent voltage regulation and an 18+2+2 power solution rated for 110A per stage.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is regarded as the best gaming CPU on the market, featuring an 8-core and 16-thread configuration with a base clock of 4.6 GHz and a max boost of 5.2 GHz. A design refresh from the 7800X3D means the 9800X3D processor runs cooler on its 120W TDP, which makes it an efficient CPU to cool as well as potentially overclock. The massive 104MB of total cache results in excellent gaming performance.

On its own, this 32GB kit of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6400 memory is priced at $399.99, and that's a sale price from $439.99. If you take the prices of the Asus motherboard ($394.99) and the AMD 9800X3D ($468.99), the relative cost of the RAM in this bundle is just $191. That's not even counting the dollar value of the added MSI AIO cooler and free Crimson Desert game. This combo deal is just one way to make a saving on expensive memory kits in the current environment.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Start off your next PC build with some stunning components that will turn your creation into a beast of a gaming PC. Available in a combo bundle deal from Newegg for just $959.99 is the amazing AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, an Asus TUF Gaming X870-Plus Wifi motherboard, and 32GB of DDR5-6400 V-Color Manta XSky RAM. That includes some "free" gifts that feature a 512GB TeamGroup T-Force G50 PCIe 4.0 SSD and the recently released Korean RPG game Crimson Desert. You're saving $248.99 from the list price and also getting an SSD worth $112.99, and a video game priced at $70.

● Grab this deal at Newegg

AMD's successful 3D V-cache technology provides the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with its pure gaming prowess. The large memory cache boosts performance, along with some other design changes to the CPU. AMD moved the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate the thermal insulation of previous designs; the compute die is now closer to the thermal interface material (IHS). This increased thermal headroom allows 500 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz bigger boosts than the previous-gen Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Also paired up in this combo is Asus' TUF Gaming X870-Plus WiFi motherboard. It supports two onboard PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots. For network connectivity, there's the latest Wi-Fi 7, 2.5Gb Ethernet, and dual USB4 (40Gbps) Type-C ports, plus a front USB 20Gbps Type-C with (PD) power delivery and fast charge support.

The RAM section of the combo is the V-Color Manta XSky. It comes with black heat spreaders and RGB lighting. It’s a 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6400 kit with relatively low timings of CL32-39-39-102 at 1.4V. The V-Color Manta XSky memory uses SK hynix ICs, so you do have a little headroom if you are into overclocking memory past its rated speed.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU featured in this combo deal is built around the Zen 5 X3D architecture. It features eight cores, providing a total of 16 threads, with a base speed of 4.7 GHz. When boosted, it can reach frequencies as high as 5.2 GHz. Most importantly, it comes with a massive 96MB of game-boosting L3 Cache. In our testing, the 9800X3D topped the charts with 1080p-Ultra game settings, and dethroned the previous champion, AMD's 7800X3D.

This is a solid price for these PC components in the current economic climate, and when you add the extra value of the 512GB Team Group G50 SSD, the deal gets even sweeter. If you're looking to build a PC in the coming weeks, you should definitely consider this combo offer.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

Billet Labs is back and has finalized its cast-iron Victorian radiator gaming PC build. Alex from the London-based PC cooling innovators shared a detailed hour-long video with insights into the build, which should answer all your what, why, and how queries. However, he thought that even for this impressive radiator-as-a-PC build, “cooling something like a 5090 is probably out of the question,” so an RTX 5080 and Ryzen 7 9800X3D combo were judged to be the sweet spot.

We covered a teaser for this incredibly stout Victorian-era cast-iron PC build just ahead of the New Year. Thankfully, we now have a lot more information about this fascinating build and the concept/process behind it.

The video begins with Alex explaining that this amazing-looking PC is destined - not for some showroom or exhibition - but for an “actual usable long-term gaming PC, for myself.” Previously, we saw estimates that the charming but portly radiator was 110 pounds (~50kg) in weight. Now we have a clearer set of figures. The radiator is actually about 178 pounds (81kg) empty, and 218 pounds (99kg) when filled with coolant.

Commenting on this hulking mass of metal, “the thermal mass is absolutely insane,” enthused Alex. “And, secondly, it looks %^&* awesome!”

The key approach to the design and build was to keep the Victorian artifact’s visual appeal intact, and mount PC parts “as invisibly as possible, on the bottom.” But an immediate challenge to this idea was the fact that “there’s not a single flat surface, and not a single hole that I can bolt anything to,” wryly commented the PC liquid cooling specialist.

The first practical step in the build process was the 3D scanning of the bottom of the radiator to create an accurate 3D model. Armed with this, Felix designed a highly accurate 3D printed mounting system for PSU, mobo, GPU, and so on. This 2-part plastic chassis was fixed to the central underlying spine of the radiator, with corresponding half-pipe fixings securing it in place.

Though we had the impression this was going to be a fanless radiator system, the below-decks chassis design included room for sliding in a trio of super-thin 120mm fans.

To mate the heat-generating components with the radiator and plumbing, Billet Labs chose an Alphacool water block for the RTX 5080, and its own prototype AM5 CPU cooling block.

On the topic of PC build components, the list was roughly as follows:

Another nice touch with this fantastic PC build project was the choice of the power button. Felix sourced a sprung antique brass gear lever to power up the PC stylishly. This was fitted into one of the side vents on the rad using a custom mount.

Before the end of the video, we see the antique cast-iron PC used for a bit of gaming and benchmarking. In a ‘torture test,’ drawing about 520W of power for over an hour, the water temperature appeared to stabilize at under 30C. Notably, the RTX 5080 peaked at 75 °C during the most extreme testing Alex could throw at it.

Finding an antique cast-iron radiator isn't that easy in 2026, but at least Amazon still sells some modern ones in various sizes.

AMD’s 3D V-Cache processors have been the fastest gaming CPUs on the market for a few years now, with the 8-core Ryzen 7 9800X3D being the current ringleader. The Zen 5-based CPU has been labeled the “gaming king” since its release, but now, that changes.

Enter the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, an 8-core X3D processor on the same architecture that is barely any different from the 9800X3D on paper. Its name gives it away; this is not a next-generation Zen CPU, nor does it provide more cores than the existing 9800X3D. It is a mid-generation release that improves upon the 9800X3D for a little bit of a price premium.

In this particular case, that might just be enough since the 9800X3D is already the fastest gaming CPU that money can buy, so more performance wouldn’t hurt, right? Well, that's what we are here to find out.

Does the Ryzen 7 9850X3D justify its price premium of $30 to $70 over the 9800X3D? Does it even perform better, or is it just marketing hype? Let’s get into the details.

Features and Specifications: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

On paper, it is hard to separate the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D from the old 9800X3D. They are both CPUs from the Ryzen 9000 family, built upon the 4nm Zen 5 architecture with a 3D V-Cache implementation on top. Both CPUs use AMD’s new X3D architecture, which places SRAM under the CCD to give the cores direct access to the Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS).

The new Ryzen 7 9850X3D offers 8 cores and 16 threads just like its predecessor. However, the two CPUs do differ in their clock speeds. While the base clock of 4.7 GHz is shared by the two, their boost clock is different, as the new 9850X3D can boost up to 5.6 GHz compared to the 5.2 GHz boost of the 9800X3D. That is the only difference between the two CPUs.

Both CPUs offer 104MB of total onboard cache, of which 96MB is stacked vertically in the form of 3D V-Cache. The two CPUs also share the same 120W TDP rating, with a PPT of 162W. The memory compatibility is the same (officially at DDR5-5600), and both chips slot into the AM5 socket, which you’ll find alongside AMD’s 600- and 800-series chipsets on motherboards.

AMD has priced the 9850X3D at $499, which is a $20 price bump over the $480 MSRP of the 9800X3D. It is important to note that the 9800X3D can be found at around $430 to $470 at the time of writing, which makes the 9850X3D look like a bit of a tough bargain on paper.

By the looks of it, AMD has kept it really simple with the mid-generation release of the 9850X3D. At first glance, it is basically a better-binned 9800X3D that can give you better boost clocks and can potentially sustain a higher clock speed for longer. But does that bump in clock speed translate into real-world benefits? We have the results down below.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is extremely similar on paper to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, with the only major difference being the clock speed. Nevertheless, that point is enough for the 9850X3D to take this round. However, specs tell only part of the story.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

This section of the faceoff will focus purely on the gaming performance of the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D against the former king of the ring, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

We tested both CPUs (and some relevant competitors) in a wide array of modern games at 1080p for this comparison. We chose the 1080p resolution specifically to showcase differences in gaming performance and tested with an Nvidia RTX 5090 FE to remove any GPU-imposed bottlenecks.

Jumping straight into the benchmarks, there are no major surprises when it comes to our 16-game geomean at 1080p. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D slots in right where you would expect for a mid-generation refresh, at the top of the pile. It outperforms the Ryzen 7 9800X3D by 3.2% on average across our tested games, putting out 211.2 FPS against the 204.6 of the 9800X3D.

This isn’t a groundbreaking lead, but it is about what we would consider a run-of-the-mill mid-cycle improvement over the 9800X3D. The lead stays relatively consistent when we dive into individual results as well. For instance, we saw a 2.8% uplift in A Plague Tale: Requiem, 4.7% in F1 2024, and 6.2% in Flight Simulator 24 on average. On the flip side, the two CPUs remained within the margin of error in several titles such as Starfield, Monster Hunter Wilds, DOOM: The Dark Ages, and Cyberpunk 2077.

We are also looking at similar performance scaling when it comes to 1% low numbers in our testing. In our 16-game geomean at 1080p, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D gave a 1% low result of 147 FPS, a 3.52% advantage over the 9800X3D, which ended up at 142 FPS. The 1% low results remain largely consistent and follow the same pattern when we look at individual games separately. A notable exception is in DOOM: The Dark Ages, where the 9850X3D has 12.6% better 1% lows compared to the 9800X3D, while having nearly identical average FPS results.

A major difference between the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the advertised boost clock of 5.6 GHz compared to 5.2 GHz for the latter. In our testing, we found the average CPU clock speed of the 9850X3D to be around 200 MHz faster than the 9800X3D during gaming, which falls a little short of the promises but is understandable due to pre-determined boosting behaviour.

As we’ll dig into in the overclocking section below, both of these CPUs have access to AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO), as well as direct multiplier-based overclocking. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is able to make up the performance gap between it and the Ryzen 7 9850X3D with PBO enabled; the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, on the other hand, doesn’t benefit much in games from an even higher maximum boost clock.

On thermals, the 9850X3D averaged 61 degrees Celsius during our gaming tests compared to 58 degrees for its competitor, which is not a major difference considering the improved performance.

What is a major difference, though, is the power draw. One can ignore a CPU that runs a few degrees hotter if it provides a tangible performance benefit. However, it becomes hard to ignore if a CPU draws a whopping 30% more power (106W vs. 81.4W) during gaming while delivering only 3.2% better performance. This gives the new 9850X3D a significantly worse FPS/W rating of 1.99 compared to 2.51 for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. AMD clearly pushed the clock speeds higher in exchange for a large bump in power draw.

Furthermore, with a price tag of $500 compared to the $470 that you would need to spend for the 9800X3D, the new 9850X3D falls behind its competition in terms of value for money. If we look at our FPS per dollar numbers, the 9850X3D only manages 0.42 FPS/$ compared to the 0.44 FPS/$ result of the 9800X3D. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D also trails other competitors in this space, such as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and the Core i7-14700K in this category.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is technically slower than the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. It provides much better value and performance per watt. In addition, it’s able to close the gap with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D with PBO enabled, all while selling for between $30 and $70 less. Still, the 9850X3D is faster out of the box, so it earns the win.

Productivity Performance: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

We see an interesting pattern emerge when we compare the productivity performance of the two CPUs across our suite of multi-threaded and single-threaded workload benchmarks. Depending on how the program scales across multiple cores, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D can either be a bit better than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, or it can be at complete parity.

First, let’s look at the multi-threaded performance of the two CPUs by analyzing our performance ranking graph. We can see that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and the 9800X3D end up at the exact same performance level on average, and deliver almost identical scores in our geomean.

The outlook does not change in favor of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D even when we dive into individual benchmarks. The new chip only gains a 1% advantage over its competitor in Cinebench 2024’s multi-core score, while it is about 1.3% slower than the 9800X3D in POV-Ray. The scores are essentially tied in Blender Junkshop, Monster, Classroom, and Corona benchmarks, as well as the HandBrake x265 encoding tests.

This result may appear surprising at first, but it is to be expected from a mid-generation upgrade with no increases to core or thread count. The increase in boost clock does not yield a significant advantage in tasks that scale across multiple cores. However, when we look at single-threaded workloads specifically, the picture changes a bit.

In our single-threaded performance ranking geomean, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D puts up a score of 259 compared to 243 for the older 9800X3D, an advantage of 6.5%. The bump in boost clock yields a noticeable benefit when we are focused on only a single core. We see this superiority continue within individual benchmark results as well.

Cinebench 2024’s single-core test sees the Ryzen 7 9850X3D gain a nearly 7% advantage over the 9800X3D, while the POV-Ray benchmark yielded similar gains at 6.5%. We also see the 9850X3D complete the Lame audio encoding test nearly 6% faster. In this lightly-threaded productivity apps, the boosted clock of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D offers a clear advantage, even moreso than in games.

While the bump in boost clocks does not translate into superior productivity performance in tasks that scale across multiple cores, there does seem to be a notable advantage for the Ryzen 7 9850X3D in single-threaded or lightly-threaded tasks. Whether or not a 6-7% advantage in single-threaded workloads is worth the $30 (also 6%) price premium over the 9800X3D is up to the potential buyer to decide.

For productivity, however, the 9850X3D is not a CPU that you should go out of your way to buy. It can handle several workloads decently well, but the bulk of the 9850X3D’s value proposition (just like its predecessor) relies on its gaming performance. For the best of both worlds, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D remains AMD’s top CPU.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D marginally beats out the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in productivity tasks on the basis of single-threaded superiority alone. The boosted clocks directly translate into higher performance in lightly-threaded applications, which is something that doesn’t show up in games. Still, higher power consumption applies.

Overclocking: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

Since the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a mid-generation upgrade, it does not offer any groundbreaking changes in its overclocking suite. The underlying feature set is the same between the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and the 9800X3D.

Just like the rest of the Ryzen 9000 series, the new Ryzen 7 9850X3D is fully unlocked with full support for manual overclocking with multiplier adjustments and voltage tuning. This is a common advantage of the Ryzen 9000 series X3D processors over the previous generations, which were quite limited in terms of overclocking due to the sensitive nature of the onboard cache.

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D can be manually overclocked with multiplier changes, but just like the rest of the Ryzen series, you are better off using Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) and letting the CPU dynamically handle the boost clocks in relation to the temperature and available power. You also have access to Curve Optimizer and the new Curve Shaper feature, which is exclusive to Zen 5 CPUs.

While the basic overclocking toolkit remains identical between the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and the 9800X3D, the newer chip does start with a higher boost clock of 5.6 GHz. In our testing, games typically don’t call for more than 5.5GHz on this chip, which is a mark the Ryzen 7 9800X3D can easily hit with PBO enabled. Both support the same overclocking features, but the Ryzen 7 9850X3D has less to gain from them, at least when it comes to gaming. You can see that above in our 16-game geomean.

⭐Winner: Ryzen 7 9800X3D

Both CPUs share the same overclocking toolkit, and they can easily reach boost clocks 200MHz above stock with PBO enabled. In games, however, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D doesn’t benefit from those boosted clocks while the Ryzen 7 9800X3D does.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

Both the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D carry the same 120W TDP, but as we all know, TDP ratings don’t translate directly into real-world power consumption. We already looked at the power consumption figures during gaming, which saw the 9850X3D consume more power than the 9800X3D, and the same trend can be seen in our multi-core benchmarks.

In idle conditions, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D consumed 22% more power than the 9800X3D in our tests; however, that result sounds worse than it actually is, as we’re comparing 18W to 22W. In an active idle scenario such as YouTube playback, we saw the difference between the two CPUs shrink to 9% or just 3W.

When we put the CPUs under heavy load, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D really starts to pull away from its sibling. The Cinebench 2024 multi-core render saw the 9850X3D consume around 11% more power than the 9800X3D, while the Linpack test yielded a 6.5% power consumption difference between the two CPUs. The 9850X3D consumed 7% more power in the Blender Monster scene and nearly 20% more power in Junkshop, which is a bit on the concerning side.

However, the 9850X3D does behave a bit better in certain other benchmarks. In the y-cruncher multi-threaded AVX test, the two CPUs are separated by a difference of only 1 watt, which disappears in the single-threaded benchmark. The two CPUs are essentially tied in the HandBrake x265 and SVT_AV1 power tests as well. The Blender Classroom test saw the 9850X3D only consume 3% more power than the 9800X3D, which is a negligible change.

For heavily demanding workloads such as Cinebench and Handbrake, we saw the Ryzen 7 9850X3D peak at around 170W of power, with most tasks consuming between 130W and 140W. It is interesting to note that both Ryzen 9000 CPUs consume much less power than the competing Intel CPUs, owing to their simple arrangement of eight cores in a single CCD. The Ryzen CPUs do consume a bit more power at idle, but that is not really a concerning point.

A more interesting way to understand the power efficiency of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is to look at our scatter plots. In the HandBrake x265 scatter plot, we see that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and 9800X3D essentially lie on the same point, making them similarly efficient in this task. However, in the Blender Classroom scatter plot, the 9800X3D lies a bit to the bottom right of the 9850X3D, which means that it performs better than the latter while consuming a bit less task energy, therefore making it more efficient.

At the end of the day, AMD had to make a tradeoff in order to bump the boost clocks of the 9850X3D, and it seems like they landed on power consumption. The thermals of the 9850X3D seem to be quite similar to the 9800X3D in our testing, but the power consumption is in the range of 5-10% more, with some outliers reaching up to 20%.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

With lower overall power consumption and better efficiency, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D takes this round by a small but noticeable margin. Such fine margins do matter when you are looking at a mid-generation upgrade, especially when the competition in the space is fierce.

Pricing: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

AMD has kept it pretty simple with the pricing of the 9850X3D. The mantra seems to be “a little bit more performance for a little bit more money,” and that appears to be the case according to our test results. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D has an MSRP of $499 at the time of writing, while the older Ryzen 7 9800X3D had an MSRP of $479. Today, you’ll find it for as little as $430 and as much as $470.

Typically, the pricing comparison between two CPUs is not as straightforward as just comparing their sticker prices. Usually, it makes sense to compare the platform costs associated with the two CPUs in order to ascertain which CPU provides the overall better value for money. However, since the two CPUs in question are so similar and are compatible with pretty much the same hardware, there is little to separate the two except their going price.

Both these CPUs are compatible with AM5 motherboards, ranging from budget B650 boards at $120-$160 to premium X870 motherboards that can cost anywhere from $300 to $500 and beyond. It would make sense to pick an X870 motherboard with some beefy VRMs for the 9850X3D if you plan to do some overclocking as well.

DDR5 memory is skyrocketing in price at the time of writing, but that is an issue that is common to both our competing CPUs. Where the 9850X3D might differentiate itself is with the cooling solution and power supply of the build. If you plan to overclock the 9850X3D (either manually or with PBO2), we do recommend going with a more competent cooling solution, such as a 360mm AiO liquid cooler, which can cost around $150-200.

As established, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D also consumes 5-10% more power than the 9800X3D on average, and that can also impact the final cost of both systems. You could go with a more capable PSU for the 9850X3D build for surety’s sake, but ultimately, the difference in power consumption between the two CPUs is not enough to justify a step up in PSU wattage.

At the end, it comes down to value. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D costs 6% more than the 9800X3D, and performs about 2-3% better in games while being around 3-6% better in productivity tasks. It basically does what it says on the tin, without any extra bells and whistles. You have to bear the cost of increased power consumption as well, which makes the 9850X3D an unflattering deal all things considered.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

With a lower upfront cost, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is still the better bang-for-the-buck CPU. The extra $30 to $70 only seems to be justified if you are constantly chasing the top number in benchmarks.

Bottom Line: AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

After running both CPUs through our detailed six-round gauntlet, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and 9800X3D are in deadlock with three wins each. The edge here goes to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Although the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is faster in games, its boosted clock speed only really shines through in lightly-threaded productivity apps. In addition, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D can make up the performance gap with PBO in games, while the Ryzen 7 9850X3D has little to gain from even higher boost clocks.

You could justify either processor, with even more emphasis on the Ryzen 7 9850X3D if you don’t want to overclock. Where the Ryzen 7 9800X3D really pushes ahead is pricing and efficiency. It’s able to offer performance within the low single digits of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and sometimes match it, all while consuming less power and selling for anywhere from $30 to $70 less.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

For absolute peak performance, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D technically comes out on top, even if the margins are sometimes by a fraction of a percentage point. If you’re building an entirely new PC with top-end gaming specs, an extra $50 or so is usually inconsequential; the Ryzen 7 9850X3D does what the Ryzen 7 9800X3D requires PBO for out of the box.

If you’re upgrading, however, there’s little reason to go with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D over the 9800X3D. Because of that, it’s the winner of this comparison, which is one of the closest we’ve ever done.

In my Ryzen 7 9850X3D review, I called AMD’s latest gaming chip “a 9800X3D in a trench coat.” It was a quip at AMD that, although technically the fastest gaming processor around, the new CPU was only 3.3% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, despite selling for anywhere from $40 to $70 more. It’s a small margin that isn’t worth the extra money, but it’s still a consistent one. Say what you will about the 9850X3D, but it is technically faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in games where you aren’t completely bound by the GPU.

But PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) changes that dynamic. For our CPU reviews, we manually disable PBO to keep testing consistent. AMD’s PBO is dynamic and allows the processor to eke out a bit of extra performance when thermal and/or power conditions allow. It’s an uncontrolled variable in our reviews, voids your warranty, and is dependent on silicon and your specific setup, so we leave it off. However, it’s very easy to turn on. And the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with PBO turned on looks an awful lot like the Ryzen 7 9850X3D.

I never expected wonders out of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. It’s identical to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, short of a 400MHz boost in maximum clock speed. It’s possible to hit those kinds of speeds on a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, though not without a lot of manual tuning and some luck from the silicon lottery. Unless you’re an overclocking enthusiast with patience and a bit of luck, you shouldn’t expect 5.6GHz out of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, while the Ryzen 7 9850X3D can hit those speeds out of the box.

Although you shouldn’t expect 5.6GHz from the Ryzen 7 9800X3D easily, you can still overclock it with PBO. Turn on PBO, let your motherboard determine the power limits (or turn them off), and add a 200MHz positive manual boost clock override. That’s something just about any Ryzen 7 9800X3D can do, assuming you have a decent CPU cooler. With just an extra 200MHz, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D looks nearly identical to the Ryzen 7 9850X3D in games.

We retested the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 9850X3D with PBO turned on and a positive 200MHz boost clock override for both CPUs, to see how that impacted gaming performance, efficiency, and clock speeds. In short, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D can make up the thin margin between it and the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. AMD’s latest chip, however, has little to gain from even more clock speed, at least in games.

Before getting into the results, it’s worth reminding everyone that using PBO will void your warranty. We’re technically overclocking here, and that’s not covered by AMD’s warranty. If you’re concerned about that, just buy the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. Look at the extra $40 to $70 as the cost of an extended warranty.

Overclocking the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and 9800X3D with PBO

You can do a lot with PBO, and even more if you combine it with tweaking additional settings in your BIOS. I kept everything simple here, mainly because you don’t need to do much to get the Ryzen 7 9800X3D to perform like the Ryzen 7 9850X3D in games. In the BIOS, I turned on PBO to the “Advanced” mode — “Auto” is the default on most motherboards — and set a positive 200MHz boost clock override; the maximum allowed in PBO2. This isn’t a static 200MHz overclock. Rather, it extends the upper bound of PBO to allow up to 200MHz extra if thermal and/or power conditions allow.

I let my motherboard, in this case an MSI MPG X870E Carbon Wi-Fi, determine the power limits. That’s it. I didn’t do any manual tuning, undervolt with Curve Optimizer, or manually tune the memory beyond the 6000 MT/s EXPO profile pre-loaded on the kit.

From there, I ran Prime95 for 30 minutes to confirm the machine was stable and ran a 10-minute pass in Cinebench 2026 to check peak clocks on a single core and a single thread. That ended up being important because, as you’ll see in my tests, games don’t demand peak clock speeds from these chips — certainly not up to the 5.85GHz allowed to the Ryzen 7 9850X3D with PBO enabled.

Again, you can go a lot further than I did here. The scalar, for instance, will allow you to increase the length of the boost, though at a cost to CPU longevity. The whole point is seeing what you can quickly and easily achieve on any Ryzen 7 9800X3D. This isn’t a one-click overclock. It’s a two-click one.

I’ll list the full list of components for the test bench at the end of this piece, so skip ahead if you want to see what the bench looks like. The important note is that I tested with an RTX 5090 Founder’s Edition to remove any potential GPU bottlenecks.

With an extra 200MHz, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D gained 2.7% on average over its stock performance, leaving only 0.6% on the table compared to the stock Ryzen 7 9850X3D. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D gained a mere 0.9% with an extra 200MHz from PBO. Outside of average performance, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D gained quite a bit on the 1% lows — 5.1%, specifically, while the Ryzen 7 9850X3D saw a more modest 2.7% improvement in 1% lows.

Some of the other geomeans are interesting, as well, most notably clock speed. In games, at least, you see the extra 200MHz from PBO with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, but you don’t see it with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. Actually, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D with PBO had a slightly lower average clock speed (though only by an inconsequential 18MHz).

Power tells a similar story, with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D picking up an extra 20W with PBO on (24% higher than stock), but the Ryzen 7 9850X3D tops out right at 106W across both the stock and PBO passes. Despite the Ryzen 7 9850X3D coming out with marginally more power draw, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with PBO enabled actually ended up the hottest during our game testing, jumping nearly 16% compared to stock behavior.

That suggests what we all expected, which is that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a binned 9800X3D. We’re dealing in very tight margins here, however.

A Plague Tale: Requiem Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

A Plague Tale: Requiem is an interesting game to look at. Although it clearly scales with clock speed, the game seems to benefit far more from the unshackled power available through PBO. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D gains 4.4% with PBO compared to stock performance, outpacing the stock Ryzen 7 9850X3D. AMD’s latest chip, however, gained an impressive 7.3%, and with much better 1% lows in tow.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Baldur’s Gate 3 sees virtually no scaling outside of the stock Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The results for the Ryzen 7 9850X3D (both stock and PBO) and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with PBO are slightly different, but they’re functionally identical, evidenced by the consistent 1% lows. Looking at clock speed, you can see the game tops out around 5.45GHz, with the stock Ryzen 7 9850X3D actually achieving the highest clock speed at 5.5GHz. This likely has to do with all-core clocks with PBO, suggesting there might be some minor performance gains in this game if you tune the Ryzen 7 9850X3D with Curve Optimizer on a per-core basis.

Counter-Strike 2 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Counter-Strike 2 is somewhat of a platonic ideal for this test. Scaling falls exactly how you’d expect it to, with both the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 9850X3D gaining around 1.5% in average frame rate with an extra 200MHz via PBO. The real winner here for both chips is consistency. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D gained 16.6% in 1% lows with PBO, while the Ryzen 7 9850X3D gained nearly 21%.

Cyberpunk 2077 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Cyberpunk 2077 is heavy on your GPU, so it’s no surprise that the stock Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 9850X3D put up almost identical performance. Looking at clock speed, you can see average clocks refuse to budge beyond about 5.4GHz, explaining the stonewall these chips are running into. Regardless, every situation outside of the stock Ryzen 7 9800X3D demands far more power and cooling potential, and for very little performance gain.

Doom: The Dark Ages Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Doom: The Dark Ages is heavy on the GPU, as well, and even moreso than Cyberpunk 2077 due to its always-on ray tracing. The idTech 8 engine shows good CPU scaling between different chips, but the margins are very tight here. You’re drawing more power and generating more heat, but the stock Ryzen 7 9800X3D is where you want to be for the best efficiency and largely similar performance.

F1 2024 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Like Counter-Strike 2, the results here fall where you’d expect them, though with less consistent steps in between. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D saw a decent 3.2% improvement with PBO, while the Ryzen 7 9850X3D only saw a 0.5% improvement. The consistent jump was in 1% lows, with both chips improving by nearly 5%.

Far Cry 6 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Far Cry 6 is more inconsistent than some games in our test suite, requiring five passes for each chip to get usable results. Here, you can see the median result for the stock Ryzen 7 9850X3D was actually a touch higher than the PBO version; that’s just what you get with this title sometimes. With less than 1% between them, we’re looking at functionally identical performance, especially approaching 300 fps. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D held up better, jumping 3.7% with PBO and overcoming the inconsistency inherent in this game.

Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Final Fantasy XIV is one of the titles where the stock Ryzen 7 9850X3D showed big performance gains over the stock Ryzen 7 9800X3D, so it’s no surprise that PBO helps here. What is surprising is how the performance tapers off. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D saw a solid 5.8% jump with PBO, and a 7.2% increase in 1% lows. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D, meanwhile, only saw a 2% improvement with 1% lows in lockstep.

Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Flight Simulator 2024 is a more aggressive example of what Final Fantasy XIV shows. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D jumped by 5% with PBO turned on, but past that point, the scaling completely disappears. The performance is functionally identical between the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with PBO and both versions of the Ryzen 7 9850X3D.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Spider-Man 2 is a game that’s notoriously heavy on CPUs, but the scaling with clock speed is minor. Even the Ryzen 7 9800X3D jumped just 1.7%, while the Ryzen 7 9850X3D saw virtually no change in performance. The big change came in power consumption, as is the case with every game I tested. Here, however, you’re just not getting much extra performance for the higher power draw.

Hitman 3 Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

The rest of the benchmarks here tell mostly the same story. We include them to keep our test suite rounded, but we’ll let the data speak for itself.

Hogwarts Legacy Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Minecraft RTX Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Monster Hunter Wilds Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Starfield Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

The Last of Us Part One Benchmarks — Ryzen 7 9850X3D PBO

Quick and Dirty Gets the Job Done

As mentioned, flicking on PBO and setting a boost override of +200MHz is about as easy as overclocking gets. Even within PBO, you have access to Curve Optimizer and Curve Shaper to squeeze as much performance out of the silicon as possible, either across all cores or on a per-core basis. And that’s before manually tuning your memory.

PBO is dynamic, so the boost override of an extra 200MHz simply allows the CPU to scale to higher frequencies if the workload demands it. It’s not a flat overclock, and that behavior is important here. As you can see consistently throughout both stock and OC performance, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D and 9800X3D top out around 5.4GHz on average in games, with only a handful of cases where they crack the 5.5GHz barrier. These chips are capable of hitting higher clocks with PBO, which I confirmed before running any games. It’s just that gaming as a workload doesn’t demand those clock speeds from these two chips.

Even lightly-threaded games like Counter-Strike 2 don’t see a linear increase as the clock speed increases. In games that scale better to higher thread counts, like Cyberpunk 2077, the differences are dulled further. And in GPU-bound titles like Doom: The Dark Ages, they disappear entirely.

Although only $20 separates the Ryzen 7 9800X3D from the 9850X3D at list prices, the 9800X3D has seen price drops in response to AMD’s latest CPU. At the time of writing, it’s available for $443, and over the past week, I’ve seen it for as little as $430. Especially below $450, it’s hard to justify the Ryzen 7 9850X3D over the 9800X3D when the latter offers almost identical performance with PBO enabled. And, although the Ryzen 7 9850X3D can climb higher, that extra clock speed doesn’t amount to much in games — in our suite, it amounts to 0.9%.

Above, you can see the test bench we used for this batch of testing, which is identical to the system we used for our Ryzen 7 9850X3D review in both hardware and software. As usual, we tested with EXPO/XMP turned on, ReBAR enabled, and Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) turned off.

Memory prices continue to be on the higher side, with speculations of continued price instability throughout the year. One of the best ways to get reasonably priced RAM right now is to opt for a combo bundle, which can significantly bring down the total cost of your build. Newegg currently is offering one such motherboard-memory-CPU bundle for anyone planning to build a powerful gaming PC with serious horsepower. Priced at $1,121.99, this bundle includes a Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB DDR5 6400 RAM kit, an Asus ROG Crosshair X870E Apex motherboard, and an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU.

These are high-end components that demand a premium. The RAM kit alone is priced at $437.99 due to the ongoing memory crisis, while the AMD X3D chip costs $469, and the X870E motherboard sells for $692.99. Altogether, you have components that are actually worth $1,599.98 when bought separately at today’s market prices.

• Check out this deal on Newegg

Corsair is a popular name when it comes to PC memory, and the Vengeance RGB 32GB DDR5 kit in this bundle is one of its top-selling variants, offering speeds of up to 6,400 MHz with a CL36 CAS latency. It also comes with a diffused RGB light strip with ten individually addressable, bright RGB LEDs that can be fully customized using Corsair’s iCUE software. This bundle also includes Corsair's Dark Core RGB Pro SE gaming mouse, worth $99.99.

The ROG Crosshair X870E Apex motherboard from Asus is the most expensive component in this bundle, and it is packed with features. Meant for overclockers and enthusiasts, some of its unique offerings include extensive BIOS controls for system tweaking, a RAM cooling fan kit, and a DIMM.2 proprietary riser card that looks like a RAM stick but holds up to two additional M.2 NVMe SSDs. The motherboard also offers solid connectivity options, including two USB 4.0 Type-C 40Gbps ports, six USB 10Gbps ports (1x USB Type-C, 5x USB Type-A), a 5-gigabit Ethernet port, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4. It also comes with a robust power delivery system with plenty of heatsinks to withstand high temperatures.

Lastly, we have the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is currently the best gaming CPU that money can buy. It is expected to be replaced by the Ryzen 7 9850X3D in a matter of days, although that shouldn’t really matter as the overall performance gain is not going to be monumental. The 9800X3D is based on AMD’s Zen 5 architecture and features second-generation 3D V-Cache. It has eight cores and 16 threads, a base clock of 4.7 GHz, and a boost clock of up to 5.2 GHz, with a total of 96 MB of L3 cache and a 120 W TDP. According to our testing, it remains the top gaming CPU delivering excellent performance in gaming benchmarks, outperforming Intel’s best CPUs at a lower power consumption.

If you’re planning for a high-end gaming build with top-tier parts while avoiding inflated RAM prices, this Newegg combo is hard to ignore.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

We're keeping an eye out for the lowest-priced GPUs and keeping those listed here for you. The sad state of the memory industry, which is besieged by insanely large memory orders for AI data centers and AI GPUs, has led to increasing prices for gaming graphics cards. Nvidia is purportedly allocating memory based on the amount of money it can make per GB of VRAM, which has made the situation dire for some models. To help you navigate the pricing crisis, we have compiled this GPU index to monitor the availability and pricing of recent graphics card releases from the current and previous generations.

We update this guide constantly with the best prices in the U.S. for each SKU of GPU from the most recent two generations of Nvidia, AMD, and Intel cards. We're listing the lowest price for an available graphics card, regardless of the manufacturer, so it could be an Asus, Zotac, MSI, Sapphire, Gigabyte, Powercolor, or ASRock-branded card, but it will be the cheapest.

A word of warning: with this list, sometimes the retailers switch to third-party sellers automatically. You must be super vigilant and check sellers to ensure legitimacy. For older generation graphics cards, it can often be difficult to find these cards brand-new and on sale from first-party retailers like Amazon, Newegg, and Best Buy, and they are more often than not listed by third parties. Check prices against the current generation of GPUs to understand if you are getting a good deal, or if you're in fact better off paying a little extra for the very latest graphics cards.

Also, check out our list of the best graphics cards and our GPU benchmark hierarchy to see evergreen performance data to help you make an informed decision when choosing a new GPU for your system.

Nvidia RTX 50-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

The latest 50-series graphics cards from Nvidia include the current most powerful consumer GPU - Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5090. The RTX 5090 uses the new Blackwell architecture and comes with a massive 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM, and given the current prioritization for models with lower amounts of VRAM to boost profits, it's a problem getting your hands on one at anything even in the vicinity of a reasonable price.

The 50-series range doesn't have the most impressive gen-on-gen performance uplifts on pure rasterization power compared to the 40-series, but it does support new software and tech such as 5th Gen Tensor cores, 4th Gen Ray Tracing cores, DLSS 4.5 with Multi-Frame Generation tech, and Reflex 2. Some of those technologies, like DLSS and frame gen, can help wring the most performance out of those lower-tier cards with less VRAM.

There are 8GB variants of the RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti, available at near MSRP prices, with the higher-tier GPUs like the RTX 5070 Ti and RTX 5080 in poor supply at any reasonable price.

Nvidia RTX 40-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

Nvidia's 40-series Ada Lovelace architecture graphics cards include the powerful GeForce RTX 4090 and 4080 Super. The 4090 combines a massive 24GB of GDDR6X VRAM and Nvidia's 4th generation of Tensor cores for increased ray-tracing ability.

The RTX 40-series cards also feature support for Nvidia's DLSS 3 software for AI frame generation, which helps to increase frame rates on higher resolutions and settings. In general, Nvidia cards are the best choice for ray tracing, with more features than the competition. You'll also generally pay more for Nvidia GPUs relative to similarly performing AMD GPUs.

Unfortunately, RTX 40-series GPUs are no longer being produced, so stock levels have dried up on many card variants. Any available cards for sale have a high chance of being either second-hand or ex-mining hardware, yet still ask for exorbitant prices. Be extra vigilant when shopping for 40-series graphics cards, and buy from a reputable seller. Prices for 40-series cards are also much higher than they should be. They can be a good choice for a second-hand purchase if you can get one at the right price and accept all associated risks.

AMD Radeon RX 9000-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

AMD's competition to Nvidia includes the Radeon RX 9060, RX 9070, and RX 9070 XT graphics cards with MSRP prices of $269, $549, and $599, respectively. Finding one of these GPUs for that price, however, could prove to be a struggle as prices of Radeon graphics cards rise due to ever-expanding memory price hikes. These new cards go toe-to-toe with Nvidia's RTX 5070 and RTX 5070 Ti and offer a great alternative to Team Green.

The RX 9070 XT comes with 16GB of GDDR6 VRAM for those texture-heavy games and provides a large generational increase compared to RDNA 3. Improvements to AI and ray tracing tech have made this generation of AMD cards perform much better in games with ray tracing, but they still fall behind Nvidia in overall performance for ray/path tracing.

There are also 8GB and 16GB versions of the RX 9060 XT available, and they are selling for a fair price at the moment. However, 8GB of VRAM means the card isn't terribly futureproofed, as game requirements continually grow regarding shader and texture memory requirements.

AMD Radeon RX 7000-Series: Lowest Graphics Cards Prices

AMD's 7000-series GPUs are still a great option for a graphics card in your gaming rig if you can find one at a good price. Not the best choice if you're looking for pure ray-tracing performance, but if you want raw computational performance, they are a winner. Combined with AMD's FSR software, these 7000-series GPUs can still crank out high frame rates in the latest games.

The RX 7900 XTX in particular represents a great blend of power and performance, with it being the halo-tier card from the 7000-series and AMD not replicating a super-high-end card for the 9000-series. The RX 7900 XTX still ranks highly in our GPU Benchmark Hierarchy charts.

Here are all the lowest prices for the 7000-series models currently available.

Intel Arc GPUs: Lowest Graphics Card Prices

Intel's entry into the GPU market has been a little hit-and-miss. In some titles, these cards perform relatively well, but in older DirectX games, the cards suffer from some poor performance issues.

Frequent driver updates have made many improvements to the performance of Intel's Arc lineup and turned them into a much more viable choice for a budget gaming PC build. The prices of these GPUs have hit a price sweet spot that has been abandoned by Nvidia and AMD, especially for 1080p gaming. The Arc series of GPUs should certainly not be discounted when considering any budget gaming system build.

Intel's most recent launches include the Arc B580 and Arc B570, with the cards having 12GB of VRAM for the B580 and 10GB for the B570. Pricing is very competitive with the Intel cards, but the manufacturer's variety is limited, as is stock.

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Newegg has bundled an Asus TUF Gaming Plus X870 WiFi motherboard with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800 X3D processor and Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6000 RAM for $938.99. This combo deal saves you a tidy $269.99 over purchasing all of these components separately. The Corsair RAM alone is now $439.99, thanks to the ongoing memory production shortages caused by AI. As an added bonus, you also get a Corsair M75 wireless mouse worth $69.99 chucked in for free.

• Grab this deal at Newegg

Corsair's Vengeance 32GB DDR5-6000 kit comes with two matched 16GB sticks. These CL36 RAM sticks have a CAS latency of 36 and timings of 36-44-44-96, with a 1.40 voltage. The 6000MT/s speed is the sweet spot for AM5 CPUs, especially the 9800X3D, and helps to keep that 1:1 performance ratio.

Also paired up in this combo is Asus' TUF Gaming Plus X870 WiFi motherboard. It supports two onboard PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots and two PCIe 4.0 M.2 slots. For network connectivity, there's the latest Wi-Fi 7, 2.5Gb Ethernet, and dual USB4 (40Gbps) Type-C ports, plus a front USB 20Gbps Type-C with (PD) power delivery and fast charge support.

Then there's, of course, AMD's gaming king - the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which uses AMD's successful 3D V-cache technology, providing the 9800X3D with its pure gaming prowess. The large cache boosts performance, and along with some other design changes to the CPU, such as moving the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate the thermal insulation of previous designs, the compute die is now closer to the thermal interface material (IHS). With this increased thermal headroom comes 500 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz higher boosts than the previous-gen Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The perfect CPU for a high-end gaming system looking to push high frame rates in esports games such as Marvel Rivals, Valorant, and Counter-Strike 2.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU featured in this combo deal is built around the Zen 5 X3D architecture. It features eight cores, providing a total of 16 threads, with a base speed of 4.7 GHz. When boosted, it can reach frequencies as high as 5.2 GHz. Most importantly, it comes with a massive 96MB of game-boosting L3 Cache. In our testing, the 9800X3D topped the charts with 1080p-Ultra game settings. Dethroning the previous champion - AMD's 7800X3D.

Being a PC builder in the current climate is not fun. Prices of all components have risen, with price rises to RAM, storage, and GPUs being the most talked-about and publicised. If you're looking to build a new PC, it's not going to get any better economically any time soon, so take the savings when you can get them. And fingers crossed, things improve before PC enthusiast hobbies are unaffordable.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

AMD is set to take the stage at CES in just a few days where it's expected to unveil two new X3D chips, one of them being the 9850X3D, which is said to succeed the existing Ryzen 7 9800X3D. So, this seems like the perfect time to break the world record for the outgoing best gaming CPU, giving it a final tribute before it's replaced. Chinese overlocker "Hero" has just pushed the 9800X3D to 7,335.48 MHz, breaking the previous world record by just a smidge.

Hero used the recently-launched Colorful iGame X870E Vulcan OC V14 motherboard, a flagship offering from the company featuring an 18+2+2 phase VRM setup. It's made with overclocking in mind for both the processor and the RAM, with only two DIMM slots for that reason. The CPU-Z screenshot and HWBot listing don't tell us exactly what memory was used (apart from DDR5), but it does shine light on the CPU's settings.

The overclocker employed an unusually high voltage of 1.688V, which wouldn't be practical in real-world usage. This makes sense since the HWBot page is categorized under single-core peak frequency and not sustained load. As such, liquid nitrogen was expectedly utilized to keep the chip cool, and that translated in the uncore frequency also hitting 2,399.2 MHz — something that actually would make a difference in day-to-day performance.

The previous record holder for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D was a Taiwanese overclocker named "Hicookie," who managed to reach 7,313 MHz using a Gigabyte X870 Aorus Tachyon Ice. The new world record, therefore, is just 22 MHz higher. That might seem like nothing in the grand scheme of things, but comes to world records, every little bit matters. Now it's just a matter of time before another overclocker takes over and the cycle repeats.

Update, 11/9/2025 7:20am PT: According to a Reddit post by u/A_Canadian_boi, the listing for the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X3D on the PassMark benchmark database was submitted by accident. The user explains that after discussing AMD’s Zen 5 architecture and the CPUID instruction with friends, they discovered that AMD’s MSRs (Model-Specific Registers) can be edited.

To test this theory, they modified a heavily PBO’d Ryzen 7 9700X to appear as a “9700X3D” by editing the /proc/cpuinfo file. After running a quick PassMark test, they found that the benchmarking software failed to detect the mismatch between /proc/cpuinfo and the actual CPUID, and even submitted the results to the live PassMark database. In short, according to this new information, there is no Ryzen 7 9700X3D out in the wild; the listing was simply a result of a sneaky experiment.

The original story, including our original sprinklings of salt, continues below:

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is currently the best CPU you can buy for gaming, offering outstanding performance that easily surpasses Intel’s best. A new leak suggests that a more affordable alternative could be on the way: the Ryzen 7 9700X3D. According to the PassMark benchmark database, the unreleased 3D V-cache-equipped processor has 8 cores and 16 threads and leverages the AM5 platform.

The boost clock speed of the Ryzen 7 9700X3D is listed at 5.8 GHz, a substantial jump over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which tops out at 5.2 GHz. That's a substantial increase that could indicate a number of possibilities, such as a higher clock to attain faster speeds, a data entry error, or that the benchmark testing was done on an overclocked chip. As for the benchmark itself, the CPU scored 40,438 points in multi-threaded and 4,687 points in single-threaded benchmarks. The result is pretty much in line with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D in the same tests, where the existing chip scored 39,982 in multi-threaded and 4,427 in single-threaded.

The benchmark database additionally lists a brand new Strix Halo part, namely the Ryzen AI MAX+ 388. This chip scored 31,702 points in multi-threaded and 4,145 points in single-threaded benchmarks on PassMark. By the looks of it, this particular chip should sit between the Ryzen AI MAX+ 390 and AI MAX+ 385 and could potentially be a China-exclusive SKU.

Additional information from the listing suggests that it features a total of 8 cores and 16 threads, 32 MB of L3 cache, and 8 MB of L2 cache. Interestingly, it also comes with the Radeon 8060S iGPU, featuring 40 RDNA 3.5 compute units, similar to the flagship Ryzen AI MAX+ 395. In case you missed our coverage, the Radeon 8060S is currently the most powerful integrated GPU solution offering performance that is very similar to an RTX 4060.

The introduction of a new X3D chip is definitely exciting, especially since the Ryzen 7 9800X3D currently goes for around $450. A potentially cheaper option would give users more choice when upgrading or building a brand-new gaming rig. Having said that, leaked benchmark results are not proof of existence; however, we expect AMD to make some sort of announcement at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2026. Till then, take all of the information above with a pinch of salt.

One of the biggest problems with looking for Amazon Prime Big Deals Day deals is that you keep coming across deals that you want to buy for yourself. Luckily, I already own a gaming PC that's very similar in its component parts selection, but it is not a small form factor build, and I've got to admit, I really like the look of this prebuilt PC. It's very cute, wouldn't take up much room on or under a desk, and did I already mention that it looks amazing?

This prebuilt PC deal is available at Amazon, where the Cooler Master NR2 Pro Mini ITX is on a significant deal for just $2052.99. Checking price comparison tools such as CamelCamelCamel, the Cooler Master NR2 Pro Mini ITX has a max MSRP price of $3499.99, with the average list price of $2549.99. This means you're realistically saving around 19% or $497.00 on the average list price this Prime Day. You can, of course, build a similar PC yourself for slightly less, but if you're not comfortable constructing your own computer Lego, and fancy a more combined warranty solution, then this could well be the solution for you.

• Check out all deals on Amazon

The Cooler Master chassis used is the NR200P Max, a case that we've reviewed and gave high praise for. For a small case, the NR220P has great airflow and cooling potential, plus plenty of space to fit the latest components, especially large GPUs like the Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti. The case sports tidy cable management (a rarity, for ITX cases) and mesh panelling for better airflow into the case.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which is used in this build, comes armed with eight cores and 16 threads paired with the latest version of the company’s game-boosting 3D V-Cache tech that delivers impressive performance in most games. The 9800X3D holds the throne as the fastest gaming CPU on the market in quite a convincing fashion when tested and compared against the competition. Our benchmarks show it beats Intel’s current-gen flagship Core 9 285K by an almost unrealistic 35% on average in our test suite, and even beats Intel’s fastest competing gaming chip, the Core i9-14900K, by an equally incredible 30% on average in our test suite of game titles.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

It's Amazon's Prime Big Deals Day week, and the deals have arrived in style, with some of our favorite hardware components hitting all-time low pricing. Today's deal on an MSI combo bundle that includes the 9800X3D (the best CPU for gaming) has multiple components, all at great prices when bought together in this combo offering. So far this week, we've seen some of the Prime Day deals this year, beating out Amazon and other retailers' sales earlier in the year.

If you visit the MSI website, you can find today's deal on the MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi motherboard, AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and 2TB MSI Spatium M480 Pro SSD, all available as a bundle for just $738.99. There are no codes or coupons to add to achieve this price. To add the 9800X3D and the 2TB Spatium M480 Pro to the combination bundle, simply select them from the drop-down menus.

Buying the components separately on Amazon results in a total of $903.73: $476.99 (the lowest available price, according to PCPartpicker) for the 9800X3D, $259.99 for the MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi, and $166.75 for the 2TB Spatium M480 Pro. You can, of course, choose not to go with the SSD and simply select the MAG X870 Tomahawk WiFi motherboard and AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D for just $639.99.

• Check out the deal at MSI

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D features eight cores and 16 threads, with a TDP of 120W. Its gaming prowess comes from the use of AMD's successful 3D V-cache technology, which provides the 9800X3D's advantage over the competition. The large 3D V-cache boosts performance, and along with design changes to the CPU, such as moving the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate the thermal insulation of previous designs, the compute die is now closer to the cooler. With this increased thermal headroom comes 500 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz higher boosts than the previous-gen Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

MSI's MAG X870 motherboard is an ATX-sized board that supports AMD's Ryzen 9000, 8000, and 7000-series processors. The AM5 platform sports DDR5 memory boost with 8400-plus MT/s supported when overclocked, Wi-Fi 7, and 5G LAN. There are four M.2 slots onboard, with two of them PCIe 5.0 x4 and the other two PCIe 4.0 x4. Plenty of USB ports are included on the rear IO plate, featuring a high-bandwidth 40Gbps USB4 Type-C connector.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

The king of gaming processors used to be almost impossible to get your hands on, but now, with the benefit of time and ample stocks of the 9800X3D on retailer shelves, deals are getting better all the time. Today, direct from Amazon, you can grab hold of AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D for just $429, the lowest price it's ever been available for at Amazon, according to price trackers we checked.

AMD has dominated the gaming CPU space for a while now, overshadowing Intel in gaming sales. The Red Team's X3D line of processors, which use a massive 3D V-cache to enhance performance in gaming applications, have been particularly rampant in this segment.

If you're playing esports titles such as Counter-Strike 2, Rainbow 6: Siege, or Valorant, then that's where you can really see the difference in a gaming CPU like the 9800X3D. Using lower resolutions to enhance frame rates to insane levels for less graphical latency. The benefits fall off as you creep towards 4K gaming, where the graphics card takes over as the primary source for enhancing frame rates and graphical fidelity.

• Check out this deal on Amazon

As luck would have it, we have also spotted a tasty trio of Ryzen 9800X3D bundle deals at Newegg. These bundles will appeal more to those who don't already have the requisite hardware for a simple CPU transplant, but have a quality case and PSU that still have a few years of service life left. They are also good for those who are preparing to indulge in a complete new build.

• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + ASUS TUF GAMING B850M-E WIFI + 32GB Team 32GB DDR5 6400 + MONTECH NX400 ARGB - CPU Air Cooler for $678.99
  https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails?ItemList=Combo.4817885
• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + ASUS ROG STRIX X870E-H GAMING WIFI7 + 32GB G.SKILL DDR5 6000 + MONTECH NX400 ARGB - CPU Air Cooler for $829.99
  https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails?ItemList=Combo.4819549
• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + ASUS B850 MAX GAMING WIFI + MONTECH NX400 ARGB - CPU Air Cooler for $628.99
  https://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails?ItemList=Combo.4817883

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D uses AMD's successful 3D V-cache technology, which provides the 9800X3D with its pure gaming prowess. The large cache boosts performance, and along with design changes to the CPU, such as moving the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate the thermal insulation of previous designs, the compute die is now closer to the cooler. With this increased thermal headroom comes 500 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz higher boosts than the previous-gen Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

In our 13-game average with resolutions set to 1920 x 1080 pixels, the 9800X3D topped the charts. Outperforming the 7800X3D, which it succeeded.

You can find more details and benchmarking results on AMD's Ryzen 7 processor in our detailed review of the 9800X3D. With an 8% performance gain on the previous generation 7800X3D, it dominates the competition from Intel in gaming benchmarks. The 9800X3D is unlocked for overclocking and also doesn't have excessive cooling requirements, making this processor one of the best CPUs for pure gaming.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

If you're looking for the fastest gaming chips on the market, AMD has no peer: In fact, the company's own Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Ryzen 7 9800X3D is really the only competition that most hardcore gamers care about - Intel isn't a factor with its latest-gen chips due to lackluster performance on the gaming front.

At first glance, comparing the $470 AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D with the flagship $670 Ryzen 9 9950X3D might seem like an uneven match. After all, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D commands a $200 higher price point and boasts twice the number of cores, which naturally suggests superior performance.

However, this faceoff dives deeper than just raw numbers and sticker price. It explores how these two processors, both from AMD’s gaming-optimized Zen 5 X3D lineup, cater to different needs and whether the premium flagship truly justifies its cost in real-world scenarios.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D sits at the very top of AMD’s desktop CPU hierarchy, aimed at enthusiasts and professionals who demand the utmost in multi-threaded performance alongside gaming capabilities. It's the "no compromises" option, commanding a premium price befitting its halo status.

In contrast, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D offers a more focused approach, targeting gamers and mainstream users who seek exceptional gaming performance and efficiency without the complexity or cost of a higher-core-count processor.

Priced around $450 compared to the 9950X3D’s $700 tag, the 9800X3D challenges the notion that more cores and higher prices always translate to a better CPU. Forget assumptions, let's dissect where these two exceptional gaming processors truly excel and uncover which one deserves a place in your ultimate rig.

Features and Specifications: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

Both the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D represent the pinnacle of AMD's desktop processor engineering, built on the sophisticated Zen 5 architecture fabbed on TSMC's advanced 4nm manufacturing process. These processors share the same foundational architecture but differ significantly in their core configurations and target use cases.

The 9950X3D is a dual-CCD powerhouse featuring 16 cores and 32 threads, while the 9800X3D adopts a streamlined single-CCD design with 8 cores and 16 threads. This architectural divergence creates distinct performance profiles, with the 9950X3D targeting users requiring substantial multi-threaded performance alongside gaming excellence, whereas the 9800X3D focuses exclusively on delivering optimal gaming performance without the complexity of a multi-die design.

The 9950X3D's dual-CCD configuration incorporates two separate 8-core complexes, with only one CCD receiving the 3D V-Cache treatment. This asymmetric design results in 128MB of layered L3 cache, creating a complex but powerful architecture that requires sophisticated thread scheduling. Thankfully its automated through AMD's innovative driver.

In contrast, the 9800X3D's single-CCD design features a uniform 8-core complex with 96MB of total L3 cache, providing consistent performance characteristics across all cores and simplifying both hardware design and driver optimization.

Clock speed specifications reveal differences between these processors, with the 9950X3D operating at a 4.3GHz base clock with boost capabilities reaching 5.7GHz, representing the highest boost clock in the X3D lineup. The 9800X3D, conversely, features a 4.7GHz base clock with boost frequencies of 5.2GHz.

The second-gen 3D V-Cache tech represents a revolutionary architectural advancement that marks a big improvement over their predecessors. Unlike previous X3D generations, where the 3D V-Cache was positioned above the CCD, both processors feature the cache positioned below the CCD, enabling direct thermal contact between the cores and the integrated heat spreader.

This design transformation dramatically improves thermal characteristics, allowing both processors to achieve full overclocking capabilities (a first for X3D processors) while maintaining higher boost frequencies than their predecessors. The thermal improvements are particularly significant for the 9950X3D, which maintains its 170W TDP despite its larger cache capacity.

Platform support and connectivity specifications show AMD's commitment to the AM5 ecosystem. Both CPUs drop into the AM5 socket (LGA 1718) and are compatible with the full range of AM5 chipsets, including A620, B650, B650E, X670, X670E, X870, X870E, B840, and B850. Memory support extends to DDR5 with official specifications up to 5600 MT/s, though both processors can achieve higher speeds through AMD EXPO memory overclocking technology.

The processors provide 24 usable PCIe 5.0 lanes from the CPU, four native USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, and comprehensive storage support including NVMe RAID configurations. Power consumption differs significantly, with the 9950X3D coming with a 170W TDP compared to the 9800X3D's 120W TDP, reflecting the increased thermal and power demands of the dual-CCD configuration.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D share a common Zen 5 foundation but diverge in their feature sets to serve distinct purposes. On paper alone, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is more impressive due to its higher clocks and additional cores, thus taking this round.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

While our in-depth Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D reviews offer a more comprehensive analysis and our test system specs, in this section, we will focus on a gaming performance overview. The following benchmark graphs display average FPS and 1% lows for various games at 1080p. Using a high-end Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card ensures GPU limitations are removed, making this setup ideal for comparing pure CPU performance.

In our 16-game geometric mean at 1080p with High/Ultra settings, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D narrowly edges out the Ryzen 9 9950X3D with an average of 195.5 FPS versus 194.8 FPS, which is a negligible 0.4% difference. This parity stems from AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology, which minimizes latency in cache-sensitive titles.

However, the 9950X3D’s higher core count rarely translates to gaming gains, as most games prioritize cache and clock speeds over core quantity. For example, in A Plague Tale: Requiem, the 9800X3D leads by 5.9% on average, likely due to its optimized single-CCD design reducing inter-core latency.

On the flip side, the 9950X3D pulls ahead in 1% lows according to our testing, scoring 136 FPS in the geomean compared to the 9800X3D’s 134 FPS, gaining a minor 1.4% advantage. This reflects its superior multi-core capabilities, mitigating stutter during asset streaming or background tasks.

Moving on to individual results, the picture becomes even more nuanced and needs analysis on a case-by-case basis. In our testing, we typically see that cache-bound games favor the 9800X3D. Minecraft RT shows a 10.9% average FPS lead. In Starfield, the Ryzen 7 leads by 1.7% in average FPS.

On the contrary, heavily multi-threaded titles seem to lean toward the 9950X3D. In Baldur’s Gate 3, the Ryzen 9 leads by about 2.6%, exploiting its dual-CCD design to gain an advantage in this title.

The 9800X3D dominates efficiency, achieving 2.46 FPS/W versus the 9950X3D’s 1.61 FPS/W, which is a tremendous 52.8% improvement. It consumes just 79.4W under load according to our testing, while the 9950X3D draws 52% more power at 120.9W. This gap arises from the 9800X3D’s monolithic 8-core design, which avoids the power overhead of the 9950X3D’s dual-CCD configuration.

The 9800X3D also offers superior value for money, gaining a staggering 50% advantage in our FPS per dollar chart. Priced 33% lower, the Ryzen 7 achieves almost the same average FPS in our Geomean as the 9950X3D. Even in titles where the 9950X3D wins, like Far Cry 6, the 9800X3D’s cost efficiency remains unmatched. The 9950X3D does not justify its price premium in the gaming category when compared to its younger sibling.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

Unless you are pairing gaming with heavy streaming or rendering, the 9800X3D’s cache-optimized design and aggressive pricing make it AMD’s gaming champion.

Ultimately, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D emerges as the smarter gaming investment. It matches the 9950X3D in average framerates while excelling in efficiency and value. The 9950X3D’s edge in 1% lows is nice, but it cannot be justified by its hefty price premium.

Productivity Performance: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

According to our benchmark results, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D demonstrates a substantial productivity advantage over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D across both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads.

In the aggregated single-threaded geomean, the 9950X3D scores 258, while the 9800X3D trails at 243, leaving a 5.8% performance gap. For multi-threaded geomean, the disparity widens dramatically: the 9950X3D achieves 635 versus the 9800X3D’s 367, translating to a 42% delta. This underscores the 9950X3D’s superior power budget and higher core count.

The 9950X3D’s 16-core design obliterates the 9800X3D’s 8-core setup in heavily parallelized tasks. Cinebench 2024 multi-core reveals a massive 43% performance delta; meanwhile, the POV-Ray multi-core test exacerbates this further as the 9950X3D scores a whopping 69% higher than the 9800X3D.

Real-world encoding tests like HandBrake x265 further validate this trend, with the 9950X3D achieving a 63% leap over the 9800X3D. This makes the 9950X3D a powerhouse for video rendering, 3D compilation, or scientific simulations where core scalability is paramount.

In tasks reliant on single-core speed, the 9950X3D also maintains a consistent lead, even though the gap narrows significantly. Cinebench 2024 single-core shows a 4.7% advantage, and the gap expands in POV-Ray single-core, where the 9950X3D has a 7.6% higher score than its younger sibling.

Even in lighter workloads like WebXPRT4 (browser-based tasks), the 9950X3D maintains a modest but notable 4.4% edge. The narrower gap confirms that browser-based tasks are less core-dependent, favoring cache/clock speed, yet the 9950X3D still leads. These modest gains reflect the close architectural similarities between the two CPUs in tasks that don’t necessarily scale with core count.

The 9950X3D’s dual-CCD layout (one with 3D V-Cache, one with higher clocks) optimizes it for hybrid productivity: cache-sensitive tasks leverage the stacked die, while all-core workloads engage both CCDs. The 9800X3D’s single-CCD design restricts it in lighter multi-threaded tasks despite its cache advantage.

Putting it all together, for productivity alone, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is decisively superior, delivering 10-40% higher performance on average, with peaks exceeding 60% in core-heavy tasks. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D remains viable for budget-focused users handling lighter workloads, but professionals demanding uncompromised rendering, encoding, or compilation speed should opt for the 9950X3D.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Its massive compute throughput advantage, driven by its doubled core count, makes the 9950X3D the unequivocal choice for professional productivity, while the 9800X3D serves well for mainstream users where its strong gaming performance and lower cost are prioritized over extreme multi-threaded muscle.

Overclocking: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

Both the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D represent a significant advancement in X3D processor overclocking capabilities compared to their predecessors. Unlike previous X3D generations that had severe overclocking limitations, both Zen 5-based processors support full manual overclocking, including multiplier adjustments, voltage modifications, and extensive tuning options.

This is a revolutionary change from the Zen 4 X3D processors that were largely locked down, with the 7800X3D only supporting limited PBO and Curve Optimizer adjustments. The key architectural improvement enabling this overclocking freedom is AMD's redesigned 3D V-Cache placement.

In Zen 5 X3D processors, the 3D V-Cache is positioned underneath the Core Complex Dies (CCDs) rather than on top, dramatically improving thermal management and reducing the voltage sensitivity that previously restricted overclocking. This design change allows both processors to maintain higher boost frequencies while supporting the same overclocking toolkit as the regular Zen 5 processors.

The processors responds well to both traditional overclocking methods and AMD's advanced tuning tools, including Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2), Curve Optimizer, and the new Curve Shaper feature exclusive to Zen 5 processors. AMD has plenty of manual tuning option available, but most users are best just engaging the automated Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) feature.

⭐Winner: Tie

Both chips leverage the same AMD overclocking suite, so this section works out to a tie.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

According to our test results, the power profiles of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D reveal significant differences under load while showing remarkable similarity at idle, directly impacting efficiency and cooling requirements.

Under sustained AVX workloads, the 9950X3D consumes substantially more power than the 9800X3D, reflecting its higher core count and performance ceiling. In the grueling Prime95 Small FFTs test, the 9950X3D averages 215W compared to the 9800X3D's 171W, which is a substantial 25.7% increase. This pattern repeats in y-cruncher's AVX test, where the 9950X3D draws 23.9% more power than the 9800X3D.

Even in Cinebench 2024 multi-core rendering, which favors thread scaling, the 9950X3D requires 57.8% more power than its younger brother. This consistently higher power draw under heavy vectorized or multi-threaded loads is inherent to the 9950X3D's doubled core resources.

Remarkably, both CPUs demonstrate nearly identical power efficiency during low-activity states. In active idle states (such as YouTube playback), the 9950X3D uses 31% more power than the 9800X3D, but the actual difference is 9W. However, in true idle scenarios, the gap narrows to just 3W, which is pretty negligible in the big picture. This parity highlights that the 9950X3D efficiently powers down unused cores, but also highlights that both chips carry the same power burden of the central I/O die, which ultimately results in higher idle power consumption for Zen 5 processors compared to Intel offerings.

Despite its higher power consumption, the 9950X3D often delivers superior performance-per-watt in multi-threaded tasks. In our Cinebench 2024 "Watts per Point" metric, the 9950X3D scores a 10.8% efficiency advantage over the 9800X3D. Similarly, in HandBrake x265 encoding, the 9950X3D achieves a 6.4% lead in efficiency despite consuming more raw power in the test itself.

This indicates the 9950X3D's additional cores translate workloads into completed tasks more efficiently under heavy utilization. The "Estimated Task Energy" graph further confirms this trend, placing the 9950X3D in a significantly better (lower-right) position than Intel competitors and delivering way more FPS than the 9800X3D despite consuming almost similar task energy.

The 9950X3D's higher sustained power load necessitates more robust cooling. A 360mm AIO liquid cooler is optimal for the 9950X3D to maintain optimal boost clocks during extended AVX workloads. The 9800X3D, with its peak draw nearly 20-25% lower, is far more forgiving. A capable dual-tower air cooler or 240mm AIO should suffice in most cases.

At the end of the day, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the clear winner if you just compare the two CPUs by their peak power consumption, especially under heavy AVX loads, making it ideal for users prioritizing low heat output, quieter cooling, or constrained thermal environments.

However, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D consumes 25-58% more power under load but delivers 6-11% better performance efficiency (work completed per watt) in multi-threaded scenarios like rendering and encoding. For users needing maximum multi-core throughput, the 9950X3D's efficiency may justify its higher power ceiling, though it demands stronger cooling to realize its full potential.

⭐Winner: Tie

If you want the absolute lowest power draw, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the obvious pick among these two CPUs. It is also easier to cool and is generally quite tame compared to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which consumes significantly more power under load.

In contrast, the 9950X3D takes a significant win in power efficiency (performance-per-watt), highlighting that it delivers exceptional power characteristics of its own.

Overall both chips have their charms, depending on the target workload. That leaves us with yet another tie -- the winner just depends on your personal use-case.

Pricing: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

When comparing the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the starting point is their respective CPU prices: the Ryzen 9 9950X3D costs $670 at the time of writing, while the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is priced at $470, a difference of $200. However, to truly assess which CPU offers better value for the money, it’s essential to consider the entire platform cost, including the motherboard, RAM, and CPU cooler.

When examining the complete platform cost, both processors share identical requirements for supporting components, but they do have different needs in some areas. DDR5 memory pricing remains consistent across both builds, with 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory costing around $120-$150.

The AM5 socket requirement means both CPUs could use the same types of motherboards, ranging from budget B650 boards at $125-$160 to premium X870 motherboards that can cost $320-$500. However, the 9950X3D's higher power consumption and thermal output requires a better motherboard than the 9800X3D.

With a higher TDP and peak power consumption, the 16-core 9950X3D necessitates more robust VRM designs on motherboards for full performance, potentially adding $50-$100 to the platform cost.

Cooling the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which has a lower TDP (120W) compared to its higher-end sibling (170W), can be adequately handled by a mid-tier solution. Options include a $50 to $70 air cooler or a $100 to $150 240mm AIO liquid cooler. In contrast, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D would benefit from a more capable solution, with a 360mm AIO liquid cooler being optimal, which can cost you about $150-200.

Conclusively, the 9800X3D emerges as the superior choice for value-conscious builders, despite both processors delivering nearly identical gaming performance, as we already saw. The nearly $230 price difference represents money that could be allocated toward a better graphics card, faster storage, or premium peripherals, which are components that would provide more tangible benefits for gaming performance.

As for the 9950X3D, its additional productivity capabilities justify its premium only for users who can leverage its extra cores for content creation, streaming, or professional workloads.

⭐Winner: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

For the vast majority of enthusiasts prioritizing gaming and overall bang-for-buck, the 9800X3D's combination of potent gaming performance and lower total platform cost makes it the clear winner for value. The 9950X3D is best reserved for users who explicitly need its extra cores and are willing to invest in the supporting high-end platform.

Bottom Line: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 7 9800X3D both bring impressive strengths to the table, ultimately leaving us with a 4-4 tie, but the winner for you will be clear based on your target workloads and budget.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the clear champion for most users, particularly those prioritizing gaming performance and value. Its dominance in gaming performance, power efficiency, and pricing creates a compelling package that delivers exceptional results without unnecessary complexity. The single-CCD design eliminates the scheduling challenges that can plague dual-CCD configurations, making it the ideal choice for gamers who want maximum performance with minimal fuss.

On the other hand, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D remains the superior choice for a specific audience: professionals and content creators who demand both exceptional gaming performance and serious productivity capabilities. Its 16-core, 32-thread configuration provides superb multi-core performance that makes it the ultimate all-round CPU for users who refuse to compromise between gaming and professional workloads.

For the vast majority of gaming enthusiasts and high-performance PC builders, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the unequivocal recommendation and king of gaming value. It delivers virtually identical top-tier gaming performance to the 9950X3D while being significantly cheaper, more power-efficient, easier to cool, and less demanding on the supporting platform.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D remains a formidable, niche processor, but its considerable price premium and higher platform costs are only justifiable for users who simultaneously require maximum gaming performance and very high levels of multi-threaded productivity performance on a daily basis.

Both chips have their place, and the clear swim lanes for the 9950X3D and 9800X3D show that AMD has done an excellent job in stratifying the Ryzen 9000 X3D lineup, delivering strong value for two very different chips and ultimately earning its price tag for each chip. Meanwhile, Intel's chips simply can't compete with either of these chips in gaming. Here's hoping for a more competitive Intel with its next-gen chips.

🏆Winner: Tie

More CPU Faceoffs

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X vs Intel Core i9-14900K
• Intel Core i5-14400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D vs Intel Core i9-13900K vs Core i7-13700K
• AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D vs Intel Core i9-13900K Faceoff

Spotted at Newegg - a combination deal featuring a host of components that make up the majority of a new PC build. Having a look at the individual prices for these components highlights that this is a pretty decent deal with actual savings of over a hundred dollars. What's really good about this deal is that it's also featuring some of the best components you can buy for a super-powerful gaming rig that will crunch the zeros and ones to produce the highest framerates possible in your favorite games.

Check out the deal at Newegg, where for just $678.99, you get an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, Asus B850M-E WiFi motherboard, and 32 GB of Team T-Force Delta 6400Mhz DDR5 RAM. Individually, the items are marked up as $479 for the 9800X3D, $219.99 for the Asus mobo, and $100.99 for the Team T-Force RAM. This totals $799.98, but the RAM is classified as a free gift in this bundle deal and is added to the cart when you select the $678.99 CPU and motherboard combo. The deal used to be even better, with a free 240mm MSI AIO cooler included, worth $79.99, but that offer has been removed since this morning.

• Check out the deal at Newegg

You've got the makings of a powerful new gaming PC build with this combo deal, and all you need to complete the build fully is a graphics card, CPU cooler, SSD, power supply, and PC case. Of course, you might want to choose your own brand of thermal paste, or add more case fans and RGB, etc, but those are extras and not the core components to a new PC.

You can find more details of the performance of the Ryzen 7 processor in this combo deal in our detailed review of the 9800X3D. With an 8% performance gain on the previous generation 7800X3D, and easily outperforms the competition from Intel in gaming benchmarks. The 9800X3D is unlocked for overclocking and doesn't have excessive cooling requirements, making this processor one of the best CPUs for pure gaming. Add in a powerful GPU, and you will have one beastly gaming PC for the latest AAA games.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

Tantalizing Battlefield 6 morsels have been making the rounds ever since the title's official announcement last month. The iconic shooter franchise is poised to make its return this year with a back-to-basics approach, something sorely missing from contemporary FPS titles. Add to that the disappointing response to COD: Black Ops 6 and EA has found themselves stirring the perfect concoction of demand for an AAA game launch. A couple of days ago, it revealed the relatively modest hardware requirements for the upcoming Battlefield 6 and, today, we allegedly have our first performance report to pick over.

Popular Twitch steamer, Bruhskey, took to social media to show off the game's average performance. Running at 1440p, they were able to get over 300 FPS on a setup consisting of an AMD Ryzen 9800X3D CPU and an RTX 5080 GPU — both attractive top-end components. Upon this foundation was 32GB of 6400MT/s DDR5 memory running in a 1:1 ratio, which explains the excellent 6.7-8.5 total system latency the streamer was able to achieve. The game is still under embargo so they couldn't say much, like whether any upscaling was used to hit those numbers, but in general ~300 FPS in a modern blockbuster title remains impressive.

Dipping in price, the best eight-core processor for gaming from AMD this generation is available at Amazon at near all-time low pricing. It's become common to find this CPU in stock since the early launch shortages, and now we are starting to see some discounts on this impressive processor after the largest part of the hype train has subsided.

At Amazon, you can grab hold of AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D for just $449.99, a mere $8 above the lowest price it's ever been available for at Amazon. This is the lowest price that you can get this processor from any online retailer in the US at the moment. If you happen to be fortunate enough to live within driving distance of a MicroCenter store, then you can pick one up for just $429.99. But unfortunately, that price is down to a Zip-code lottery.

• Check out the deal at Amazon

AMD has dominated the gaming CPU space for a while now, overshadowing Intel in gaming sales. especially the top-end gaming sphere, with their X3D line of processors that use a massive 3D V-cache of memory to enhance the processors' performance in gaming applications. If you're playing esports titles such as Counter-Strike 2, Rainbow 6: Siege, or Valorant, then that's where you can really see the difference in a gaming CPU like the 9800X3D. Using lower resolutions to enhance framerates to insane levels for less graphical latency. The benefits fall off as you creep towards 4K gaming, where the graphics card takes over as the primary source for enhancing framerates and graphical fidelity.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D uses AMD's successful 3D V-cache technology, which provides the 9800X3D with its pure gaming prowess. The large cache boosts performance, and along with design changes to the CPU, such as moving the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate the thermal insulation of previous designs, the compute die is now closer to the thermal interface material (IHS). With this increased thermal headroom comes 500 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz higher boosts than the previous-gen Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

In our 13-game average with resolutions set to 1920 x 1080 pixels, the 9800X3D topped the charts. Outperforming the 7800X3D, which it replaced.

You can find more details and benchmarking results on AMD's Ryzen 7 processor in our detailed review of the 9800X3D. With an 8% performance gain on the previous generation 7800X3D, and dominates the competition from Intel in gaming benchmarks. The 9800X3D is unlocked for overclocking and also doesn't have excessive cooling requirements, making this processor one of the best CPUs for pure gaming.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

At one point, this king of gaming processors was almost impossible to get your hands on; now, with the benefit of time and ample stock of the 9800X3D on retailer shelves, it's more about how good a deal you can find on this magnificent gaming CPU. At Amazon, you can grab hold of AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D for just £399, the lowest price it's ever been available for at Amazon. This is also the lowest price in the UK at the time of writing. If you have Amazon Prime, then the shipping is also free, so there are no hidden extra costs.

AMD has dominated the gaming CPU space for a while now, overshadowing Intel in gaming sales. especially the top-end gaming sphere, with their X3D line of processors that use a massive 3D V-cache of memory to enhance the processors' performance in gaming applications. If you're playing esports titles such as Counter-Strike 2, Rainbow 6: Siege, or Valorant, then that's where you can really see the difference in a gaming CPU like the 9800X3D. Using lower resolutions to enhance framerates to insane levels for less graphical latency. The benefits fall off as you creep towards 4K gaming, where the graphics card takes over as the primary source for enhancing framerates and graphical fidelity.

• Check out the deal at Amazon

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D uses AMD's successful 3D V-cache technology, which provides the 9800X3D with its pure gaming prowess. The large cache boosts performance, and along with design changes to the CPU, such as moving the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate the thermal insulation of previous designs, the compute die is now closer to the thermal interface material (IHS). With this increased thermal headroom comes 500 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz higher boosts than the previous-gen Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

In our 13-game average with resolutions set to 1920 x 1080 pixels, the 9800X3D topped the charts. Outperforming the 7800X3D which it replaced.

You can find more details and benchmarking results on AMD's Ryzen 7 processor in our detailed review of the 9800X3D. With an 8% performance gain on the previous generation 7800X3D, and dominates the competition from Intel in gaming benchmarks. The 9800X3D is unlocked for overclocking and also doesn't have excessive cooling requirements, making this processor one of the best CPUs for pure gaming.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, or CPU Deals pages.

Jump straight into high-end, high-res gaming with this prebuilt gaming powerhouse from system integrator ABS. If you're not comfortable building your own PC, then buying a prebuilt PC is your best option. Picking the best parts and assembling them together for your dream PC is one of the exciting aspects of constructing your own rig, but this doesn't come without some limited risk and apprehension. Buying a prebuilt PC gives you some peace of mind and assurance of parts compatibility.

Grab the ABS Statos Aqua Gaming PC for $2,999 at Newegg, which saves you $300 off the list price of $3,299. The ABS Startos Aqua packs one of the best CPUs for gaming - the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, as well as Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD for storage.

The CPU used in this build is the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D; this processor features eight cores and 16 threads, with a 120W TDP and is unlocked for overclocking, although it certainly doesn't need it.

AMD's processor even has integrated Radeon graphics, but you pair this processor with a powerful graphics card for the best gaming experience, and in this build, it's Nvidia's RTX 5080.

This gaming PC also uses liquid cooling, a 1000W power supply, and a white ATX PC case with a glass side panel. A mesh front panel allows better airflow for improved component cooling. Check the Newegg page for a list of all components used in this build.

It's only been around for the last 6 months, but the Ryzen 7 9800X3D has cemented itself as one of the best gaming CPUs on the market. With its hefty stacked 3D V-Cache, it has been the in-demand CPU for gaming since its launch and has previously been very hard to obtain. Now, with more available stock, we've seen the processor not only become readily available but also undergo its first price cut below the original MSRP.

Available at Amazon, you can now pick up the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor for $472. It's not an absolutely massive saving, but it's cheaper, and hopefully a sign that computer components may weather the storm in terms of pricing due to tariffs and other economic influences.

You can find more details of the performance of the Ryzen 7 processor in our detailed review of the 9800X3D. With an 8% performance gain on the previous generation 7800X3D, and easily outperforms the competition from Intel in gaming benchmarks. The 9800X3D is unlocked for overclocking and has minimal cooling requirements, making it the best choice for a high-end gaming rig.

The 9800X3D features eight cores and 16 threads, with a 120W TDP and is unlocked for overclocking. There is even integrated Radeon graphics, but you would of course want to pair this processor with a powerful graphics card for the best gaming experience.

A common thread among increasing user reports of failing Ryzen 9000 CPUs was their connection to an ASRock AM5 motherboard. Citing a conversation with the partner at Computex, Tech Yes City has brought to light that ASRock's initial PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) presets were set too aggressively for initial CPU samples. It is believed these aggressive settings are what ultimately lead to the premature demise of these processors. AMD declined to comment on the story, while ASRock wasn't immediately available.

Earlier this year, reports of failing AMD Ryzen 9000 (Granite Ridge) processors were common on Reddit and other forums. ASRock initially dismissed reports connecting their motherboards to the problem as 'misinformation', all the while supplying a new BIOS to address boot-up and memory compatibility issues. Affected users had no other choice but to RMA their broken CPUs.

According to new details from Tech Yes City, the problem stems from the amperage (current) supplied to the processor under AMD's PBO technology. Precision Boost Overdrive employs an algorithm that dynamically adjusts clock speeds for peak performance, based on factors like temperature, power, current, and workload. The issue is reportedly confined to ASRock's high-end and mid-range boards, as they were tuned far too aggressively for Ryzen 9000 CPUs.

Who doesn't love a good small form factor PC? The only big problem is that their miniature parts, such as Mini-ITX motherboards, cases, and power supplies often come at a premium cost, compared to their bigger ATX cousins.

However, Newegg has discounted Asus's ROG Strix B650E-I Gaming Wi-Fi motherboard by $70, with an additional $20 off when using the promo code "SSESA976", for a limited time. There is also an additional combo saving if you pair the motherboard with the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. While it may not be on the newest AM5 chipset out there, it's one of the most cost-effective AM5 ITX motherboards out there.

The ROG Strix B650E-I Gaming Wi-Fi is a solid ITX motherboard for building the rest of your system around, thanks to its various quality-of-life features. One example is a dedicated BIOS flashback button, in addition to a 10 + 2 power stage design rated to 70A to deliver ample current for whatever AM5 CPU you choose to drop in, such as the best gaming CPU out right now, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

You also get a total of eight USB ports around the rear, with one USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (over Type-C), five USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports (four USB-A, one Type-C), and two additional USB 2.0 ports. There's also support for up to five additional front USB ports, including USB 3.2 Gen 2.

Asus also offers its "Q-Design" features across this motherboard, which includes LED status indicators, in case you run into any system issues later down the line, which is incredibly helpful to have on any motherboard, and can save you time while diagnosing potentially faulty parts.

Moreover, the fact that the price has come close to crashing down to $209.99 for a higher-end B650E board is fantastic. Unless you require the advanced features of newer, higher-end AM5 chipsets, this board is more than capable enough to build an entire ITX system around.

Additionally, AMD has committed to supporting the AM5 socket until at least 2027, so you won't need to chuck this motherboard out any time soon. Later down the line, you could also potentially upgrade your CPU, which may be a wise move for those looking to build a small-form-factor system while on a budget.

If you've been trying to get your hands on the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D since its launch in March, then I'm happy to report that you can now score one at MSRP at not one but two retailers ahead of this Memorial Day weekend.

Right now, you can grab one at the MSRP of $699 at Amazon, and also at B&H Photo, both with free shipping and just a few days' lead time. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is our slam-dunk best CPU pick for high-performance gaming, thanks to its performant hardware and energy efficiency. It's not cheap, but if you're in the market, this is your best chance yet to buy one.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the best high-performance CPU for gaming on the market right now. It's the fastest 16-core chip in gaming, offering near-parity, on average, with the 9800X3D, without compromising productivity performance. It's also fully overclockable and energy efficient, with AVX-512 support in tow.

Our CPU benchmarks reveal it is 37% faster than the flagship Intel Core 9 285K in 1080p gaming, and 26% faster than the Core i9-14900K on average. Gaming performance is buoyed in part by AMD's 3D V-Cache technology, with the second-gen revision on offer here taking the chips to a whole new level.

As noted, the 9950X3D is clocked to a 4.3 GHz base speed, with 5.7 GHz boosted speeds. It's also unlocked, so ripe for overclocking if the mood strikes you. Specifically, Ryzen-optimized AMD EXPO profiles enable user-friendly overclocking

Connectivity on offer includes NVME, native USB 4, USB 3.2, and PCIe 5.0, perfect for pairing with any good GPU, SSD, and up to 192GB of DDR5-5600 memory. It also has integrated Radeon graphics if you need them.

Our only reservation with the 9950X3D is the pretty steep price, but given it's very new and hard to get hold of, there's simply no chance of scoring a discount on it at this stage. In fact, even finding it at MSRP is an undertaking, hence our excitement about these listings.

It might not be Memorial Day yet, but Newegg has already gotten on board the deals train. Among the best on offer right now is the humble Ryzen 5 9600X, which is currently $208.99, a saving of $70 off the original MSRP.

The deal includes AMD's entry-level AM5 CPU and a 16 GB kit of DDR5-6000 TeamGroup T-Force DELTAα RGB RAM alongside it. So, you save a cool $70 on the CPU itself and around $75 on memory, bringing the total value of your savings to around $145.

AMD's Ryzen 5 9600X offers a good entry point for users who want good gaming performance on the modern AMD AM5 platform, without splashing out for any of their faster, fancier 3D V-cache-equipped processors, such as the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

Launched in August 2024, AMD's Ryzen 5 9600X is a solid performer, which we've even listed as our best mid-range CPU for gaming. While its original MSRP might have been a tough pill to swallow, the chip keeps getting cheaper, first falling to below $250, and now to just $208. Thanks the the CPU's maturity, those brave enough can also select an alternative BIOS which can boost the chip's TDP from 65W to 105W, which has its own benefits in certain productivity applications.

Just note that despite its 3.9 GHz base clock and 5.4 GHz boost clock, the chip doesn't come with AMD's Wraith series coolers, so you'll have to buy one for yourself. Luckily, the 9600X is easy to cool, as we noted in our review.

Best of all, the bundle already includes RAM, so if you are moving from an older AM4 build, you won't have to worry about purchasing another kit for your new build. While the TeamGroup RAM included in the bundle includes snazzy RGB lighting, it isn't the fastest DDR5-6000 kit out there, but for a mid-range build, it should suffice. Considering that AM5 chips have previously been fairly pricey in the past, now could be the perfect opportunity to upgrade your older system.

Furthermore, the 9600X isn't just a solid CPU, but if you inevitably wish to upgrade it later down the line, AMD has committed to the AM5 socket until at least 2027 or beyond.

Given the amount of value offered for this deal, it might be one of the better PC component deals we see on this side of Memorial Day.

One of Intel's latest processors, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, is now available at Amazon for one of its lowest prices. It has a recommended price of $404 and has been going for around $340 lately. Today, however, the price has plummeted to $269—one of the lowest CPU offers since it first released.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we saw a price drop on not only the Intel Core 7 265K and other editions in the line, such as the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K. In that post, we point out a possible caveat with an investment into the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K, mainly concerning the LGA1851 socket it relies on. This standard may be replaced soon and would require an upgraded motherboard to get a new processor, which makes for a substantial investment.

Most of my cooling reviews are designed to let you know what the best and most powerful cooling solutions are. But not everyone is looking to overclock the hottest Intel i9 CPU. Instead of focusing on the best possible performance, today’s review will be looking at Endorfy’s Fortis 5 air cooler, which won’t win any overclocking competitions, but runs quietly while delivering enough cooling performance to satisfy the needs of mainstream consumers and gamers.

Let’s take a look at the specifications and features of the cooler, then we’ll go over thermal performance so you’ll know how cool it will keep your computer’s processor. We’ll also look at noise measurements to let you know how silently this product operates.

Cooler specifications

Packing and included contents

The exterior of the box isn’t flashy, but it showcases the features of the product well.

Included with the box are the following:

• 140mm fan
• Thick single-tower heatsink
• Thermal paste
• Mounting accessories for modern AMD & Intel platforms

Features of Endorfy Fortis 5 ARGB

▶ Rigid backplate

The included backplate is extremely strong, and won’t bend even under pressure.

▶ AM Clearance

There’s no reason to worry about RAM clearances with Endorfy’s Fortis 5 ARGB. As you can see in the picture below, the fan doesn’t interfere or overhang DIMM slots, allowing full compatibility no matter how tall (or short) your RAM is.

▶ Six Direct Touch Heatpipes

It is generally rare to see coolers with more than four or five direct-touch copper heatpipes, but Endorfy’s Fortis 5 has six of them! In theory, direct touch heatpipes should allow for more efficient heat transfer. Is that really the case? Well, we’ll get to the benchmarks soon enough and you can decide for yourself based on our tests.

▶ Thick single tower heatsink

Most air coolers incorporate one or two smaller heatsink towers, but Endorfy’s Fortis 5 incorporates one larger, thick heatsink.

The backside of the cooler incorporates a canyon in the middle. While Endorfy didn’t specifically comment on this design, other companies with similar designs have claimed it helps increase to static pressure of airflow.

▶ 40mm Fluctus ARGB fan

There’s more to a cooler than just the heatsink or radiator. The bundled fans have a significant impact on cooling and noise levels, as well as how the cooler looks in your case. The included Fluctus ARGB fan has 9 blades, with teeth on the edges of each fan blade. I’m not sure if those teeth serve any real purpose, but they sure look menacing!

Many cheaper products include fans with MTTF ratings of only 40-60,000 hours of operation, but not Endorfy. They indicate confidence in the quality of their product with a rating of 100,000+ hours for the Fluctus 140 ARGB fan.

Real world testing configuration: Intel LGA1700 and AMD AM5 platform

My results may differ from others because I place an emphasis on having results that are comparable to real-world use.

This means that I test CPU coolers inside of a closed desktop case, which increases cooling difficulty compared to other testing methods. Open benches have lower ambient temperatures, which in turn makes weak coolers appear stronger than they really are. Some publications have also used generic thermal plates to test cooling solutions.

I reject both of these methods because they don’t accurately reflect the real-world conditions where a CPU cooler is used.

My previous reviews have also tested Intel’s latest platform, using the Core Ultra 9 285K Arrow Lake CPU. We’re going to be retiring this from our testing suite. Between BIOS updates and Windows updates, Arrow Lake’s thermal characteristics have changed in some scenarios, rendering much of our previous testing data useless.

With today’s review, we’re also testing AMD’s recently released Ryzen 9 9950X3D. This is a beast of a CPU, providing the best gaming and some of the best multithreaded performance on the market, and can prove quite challenging thermally when PBO is enabled for overclocking.

LGA 1700 and AMD AM5 Installation

The installation of this cooler is simple and should be easy to complete for most users. It’s also pretty much the same process for Intel and AMD systems.

1. You’ll first need to place the backplate against the rear of the motherboard on an Intel system, using the standoffs to secure it. AMD users will need to remove the default mounting mechanism and replace it with the included standoffs.

2. Next, place the mounting bracket on top of the standoffs and secure it with the included screws.

3. Apply the included thermal paste to your CPU. If you have any questions on how to do this properly, please refer to our handy guide on how to apply thermal paste.

4. Place the CPU block on top of the CPU and secure it with a screwdriver.

5. Attach the fan and then connect the PWM cable to your motherboard, and installation is complete.

CPU-only thermal results without power limits

Because the CPU reaches its peak temperature (TJ Max) with air coolers like the one we’re looking at with this review, I’ve measured the CPU package power to determine the maximum wattage cooled to best compare their performance. This is why you won’t see results from the best AIO coolers in this chart.

It’s important to note that thermal performance can scale differently depending on the CPU it’s being tested with. First, we’ll look at results with Intel’s i7-14700K.

Looking at the results with Intel’s Raptor Lake CPU, you might think this cooler isn’t very impressive. It’s the worst-performing result I have in this chart, outside of a compact SFF cooler. Let’s take a look at how it handles AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D now.

This is a much more impressive result. With 219W cooled on average, Endorfy’s Fortis 5 is able to handle the full “stock” power of AMD’s flagship CPU (~200W) and has a little bit of room to spare to let PBO push the CPU beyond its typical performance.

Noise levels are where this cooler shines. While thermal performance on Intel’s hottest CPUs isn’t the greatest, this cooler isn’t designed to win overclocking competitions. It’s designed to provide quietly running, essential cooling performance. With a maximum noise level of 37.3 dBA, this cooler is the quietest product I’ve tested on Intel’s Z790 Platform.

CPU-only noise normalized thermal results

Finding the right balance between fan noise levels and cooling performance is important. While running fans at full speed can improve cooling capacity to some extent, the benefits are limited and many users prefer a quieter system.

For noise-normalized testing with Intel CPUs, I typically set the noise levels of the cooler to reach 38.9 dBA. But this presents a problem: Endorfy’s Fortis 5 doesn’t reach that level of noise! Because this issue prevents a proper comparison to the other results I’ve collected, I’ll be skipping noise-normalized tests on Intel’s Core i7-14700K.

Let’s take a look at my initial noise-normalized results using AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D instead. This chart is still lacking the amount of comparison results I’d like, as I’ve just started sting with this CPU. That said, let’s take a look at what I have recorded thus far.

This test was run a little differently than I have done with previous tests on Intel CPUs. I’ve lowered the noise threshold of the CPU cooler down to 37.3 dBA, as some readers have indicated they consider 38.9 dBA “too loud” for this type of test. The other change is that I’ve measured the thermal performance of the cooler while also running Furmark 2 on MSI’s RTX 4070 TI Super, increasing the heat inside the case and increasing cooling difficulty.

The results here are encouraging. With 195W cooled, that’s almost the full power budget of AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D at “stock” settings while the system also handles the full heat of a GPU. It performed significantly better than Thermalright’s impressive Royal Knight 120 SE in the same scenario!

“Stock” 200W results

My recent reviews have focused more on tests with both the CPU and GPU being stressed, but many have indicated they would like to see more CPU-only tests. So let’s take a look at how Endorfy’s Fortis 5 handles the Ryzen 9950X3D with default power levels, which limits consumption to ~200W.

Going by temperature data alone, the results aren’t very impressive here. The CPU reaches a toasty 83.7 degrees. But that really doesn’t matter, because it keeps the CPU under its peak temperature and does so while running very quietly, at or below the lowest measurement my noise meter can measure, at 36.4 dBA. This means the true measurement of noise level might actually be lower.

150W CPU + 290W GPU results

Testing a CPU Cooler in isolation is great for synthetic benchmarks, but doesn’t tell the whole story of how it will perform. If your GPU is running a full load, that heat doesn’t just disappear – it makes it harder for your CPU cooler to do its job due to the increased heat within your computer case.

The CPU power limit of 150W was chosen based on the worst CPU power consumption I’ve seen reported in gaming with AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D. In my personal experience, most games use much lower power, but this might be biased by the games I play.

Again, looking at thermal performance alone would give you the incorrect assumption that this cooler is not impressive. The important thing is that the CPU is operating well under its peak temperature, and the cooler is running whisper quiet – 36.4 dBA!

140W CPU results

The last round of test results we’ll look at in today’s review is a test with a 140W power limit imposed. This level of power is much easier for most CPU coolers to handle. But I’ve recorded lower power results for comparisons with SFF and air coolers for future reviews.

As with previous results, Endorfy’s Fortis 5 keeps the CPU within reasonable thermal values while running whisper quiet.

Conclusion

Endorfy’s Fortis 5 ARGB is a single tower air cooler with whisper-quiet noise levels, intended for users who value silent operation over maximum thermal performance. It’s powerful enough to handle AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D at stock settings, handling 219W when power limits were removed. However, the performance on Intel CPUs was not as impressive. If you’re looking to compete in overclocking competitions or running a previous-generation Core i9, you might want to pass on this one. But for everyone else, this is the level of cooling I’d recommend for AMD’s Ryzen 9 9950X3D, so anything lesser should also run below thermal thresholds and extremely quiet with this cooler.

When it comes to the best gaming PCs available for consumers, there’s an embarrassment of riches covering a wide variety of price points. Today, we have the Corsair Vengeance a7500, which includes plenty of high-end hardware to satisfy demanding gamers.

The system is loaded to the gills with an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, a 1TB PCIE 5.0 SSD, a Corsair Nautilus 240mm water cooling unit, and an attractive Corsair 3500X mid-tower case. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Vengeance a7500 is rocking a Blackwell-based GPU, in this case, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti.

However, all that of hardware goodness means that the Vengeance a7500 pushes the upper boundaries of pricing for mainstream pre-built gaming desktops with an MSRP of $2,799.99.

Corsair Vengeance a7500 Specifications

Design of the Corsair Vengeance a7500

As the young folks say, the Vengeance a7500’s design is “lit” in more ways than one. Corsair's 3500X mid-tower case is staid and attractive with tempered glass for the front and left side panels. The side panels, in particular, are worth mentioning, as they feature a tool-less design. The bottom-hinged panels attach to the chassis using friction pins, allowing you to pull outward to remove and push back in to reinstall. It’s simple, effective, and highly preferable to dealing with Phillips or thumb screws.

Numerous Y-shaped ventilation cutouts are located on the bottom of the chassis and on the right side panel, where there’s a vertical strip of cutouts corresponding to the three stacked 120mm ARGB cooling fans. The top panel is also fully ventilated and occupied by two additional 120mm ARGB cooling fans. The final 120mm ARGB fan is on the back of the case. The top, bottom, and right side panels have removable mesh dust filters installed.

But the RGB light show doesn’t end there: the two DDR5-6400 modules also incorporate RGB into their heat spreaders, the AIO liquid cooler features an RGB element, and the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Gaming OC 16G graphics card has an RGB-lit Gigabyte logo. Given the expansive view inside the case due to the generous use of glass, the Vengeance a7500 is a visual treat for the eyes, whether the PC is sitting on the floor or on top of your desk.

The Vengeance a7500 measures 9.45 x 18.11 x 19.92 inches and weighs 31 pounds. For comparison, the Corsair Vengeance i7600 measures 9.45 x 19.92 x 18.11 inches, while the Alienware Area-51 is 9.12 x 22.4 x 24.04 inches.

Ports and Upgradability on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

Once you get past the visual treats, you’ll notice that the top of the chassis contains a power button, reset button, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, and a 3.5 mm headphone/mic combo jack.

Corsair fitted our Vengeance a7500 with an MSI Pro X870-P Wi-Fi motherboard, which supports AM5 chips from AMD’s Ryzen 7000, 8000, and 9000 series (our review unit had a Ryzen 7 9800X3D installed). The motherboard features a single HDMI port (for the integrated Radeon graphics), two USB-C ports (one 20 Gbps, one 40 Gbps), four USB 2.0 Type-A ports, two USB 5 Gbps Type-A ports, and two USB 10 Gbps Type-A ports. There is also a 5 GbE LAN port, three audio connectors, two ports for connecting the included antenna for the onboard Wi-Fi 7 adapter, along with clear CMOS and flash BIOS buttons.

The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Gaming OC graphics card has three DisplayPort 2.1b ports and one HDMI 2.1b port.

The motherboard includes four PCIe x16 slots, with PCI_E1 supporting up to PCIe 5.0 x16 for Ryzen 9000 and Ryzen 9000 processors. PCI_E2 and PCI_E3 support up to PCIe 3.0 x1, and PCI_E4 supports PCIe 4.0 x4. There are three onboard M.2 slots, with M.2_1 supporting up to PCIe 5.0 x4 (our review unit’s M.2_1 slot was populated by a Corsair MP700 Elite 1TB PCIe 5.0 SSD. There are four DDR5 memory slots on the MSI Pro X870-P Wi-Fi motherboard, two of which were filled with 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6400 modules on our review unit.

If you need to add internal storage beyond what the three M.2 slots can offer, a removable drive plate can accommodate up to two HDDs and two additional SSDs simultaneously.

Gaming Performance on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

The Vengeance a7500 packs some pretty impressive hardware, starting with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, which ranks as one of our best CPUs for gaming. That processor is backed by 32GB of DDR5-6400 memory, and is paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card.

We don’t have a full assortment of Blackwell-equipped gaming desktops in our test database yet, but we do have the Alienware Area-51 (Core Ultra 9 285K, RTX 5090, and a far more expensive $5,759.99) for comparison. We also used the Vengeance i7600 (Core Ultra 7 265K, RTX 4070 Super) to compare Blackwell against a previous-generation GPU.

With a sticker price well north of $2,000, I expected great performance from the Vengeance a7500 and wasn’t disappointed. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently playing Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and I played the game on my 240 Hz DQHD (5120 x 1440) gaming monitor. With all of the detail settings cranked up, I saw performance of around 100 to 120 frames per second (FPS).

Switching gears to our usual battery of gaming tests, I started with the Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Highest setting). The Vengeance a7500 commanded 261 FPS at 1080p and 89 FPS at 4K resolution. For comparison, that performance bettered the Vengeance i7600 with an RTX 4070 Super by nearly 70 FPS and 26 FPS, respectively. The Area 51 didn't quite match the Vengeance a7500 at 1080p, with only 244 FPS (likely due to the fact that the Ryzen 9800X3D is the stronger gaming CPU), but it obliterated it at 4K, delivering 169 FPS.

The Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark (Medium settings) also showed strong performance from the Vengeance a7500. The Vengeance managed over 94 FPS at 1080p and nearly 30 FPS at 4K. Of course, the Area-51 with its RTX 5090 dominated the field, with 122 FPS at 1080p, nearly doubling the a7500's 4K performance with 57 FPS.

Far Cry 6 (Ultra settings) is a CPU-intensive game, and the Vengeance a7500 showed its gaming prowess over the two Intel-based competitors assembled. At 1080p, the Vengeance a7500 and its RTX 5070 Ti took a commanding lead with 197 FPS compared to 124 FPS for the Vengeance i7600 and 126 FPS for the Area-51. However, with the resolution cranked to 4K, the Area-51 managed a win with 119 FPS compared to 105 FPS for the Vengeance a7500.

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Medium settings) has been a thorn in the side for many of the Blackwell-equipped gaming systems we've tested, especially at 1080p. While the Area-51 couldn't complete the benchmark at 1080p when we reviewed it due to driver issues, the Vengeance a7500 achieved 174 FPS compared to just 107 FPS for the Vengeance i7600. Switching to 4K, the Area-51 flexed its mighty RTX 5090 muscle with 109 FPS compared to 67.47 FPS for the Vengeance a7500.

Our final gaming benchmark is Borderlands 3 (Badass setting), another CPU-heavy game. This time around, the Vengeance a7500 hit 226.70 FPS at 1080p and 94.26 FPS at 4K. This put the system well ahead of the Vengeance i7600 (176 FPS and 67 FPS, respectively) but well shy of the Area-51, which managed 251 FPS at 1080p and 119 FPS at 4K.

Metro Exodus remains our go-to for stress testing, and through a 15-loop marathon, the Vengeance a7500 averaged 145.96 FPS.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D averaged 5.04 GHz during the stress test, while the CPU measured 49.36 degrees Celsius. As for the RTX 5070 Ti, its maximum GPU clock was 2,735 MHz at an average temperature of 57.75 C.

Productivity Performance on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

The Vengeance a7500 is a speedy performer in the productivity department, thanks to its Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, 32GB of DDR5 memory, and a speedy 1TB PCIe 5.0 SSD.

The Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark showed that the Vengeance a7500, with its Ryzen 7 9800X3D barely slid into first place with 3,247 on the single-core score. However, the two Intel-based rivals turned with more cores upped the heat on the multi-core benchmark, with the Area-51 leading the field with 21,786 compared to 18,124 for the Vengeance a7500.

Thanks to its PCIe 5.0 SSD, the Vengeance a7500 led its competitors significantly on our file transfer test (which involves transferring 25GB of mixed media files). It managed 2,659.94 Mbps, compared to 1,585.18 Mbps for the Vengeance i7600 and 1,898.26 Mbps for the Area-51.

Finally, our Handbrake benchmark saw this most significant setback for the Vengeance a7500 compared to the competition. We transcode a 4K video file to 1080p during this test, and the Vengeance a7500 completed the task in just over three minutes. However, the Vengeance i7600 and Area-51 finished in under two minutes.

Software and Warranty on the Corsair Vengeance a7500

Corsair ships the Vengeance a7500 with Windows 11 Home and one of its own utilities: Corsair Diagnostics. The app, as its name implies, allows you to view system information, run stress tests, and perform checkup utilities on your desktop.

The company’s oft-maligned iCUE app is not installed from the factory, although I chose to install it on my own. Once installed, iCUE gives you handy readouts of critical temperatures for your CPU and GPU. The app also allowed me to control the RGB effects on the Vengeance DDR5 modules, but not the case fans or the RGB element on the AIO water cooler.

The Vengeance a7500 comes with a two-year manufacturer's warranty. That's longer than the one year you get on many prebuilt machines.

Corsair Vengeance a7500 Configurations

The Vengeance a7500 is available in several configurations, direct from Corsair. Our review unit features a Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6400 memory, a 1TB Corsair MP700 Elite PCIe 5.0 SSD, an MSI Pro X870-P WIFI, a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Gaming OC, a Corsair 850W 80+ Gold power supply, and a Corsair Nautilus 240mm water cooler. The price of admission is $2,799.99, which is a princely sum for a gaming desktop. However, it comes nowhere close to the $5,759.99 asking price of the Alienware Area-51 and its RTX 5090.

Corsair also offers configurations with RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 GPUs and more potent CPUs, if you prefer. For example, a configuration with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, RTX 5090, 32GB of DDR5, and 2TB SSD costs $3,999.99. If you want to go all out, a system with a Ryzen 9 9900X3D, RTX 5090, 64GB of DDR5, and 4TB of SSD storage costs a whopping $6,899.99.

If you want to branch out with a Radeon RX 9700XT processor instead of the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, Best Buy offers the Vengeance a7500 for $3,199.99. Best Buy also offers a Call of Duty Warzone Edition of the Vengeance a7500 with a Radeon 9070 XT GPU, and 2TB SSD for $3,399.99. In addition, there’s another Call of Duty Warzone Edition with a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and 2TB SSD for $3,399.99.

Just for comparison, if you were to purchase all the components separately for the a7500 and put it together yourself, it would cost $2,533.89.

Bottom Line

Corsair continues to build high-quality, high-performance gaming desktops. The Vengeance a7500 is not only a great-looking rig with its generous use of tempered glass and copious amounts of RGB fans, but it also has plenty of ventilation to keep the internals cool under load.

Corsair's use of a Ryzen 7 9800X3D proved to be the perfect match for the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics cards. While the RTX 5070 Ti is obviously no match for the RTX 5090, we saw games exceed 60 FPS at 4K in all the games in our test suite, with the exception of Cyberpunk 2077.

Given that this is a Corsair rig, it's no surprise that the company tossed in some of its excellent hardware as well, including its branded 850W 80+ Gold PSU, Vengeance DDR5 memory, a super quick PCIe 5.0 SSD, a Nautilus liquid cooling system, and a two-year factory warranty. When you add it all up, you have a highly capable, albeit slightly pricey, gaming desktop that can handle your current and future gaming needs.

Today, we'll put the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K in a heated contest to see which chip comes out on top. The best processor is not necessarily the one with the most number of cores or the highest clock speeds; rather, it is the one that fulfills your specific requirements and fits within your budget. Gamers do not necessarily require the highest-end chip to enjoy the latest AAA games, although having one wouldn't hurt. However, numerous compelling reasons exist for a consumer to seek to acquire a flagship processor.

You may be part of a small, elite crowd of enthusiastic gamers with the financial capacity to acquire the latest and greatest mainstream processor. Alternatively, you could be among the type of users who use their systems for more than just casual gaming, thereby warranting a more substantial investment in a processor that provides considerable processing power alongside exceptional gaming performance. The million-dollar question remains whether to choose between Intel or AMD, as both chipmakers have released highly compelling flagship processors in the current market.

AMD currently has two coexisting mainstream processor lineups in the retail market. The vanilla Ryzen 9000 (codename Granite Ridge) series was the inaugural launch, later followed by the Ryzen 9000X3D series, which incorporates AMD's 3D V-Cache technology, significantly enhancing gaming performance. Consequently, AMD has two flagship products: the Ryzen 9 9950X3D from the 3D V-Cache branch and the Ryzen 9 9950X from the main family. In contrast, Intel only has the Core Ultra 200S (codenamed Arrow Lake) series to compete against AMD, with the Core Ultra 9 285K as the singular leader of Intel's army.

Features and Specifications: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D features Zen 5 execution cores and adheres to a conventional 16-core, 32-thread configuration. On the contrary, the Core Ultra 9 285K employs a hybrid design, integrating P-cores (Lion Cove) and E-cores (Skymont). Consequently, the Core Ultra 9 285K showcases a 24-core, 24-thread design. With Arrow Lake, Intel went with an approach without Hyper-Threading, so the Core Ultra 9 285K has fewer threads than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

Concerning clock speeds, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D exhibits a 16% greater base clock speed than the Core Ultra 9 285K. However, both processors possess identical boost clocks. For cache capacity, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is equipped with AMD's 3D V-Cache, providing a total cache of 144MB (16MB L2 + 128MB L3). On the other hand, the Core Ultra 9 285K is accompanied by a cache capacity of 76MB (36MB L2 + 40MB L3). Consequently, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has 3.2X more L3 cache, which is advantageous for gaming and specific workloads.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has a 36% greater TDP (Thermal Design Power) or, in Intel's case, PBP (Processor Base Power), than the Core Ultra 9 285K. Nevertheless, the latter features a 9% higher MTP (Maximum Turbo Power). Therefore, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has superior power efficiency to the Core Ultra 9 285K.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Core Ultra 9 285K support PCIe 5.0 connectivity and DDR5 memory. Both provide 24 high-speed PCIe 5.0 lanes to support the latest graphics cards and PCIe 5.0 SSDs. Regarding memory support, only the Core Ultra 9 285K has embraced CUDIMMs (Clocked Unbuffered Dual In-line Memory Modules), bumping the native supported frequency up to DDR5-6400. As far as conventional DIMMs are concerned, both support DDR5-5600.

Platform longevity favors the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, as the chip resides on the AM5 platform, which was launched in 2022 with AMD's commitment to providing support until 2027. On the other hand, the Core Ultra 9 285K uses the LGA1851 platform, which was released in 2024, but its life span is likely to be limited. There are indications that Intel may refresh Arrow Lake for LGA1851 before transitioning to the LGA1954 platform for forthcoming processors.

⭐ Winner: Tie

Specification-wise, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has a big L3 cache thanks to AMD's 3D V-Cache technology and lower power consumption overall than the Core Ultra 9 285K. Another of AMD's strengths is the life expectancy of the AM5 platform, which is substantially higher than LGA1851. Investing in the platform now offers a ticket for future processor upgrades.

The LGA1851, in contrast, represents a fading platform. Arrow Lake may be the sole chip to utilize the LGA1851 platform, or possibly Arrow Lake Refresh, assuming the latest rumors are true. This is not particularly surprising, as the typical cadence for Intel sockets has consistently been two or three generations of chips, unlike AMD.

In LGA1851's defense, it is presently the sole platform that completely supports CUDIMMs. One advantage the Core Ultra 9 285K holds over the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the possibility of leveraging CUDIMMs, such as high-speed memory DDR5-9200 and beyond. Nevertheless, considering the long life span of AM5, it is likely that full CUDIMM support will be introduced for AMD's platform in due course.

Gaming Benchmarks and Performance: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

This article provides an overview of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Core Ultra 9 285K's performance metrics. We have also published in-depth individual reviews of these two CPUs, which you can refer to for more details. These graphs show the geometric mean of our gaming test results with these two CPUs at 1080p (1920x1080) resolution.

We paired both CPUs with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card to minimize potential bottlenecks. Testing at 1080p might seem irrelevant for such a powerful setup, but this resolution allows us to see the full potential of our CPUs in gaming.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D outperformed the Core Ultra 9 285K in gaming performance. This outcome was anticipated, as gaming performance is the former's most notable strength, attributable to the substantial L3 cache enabled by AMD's 3D V-Cache technology.

Cumulatively, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D yielded average frame rates that were 34% higher than those of the Core Ultra 9 285K throughout our testing suite of 16 games, utilizing a combination of High and Ultra graphical settings at 1080p. Furthermore, the AMD flagship demonstrated a 27% higher result in 1% Lows.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Core Ultra 9 285K hit the market at $699 and $620, respectively. The former presents 0.28 FPS per dollar, while the latter offers 0.23. Despite costing 13% more, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has more gaming value for your money. While the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has maintained its pricing, the Core Ultra 9 285K has dropped to $589, reaching 0.25.

⭐ Winner: AMD

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is undoubtedly the better choice for gaming enthusiasts. While the Core Ultra 9 285K is a capable gaming processor, it falls short compared to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which is almost 35% faster in average frame rates and close to 30% faster in 1% Lows.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has consistently maintained a higher price point than the Core Ultra 9 285K. Notwithstanding the recent price reductions of the Core Ultra 9 285K, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D continues to provide better value in gaming.

Productivity Performance: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D flaunts superior multi-threaded performance, but the contest is heated. The Zen 5 processor delivers a mere 3% higher multi-threaded performance than the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Looking at benchmarks individually, there are times when the Core Ultra 9 285K is substantially faster. For example, the Intel chip boasted 18% higher results in POV-Ray or 11% higher in HandBrake x265. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D also has its moments, such as in V-Ray 6, where it outperformed the Core Ultra 9 285K by 17%.

Intel continues to be the leader in single-threaded performance; however, the disparity has been narrowing, as evidenced by the current generation. The Core Ultra 9 285K achieved a 9% better single-threaded overall than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

The POV-Ray benchmark clearly favors the Core Ultra 9 285K, which significantly surpassed the Ryzen 9 9950X3D by an impressive 31%. Conversely, the performance delta between the two processors wasn't as big in other workloads.

⭐ Winner: Tie

There is no definitive victor in this comparison. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D has higher multi-threaded performance relative to the Core Ultra 9 285K. Nevertheless, the disparity stands at merely 3%, a difference that may not be noteworthy across all workloads.

Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 9 285K is better at single-thread performance than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, where the former exhibits a speed increase of 9% over the latter. It can be argued that a loss of 3% is more tolerable than a loss of 9%; this perspective holds validity when one prioritizes a chip for productivity purposes while overlooking gaming considerations.

Overclocking: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K have unlocked multipliers and are ready for your manual overclocking endeavors. The quality of overclocking can vary significantly between processors, and currently, we do not possess a substantial number of samples from which to derive definitive conclusions. Our results are primarily based on our overclocking experiences with the single sample available in our lab.

In the context of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, we activated AMD's Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) functionality. For the PBO configuration, we utilized the 'advanced' and 'motherboard' power settings, accompanied by a 10X scalar adjustment and an increase of 200 MHz in the clock speed. Furthermore, we implemented a -15 all-core Curve Optimizer offset.

We've also experimented with Intel's latest '200S Boost' feature combined with some manual overclocking. But the long story short is that there isn't much practical headroom for performance gains with fabric overclocking. Intel also offers manual tuning for the P-cores and E-cores, though the actual performance gains are heavily weighted towards the latter.

⭐ Winner: Tie

Unlike the old Pentium, modern processors arrive with little headroom for serious overclocking with conventional cooling. It's a two-way street. On a positive note, you can rest easy at night knowing their chips are at or near their potential. However, on the downside, the art of extracting additional performance at no cost is slowly fading away.

Power Consumption, Efficiency, and Cooling: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

On the contrary, the Core Ultra 9 285K reveals a higher power consumption during various workload scenarios. The Intel chip operates within a power range of 219W to 325W, whereas its AMD counterpart operates between 178W and 228W. Notably, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has a peak power consumption that is 30% lower than that of the Core Ultra 9 285K.

Most PCs rarely truly idle; users might leave various applications open on the desktop. There's also an 'active idle' use case wherein the user does a low-load activity, such as browsing the web or watching a YouTube video. To model this behavior, we created an active idle test (second slide) with two browser windows open (one with two tabs idling on a website and another window with a 4K YouTube video stream playing). We measure this level of activity across a 15-minute timespan.

The Core Ultra 9 285K has 30% lower idle power consumption than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Furthermore, the Core Ultra 9 285 K's active idle power consumption during YouTube playback is particularly notable, as it consumes 39% less power.

The Core Ultra 9 285K was more power efficient in the Linpack workload, displaying a 5% lower watt-hour. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D excelled in the Cinebench 2024 workload, landing a 10% higher watts per point and a 13% lower watts per FPS in the HandBrake x265 test.

The ideal balance is performance at a reduced power consumption. To elaborate, the processor at the bottom right corner of the power efficiency charts represents the best chip in terms of efficiency. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D outperforms the Core Ultra 9 285K in multiple benchmarks.

⭐ Winner: AMD

The Core Ultra 9 285K wins at idle power consumption, but the Ryzen 9 9950X3D consumes less power under load. While both idle and average power consumption should be considered, the latter is ultimately more important since we typically use our systems under heavier use or in 'active idle' conditions rather than letting them truly idle for prolonged periods.

Furthermore, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has better power efficiency than the Core Ultra 9 285K. A power-efficient processor helps reduce system costs, including processor cooling and power supply capacity expenses. It also positively contributes to electricity savings.

Pricing: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D launched last month at $699. Since this processor recently came out of the oven, it's unrealistic to expect any price adjustments. Meanwhile, the Core Ultra 9 285K debuted at $620 in October 2024. Nowadays, you can find the flagship Arrow Lake chip at U.S. retailers for $589, 5% below the launch price.

Intel processors usually maintain their value until the next generation arrives. Therefore, it's unlikely that the Core Ultra 9 285K will officially get any cheaper. You may still find a retailer deal here or there.

To put things in perspective, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's gaming performance is 34% higher than the Core Ultra 9 285K while being 19% more expensive. The Zen 5 part has a 3% multi-threaded advantage over the Core Ultra 9 285K, but the Intel chip does have up to 9% higher single-threaded performance, though.

⭐ Winner: AMD

At $699, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D may look like a scary investment. However, our results show that even with that hefty price tag, the 3D V-Cache flagship gives you more value for your money in gaming. The multi-threaded performance isn't shabby, but it does lose out to the Core Ultra 9 285K in single-threaded performance.

The Ryzen 9 9950X3D already looks good. However, its appeal will grow further when the pricing starts to decline, whether through official price reductions or retailer promotions during special events such as Black Friday.

Bottom Line: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D vs Intel Core Ultra 9 285K

The gaming performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X3D was never in doubt, particularly given that lower-tier Zen 5 components equipped with 3D V-Cache have already surpassed the Core Ultra 9 285K by massive margins. However, the more important question is whether the Ryzen 9 9950X3D possesses any appeal outside the gaming realm. The answer to this inquiry is yes.

In addition to being a great gaming processor, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D can double as a productivity monster, similar to the vanilla Ryzen 9 9950X. Thanks to the Zen 5 architecture and the 16-core, 32-thread configuration, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D has no issues tackling demanding workloads, as long as they benefit from multi-threading. Unfortunately, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's single-threaded performance lags behind the Core Ultra 9 285K.

However, if you can overlook the Ryzen 9 9950X3D's single-threaded weakness, the Zen 5 chip is a fantastic all-around performer that's power efficient and offers support for the latest technology. And unlike the Core Ultra 9 285K, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D doesn't leave you feeling like you just bought an obsolete processor—at least for a couple of years.

With the gorgeous weather in the UK today, staying inside and playing computer games is probably not the best plan, plus, with the heat these massive graphics cards kick out, you do not want to be trapped in a room with them. If, however, you've been waiting with bated breath to get your hands on one of Nvidia's RTX 5090 behemoths, now's your chance.

It's finally back in stock and not on sale for a horrendously over-inflated MSRP price (the original MSRP is egregious enough), you can pick up this GPU with a slight discount and also grab a free premium edition of DOOM: The Dark Ages game up until May 21st.

This deal is available at Overclockers, where the Palit GeForce RTX 5090 GameRock graphics card is on sale for £2,099. This is a slight discount from the list price of £2,159 and the cheapest price I can find for this giant GPU in the UK.

The RTX 5090 comes with an uncompromising 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM on a 512-bit memory interface, which means you get a whopping 1792GB/s bandwidth capability. The core clock of this card is 2017MHz, with a boost clock of up to 2407MHz, using its 21760 CUDA cores to power your games.

The Palit GameRock RTX 5090 is contained in a large 3.5-slot chassis with triple-fan cooling and large heatsinks. It's brightly coloured, and will stand out in any build. You will need a large PC case to house this beast and a decent power supply to feed its 600W needs and cover transient power spikes.

If you're considering an RTX 5090 in your system, please check out our review of the Nvidia RTX 5090 and see how it performs across our gaming benchmarks, compare it against the competition, and previous generations of GPUs in our GPU Hierarchy.

AMD has been dominating the CPU space for a while now, especially the top-end gaming sphere, with their X3D line of processors that use a massive 3D V-cache of memory to enhance the processors' performance in gaming applications. Initially, it was near impossible to get your hands on AMD's gaming powerhouse, the 9800X3D, due to the high demand for the gaming CPU, but now that there is more stock availability, it's all about finding one for the best price.

Step in AWD-IT, which is currently selling the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D for just £445 (with free UK delivery). This is the cheapest price for this processor in the UK as of now, shaving £19 off the list price of £464. There are no extra costs for shipping either, so this is the total price you pay.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D uses AMD's successful 3D V-cache technology, which provides the 9800X3D with its pure gaming prowess. The large cache boosts performance, and along with design changes to the CPU, such as moving the cache chiplet underneath the die to alleviate the thermal insulation of previous designs, the compute die is now closer to the thermal interface material (IHS). With this increased thermal headroom comes 500 MHz higher base clocks and 200 MHz higher boosts than the previous-gen Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

You can find more details on the Ryzen 7 processor in our detailed review of the 9800X3D. With an 8% performance gain on the previous generation 7800X3D, and dominating the competition from Intel in gaming benchmarks. The 9800X3D is unlocked for overclocking and also doesn't have excessive cooling requirements, making this processor one of the best CPUs for pure gaming.

Motherboard vendors have started to deploy BIOS updates based on the AGESA 1.2.0.3C firmware. The new BIOS addresses a critical security vulnerability in AMD's Zen 5 chips found last month. This security flaw impacts Zen-based microprocessors across all product lines. While firmware updates patched Zen 1 to Zen 4, this vulnerability was only recently discovered with Zen 5.

According to AMD's security bulletin, the company relayed the updated firmware to motherboard vendors late last month. Due to the time each partner needs to integrate and validate new firmware for their unique BIOS on each motherboard model, we're only starting to see adoption now. So far, only MSI has the updated BIOS for some of its 800-series motherboards.

The specific vulnerability in question is called EntrySign (ID: AMD-SB-7033), and it allows unsigned and potentially malicious microcode to be executed on the CPU. The flaw stems from AMD's signature verification process, which used a weak hashing algorithm (AES-CMAC). This allowed researchers at Google to craft forged signatures for arbitrary or even malicious microcode. The catch is that said bad actors must have kernel-level (ring 0) privileges, and at that point, this bug should be the least of your concerns, at least in consumer-grade environments.

To be clear, hot-loaded microcodes don't persist across reboots. Every time you power down and reboot your system, the microcode resets to one that was permanently embedded in your CPU from the factory unless changed later in the boot process by the BIOS/OS, which adds another set of guardrails.

Every day, I scan through retailers and keep an eye on stock levels and pricing for the most popular PC components. I've started to notice that the stock levels of the 50-series graphics cards from Nvidia are trickling in more regularly. But the better supply has not resulted in better pricing for said cards. The markup from AIB's especially, is well above the MSRP price set by Nvidia, making this deal almost respectable in the current climate.

If you're not comfortable building your own PC, then buying a prebuilt PC is your best option. But you will pay extra for the privilege, and you may not always get the very best components. Sometimes PC building companies make savings by switching to OEM parts like the power supply, memory, and storage. This, of course, is not always the case. This deal lists all the hardware used in the build, so you can check for yourself what's inside and how much the parts cost individually.

Grab the ABS Eurus Aqua Gaming PC for $2,599 at Newegg, which saves you $300 off the list price of $2,899. The ABS Eurus Aqua packs one of the best CPUs for gaming - the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, as well as Nvidia's GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card, 32GB of DDR5 6000MHz memory, and a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD.

GPU Benchmarks Introduction

Tom's Hardware exhaustively benchmarks every GPU to find out which are worthy of our list of the best graphics cards. Our GPU benchmarks hierarchy ranks current and previous generation graphics cards by performance. Whether it's playing games, running artificial intelligence workloads, or doing professional video editing, your graphics card typically plays the biggest role in determining performance — even the best CPUs for gaming take a secondary role.

Our 2026 GPU Hierarchy testing spans three generations of Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, as well as Intel's Arc B-series GPUs.

Our testing has been made easier by the fact that no truly new gaming GPUs have been introduced in almost a year. If you haven't already upgraded your graphics card after the GeForce RTX 50-series and Radeon RX 9000-series launches in 2025, well, you're still looking at the exact same products now.

AMD did make its formerly China-only Radeon RX 9070 GRE available globally after Computex 2026, but in our review, we found that $549 product to be too expensive given the level of performance it delivers and the compromises made to hit its price point. Check out that coverage for all the details.

Most of the products we recommend remain at elevated prices compared to their MSRPs, but this is just life in mid-2026. It's admittedly cold comfort, but unless you're shopping for an RTX 5090, graphics card prices haven't risen much more than they already did earlier this year.

Compared to the doubling or tripling of prices we've seen for RAM kits and SSDs in 2026 versus last year, a GPU upgrade remains a relatively affordable (and self-contained) option, either as a boost for an existing PC or part of an all-new parts list.

Let's dive into our ranking of GPUs past and present so you can figure out how all those cards stack up.

Our full GPU hierarchy using traditional rendering (aka rasterization) comes first, and below that we have our separate ray tracing hierarchy. We've also mashed up these results into one overarching ranking for the complete pictures.

The results are all collected at native resolution, without enabling DLSS, FSR, or XeSS upscaling or frame generation.

As a brief refresher of the cards in this version of our hierarchy, Nvidia's cutting-edge Blackwell architecture and its DLSS 4 suite of tech upgrades the quality of both upscaling and ray reconstruction on RTX 50-series GPUs. It also adds Multi Frame Generation support. As of mid-2026, MFG can add anywhere from one to five AI-generated frames in between natively rendered ones.

Even if you're not into framegen, DLSS 4.5 upscaling and its transformer neural network architecture can offer a big boost in image quality at the same output resolution compared to earlier DLSS versions. That tech can benefit all GeForce RTX GPUs going back to the RTX 20-series, albeit at a heavier performance cost on older hardware compared to earlier DLSS versions.

Nvidia's Ada Lovelace architecture powers its prior-gen RTX 40-series cards. Ada introduced DLSS Frame Generation, which can double output frame rates in supported games. Ada cards don't benefit from MFG, though.

AMD's Radeon RX 9000 series cards, powered by its latest RDNA 4 architecture, get a big boost to both ray-tracing and AI capabilities with dedicated RT and matrix math accelerators. AMD uses those capabilities to enable its FSR 4 upscaler and its much-improved image quality in a small but growing range of titles, whether through native support or with driver-level overrides.

The FSR Redstone update last year brought ML Frame Generation to RX 9000-series cards. Like FSR 4.x upscaling, ML Frame Generation can be directly integrated in games or enabled through a driver override.

Meanwhile, the last-gen RDNA 3 architecture powers seven RX 7000-series seven desktop cards. Until very recently, RX 7000-series cards couldn't officially run FSR 4 upscaling, but an official version of that tech will be made available for those cards in July 2026.

Intel's Battlemage-powered Arc B580 and Arc B570 offer major improvements in performance and efficiency compared to its Alchemist architecture. Battlemage only serves the entry-level end of the graphics card market today. Intel introduced a larger Battlemage chip in the form of the Arc Pro B70 earlier this year, but that product is intended for AI and professional visualization, and it's priced like it.

On page two, you'll find our 2025-2026 test data for posterity. Page three has our 2024–2022 benchmark suite, which covers previous-generation GPUs running an older test suite and a Core i9-12900K. Page four has an even older 2020–2021 test suite with only raster games, running on a Core i9-9900K testbed. The legacy tables are no longer being actively updated. There's also the "Ancient Legacy GPU hierarchy" (without benchmarks, sorted by theoretical performance) for reference purposes.

The following tables sort everything solely by our performance-based GPU benchmarks, from fastest to slowest. Factors including real-world pricing, graphics card power consumption, overall efficiency, and features aren't factored into the rankings here. The latest results use an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D testbed. Here are the tables and benchmark results — rasterization games first, then ray tracing games, and finally the content creation results.

GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy 2026: The tests

For our latest GPU benchmarks, we test every card at a mix of high and ultra settings, depending on the game. We test across three resolutions: 1080p, 1440p, and 4K.

All the scores are expressed as percentages relative to the top-ranking 1080p ultra card, which is of course the GeForce RTX 5090.

Our 2026 test suite comprises the following games. 11 are raster titles, and of those, four have RT support. We test another four games that either require RT to run (DOOM: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle) or look best with RT (Assassin's Creed Shadows and Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced.)

• Black Myth Wukong (+RT)
• Alan Wake II (+RT)
• Apex Legends
• Counter-Strike 2
• Fortnite
• Arc Raiders
• Stalker 2
• DOOM: The Dark Ages (RT required)
• Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced (RT only)
• Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (+RT)
• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (RT required)
• Marvel Rivals
• Assassin's Creed Shadows (RT only)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (+RT)
• Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy 2026: Raster gaming

The FPS score is the geometric mean (equal weighting) of all 11 games. Note that the specifications column links directly to our original review for the various GPUs.

Rasterization GPU Benchmarks, Key Findings

• Unsurprisingly, the RTX 5090 takes the top spot across the board, but prices remain stratospheric in mid-2026. It's also difficult to fully engage the GB202 GPU for pure raster gaming unless you're playing at 4K.
• Among current cards, the RX 9060 XT 8GB and RTX 5060 duke it out for the best performance per dollar at 1080p.
• The Radeon RX 9070 is the 1440p raster value champ. The recently introduced RX 9070 GRE sits just behind, and the RTX 5070 is a somewhat distant third.
• At 4K, the RX 9070 XT is the cheapest way to get into 4K 60 FPS native gaming. But the RX 9070 and RTX 5070 are also strong options among current GPUs if you're willing to enable a dash of upscaling.

Overall, if you're only interested in native raster gaming, Radeons are a strong choice in 2026. But Nvidia offers superior DLSS 4.5 upscaling and Multi Frame Generation support across all RTX 50-series cards, which makes matching your GPU's performance to your monitor's refresh rate a snap.

FSR 4.x upscaling isn't on par with DLSS 4.5 yet, and FSR ML Frame Generation is limited to a 2x framerate boost where it's available.

Rasterization GPU Benchmarks Rankings 2026

Remember that we're not including any upscaling or framegen results in the above table. DLSS, FSR, and XeSS offer differing image quality, and we want to keep things directly comparable.

Don't buy any of the cards at the top of our hierarchy without a high-refresh-rate 2560x1440 or 4K monitor to match. Even one of our best gaming CPUs, like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, can only do so much when a powerful card becomes CPU-bound.

In general, if you're still running a 60 Hz fixed-refresh-rate monitor, it's entirely possible that you're not seeing all the frames your graphics card can generate. Practically any current-gen graphics card from the RTX 5060 on up is good enough for high-refresh-rate gaming at 1080p in 2026 even without upscaling or framegen, and the RTX 5070 or RX 9070 will give you the same experience at 1440p.

In this era of upscaling and framegen, a high-resolution monitor is no longer an obstacle to the best gaming experience. Upscalers work best with higher-than-1080p output resolutions, and the advent of the DLSS 4.5 upscaling model especially means that you can get both smooth performance and crisp image quality from surprisingly modest graphics cards.

But if you don't have a high-refresh-rate 1440p or 4K monitor to begin with, you can't take full advantage of the free boost to both performance and image quality that AI-powered upscaling offers, nor can you enjoy the full smoothness boost of framegen. Check out our list of the best gaming monitors for a potential upgrade if you're still rocking a 1080p 60 Hz display from the 2010s.

On to our 2026 raster results. Among currently available graphics cards, Blackwell rules the top three spots. The RX 9070 XT ends up fourth, just behind the potent (but much more expensive, as of June 2026) RTX 5070 Ti.

Moving into the midrange, the RX 9070's strong raster performance gives it the edge over the RTX 5070, but it's close. And the 5070 has the full arsenal of DLSS 4.5 features at its disposal in virtually every modern game.

Given the image quality and smoothness advantage of DLSS 4.5 upscaling and MFG, the 5070 got the nod in our most recent round of best graphics card picks after our 2026 retests.

The recently introduced RX 9070 GRE lands between the 5070 and the lower-end 5060 Ti and 9060 XT, a position for which Nvidia has no current-gen answer (and no easy path to one.) But AMD may have priced the GRE too high at $549, and we're already seeing big price drops on that product that might make it uniquely appealing in a market where the RTX 5060 Ti is its direct price competition.

The formerly midrange RTX 5060 Ti 16GB is hopelessly overpriced for the performance it offers in mid-2026, and the formerly somewhat affordable 8GB model is also selling for elevated prices now, making the entire 5060 Ti family impossible to recommend.

The RX 9060 XT 16GB holds down the entry-midrange 16GB position by itself, and its $459 price tag isn't so absurd as to make it un-recommendable. But as RX 9070 GREs start going on sale for $500-ish, the step up is going to look mighty tempting.

As we move further down the stack, the $300-ish Arc B580 represents Intel's best card right now, but it remains very much a budget part in mid-2026, trading blows with the RTX 3060 Ti and RTX 4060. The only reason it lands as high as it does in our results is that its 12GB of VRAM prevents its performance from totally plummeting at 4K, as it does for those older 8GB cards.

The RTX 5060 is 24% faster than the Arc B580 at 1080p and 17% faster at 1440p, and its prices are proportionately higher. The scarce RX 9060 XT 8GB is a whole 30% faster at 1080p and 23% faster at 1440p, for similarly more money.

We don't think the potential longevity afforded by the B580's 12GB of VRAM is worth the massive performance tradeoff versus current-gen 8GB GPUs. Save up a few more bucks and grab an RTX 5060 or RX 9060 8GB instead (and enjoy the more widely adopted DLSS 4.5 or FSR 4 versus XeSS while you're at it).

The $250 Arc B570 is still a good value in mid-2026, and as the only modern, decent graphics card available for (well) under $300, it's still worth a look if you can't stretch to an RTX 5050. But recent software ills that took months to fix have led us to consider it more of a gamble than a product worthy of a recommendation, even though those issues did eventually get corrected.

Ray Tracing GPU Benchmarks 2026

For 2026, we're testing a range of RT titles that present a progressively more difficult workload to the GPUs under test.

Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced, DOOM: The Dark Ages, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are all relatively lightweight RT titles that will run on a wide range of RT-ready hardware. Spider-Man 2, Cyberpunk 2077, and Assassin's Creed Shadows represent greater challenges to compute resources, VRAM, or both. And Black Myth Wukong and Alan Wake II still bring even the most powerful graphics cards to their knees at native resolutions.

Our results for those more demanding games represent more of a jumping-off point for upscaling and framegen rather than native performance. But lighter RT titles mean that you can explore the differences in image quality that ray tracing offers without crushing your GPU flat.

In any case, graphics cards at the top of our RT tests are ready for practically any RT game. But as you'll see, that's still quite the high bar to clear in 2026.

Ray Tracing GPU Benchmarks, Key Findings and Notes

• The RTX 5090 really comes into its own with RT enabled, as expected.
• AMD's RX 9070 XT outperforms the RX 7900 XTX in our RT tests, showing that the ray-tracing improvements in RDNA 4 deliver.
• Even with those improvements, the RX 9070 XT can only manage a tie with the RTX 4070 Ti with RT in play, coming in eighth place overall.
• Maintaining 60 FPS in RT titles (as a good foundation for upscaling and framegen enhancements) is a very tall order. Among recent products, you'll want:
  • an RTX 5060 Ti 16GB, RTX 5070, or RX 9070 GRE to handle ~60 FPS RT at 1080p without running out of VRAM
  • An RTX 4070, an RTX 5070 or RX 9070 at 1440p, or an RX 9070 XT or RTX 5070 Ti for the best possible experience
  • An RTX 5080, RTX 4090, or RTX 5090 at 4K

Ray Tracing GPU Benchmarks Rankings 2026

The RTX 5090 and RTX 4090 lead our RT results. But if you want to enjoy high-end RT without a 4090- or 5090-sized bankroll, the RTX 5070 Ti proves itself as the last card with a reasonable price-to-performance ratio before things get crazy.

The 5070 Ti leads the RX 9070 XT by a wide margin in our RT tests, and it's anywhere from 10%-15% behind the absurdly overpriced RTX 5080 across the board. But if you want the absolute best RT performance possible without stepping up to a 4090 or 5090, the extra cash for a 5080 is your best — and only — option.

That said, you should really explore DLSS 4.5 upscaling and MFG on the 5070 Ti before spending big to step up to a 5080.

The RX 9070 XT remains AMD's fastest RT GPU, outpacing the 7900 XTX across all tested resolutions. It leads the RDNA 3 halo card by about 10% across the board, which is an impressive generational leap considering its 33% deficit in CUs versus the XTX.

But the 9070 XT can only trade blows with the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 5070 with Nvidia competition in the picture. It beats out the 5070 at 1080p and 1440p, but DLSS 4.5 upscaling and MFG give Blackwell gamers more flexible options for boosting performance with only minimal impact to image quality versus both RDNA 4 (and Ada).

Of course, the RX 9070 XT has FSR 4 upscaling and framegen at its disposal in compatible titles, but support for those features isn't as widespread as DLSS.

Meanwhile, the RX 9070 comes in slightly behind the RTX 5070 at 1080p and 1440p for RT. Even though its 16GB of VRAM prevents the 9070's 4K RT performance from completely nosediving, the average frame rate at that resolution isn't high enough to make it a 4K RT choice.

At 1080p, the RX 9070 GRE presents an intriguing RT option for Radeon gamers, delivering a near-60-FPS average baseline that would make a great FSR 4 foundation. But its 12GB of VRAM quickly becomes a liability at 1440p versus the 9070, and 4K is out of the question.

Overall, our demanding 2026 RT test suite shows that the bar for entry to a good RT experience remains high, especially as elevated prices on the RTX 5060 Ti 16GB mean that the first "real" RT-ready Blackwell card at 1080p and up is the RTX 5070. And on the Radeon side, you really want an RX 9070 GRE or RX 9070 for the best experience.

Test Setup and Hardware for GPU Benchmarks

We've used several different PCs for our testing over the years. The latest update switches to an AMD Zen 5 processor: the unparalleled Ryzen 7 9800X3D and its 3D V-Cache-enhanced performance.

Here are the specifications for our latest GPU test PC.

Tom's Hardware 2026 GPU Benchmarks Testbed

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5-6000 CL30
Motherboard: Asus TUF Gaming X670E-Plus Wifi
SSD: Inland Performance Plus 4TB
PSU: MSI MPG Ai1600TS 1600W

We test across the three most common gaming resolutions, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, using a mix of high and ultra settings, depending on the title. Where possible, we use 'reference' cards for all of these tests, like Nvidia's Founders Edition models and AMD's reference designs. Most midrange and lower GPUs don't get reference models, however, and in some cases we only have factory-overclocked cards for testing. We do our best to select cards that are close to the reference specs in such cases.

For each graphics card, we follow the same testing procedure. We run one pass of each benchmark to "warm up" the GPU after launching the game, then perform our actual test runs across each resolution.

We carefully review our test data and check for anomalies. For example, we always expect the RTX 5080 to be faster than the RTX 5070 Ti. If it's not, and we're not in a CPU limited situation, we'll recheck both cards to ensure that our standings our accurate. We also check and retest in cases of subtler issues, as when a transient hitch or frame-time spike causes a large dip in 1% low FPS.

Due to the length of time required for testing each GPU, updated drivers and game patches inevitably come out that can impact performance. We periodically retest a few sample cards to verify our results are still valid, and if not, we go through and retest the affected game(s) and GPU(s). We may also add games to our test suite over time, if one comes out that is popular and conducive to testing. See what makes a good game benchmark for our selection criteria.

GPU Benchmarks: Individual Game Charts

The above tables provide a summary of performance, but for those that want to see the individual game charts, for both the standard and ray tracing test suites, we've got those as well. These charts only cover current-gen GPUs for readability.

These charts are up to date as of June 2026.

GPU Benchmarks — 1080p

GPU Benchmarks — 1440p

GPU Benchmarks — 4K

GPU Benchmarks — Power, Clocks, and Temperatures

Most of our discussion has focused on performance, but for those interested in power and other aspects of the GPUs, here are the appropriate charts. We'll run these from highest to lowest settings, as 4K ultra tends to be the most strenuous workload on most of these GPUs.

If you're looking for the legacy GPU hierarchy, head over to page two! We moved it to a separate page to help improve load times in our CMS as well as for the main website. And if you're looking to comment on the GPU benchmarks hierarchy, head over to our forums and join the discussion!

Choosing a Graphics Card

Choosing a Graphics Card

Choosing a Graphics Card

Which graphics card do you need? To help you decide, we created this GPU benchmarks hierarchy, comprising 48 GPUs from three generations of hardware for Nvidia and AMD and also including Intel's Battlemage cards. Not surprisingly, the fastest cards are using the latest GPU architectures, though they're not always a major upgrade over the prior generation.

Of course, it's not just about playing games. Many applications use the GPU for other work. But a good graphics card for gaming will typically do equally well in complex GPU computational workloads. Buy one of the top cards and you can run games at high resolutions and frame rates with the effects turned all the way up, and you'll be able to do content creation work as needed. Drop down to the middle and lower portions of the list and you'll need to start dialing down the settings to get acceptable performance in regular gameplay and GPU benchmarks.

If your main goal is gaming, you can't forget about the CPU. Getting the best possible gaming GPU won't help you much if your CPU is underpowered or many years out of date. So be sure to check out the Best CPUs for gaming page, as well as our CPU Benchmarks Hierarchy to make sure you have the right CPU for the level of gaming performance you're looking to achieve.

And don't forget about your monitor. Be sure to get a display whose refresh rate range matches the average frame rates of the graphics card that you want in the games that you play. Check out our list of the best gaming monitors for a starting point.

GPU Benchmarks from 2022–2024

Our 'legacy' GPU benchmarks used different hardware. Here are the details for the 2022–2024 configuration that used an Alder Lake 12900K CPU.

Tom's Hardware 2022–2024 GPU Testbed

Intel Core i9-12900K
MSI Pro Z690-A WiFi DDR4
Corsair 2x16GB DDR4-3600 CL16
Crucial P5 Plus 2TB
Cooler Master MWE 1250 V2 Gold
Cooler Master PL360 Flux
Cooler Master HAF500
Windows 11 Pro 64-bit

We have upgraded our test system and changed our test suite for 2025, effectively resetting our benchmarking and rankings. However, the old data — collected using a Core i9-12900K PC — remains valid. We aren't testing new GPUs with the old testbed, as that would double the time required for what is already a lengthy process, but we felt it would be helpful to some to keep the final data available.

We also had an interim system that never quite got wrapped up, which had a Core i9-13900K Raptor Lake CPU. Our original CPU was one of the impacted units that failed over time, which explains in retrospect why so much of the data felt a bit questionable. Thankfully, the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D system seems to be running just fine. Here are the 12900K results.

For these GPU benchmarks, we tested nearly every GPU released between 2016 and 2024, plus a few extras. All graphics cards were tested at 1080p medium and 1080p ultra, and we sorted the table by the 1080p ultra results. Where it made sense, we also tested at 1440p ultra and 4K ultra. All the scores are scaled relative to the top-ranking 1080p ultra card of the time, which in our suite is the RTX 4090 — especially at 4K and 1440p.

The above summary charts show the relative performance of the cards we've tested across the past several generations of hardware at 1080p ultra — swipe through the above gallery if you want to see the 1080p medium, 1440p, and 4K ultra images. There are a few missing options (e.g., the GT 1030, RX 550, and several Titan cards), but otherwise it's basically complete. Note that we also have data in the table below for some of the other older GPUs.

The eight games used for our standard GPU benchmarks hierarchy are Borderlands 3 (DX12), Far Cry 6 (DX12), Flight Simulator (DX11 Nvidia, DX12 AMD/Intel), Forza Horizon 5 (DX12), Horizon Zero Dawn (DX12), Red Dead Redemption 2 (Vulkan), Total War Warhammer 3 (DX11), and Watch Dogs Legion (DX12). The fps score is the geometric mean (equal weighting) of the eight games. Note that the specifications column links directly to our original review for the various GPUs.

*: GPU couldn't run all tests, so the overall score is slightly skewed at 1080p ultra.

While the RTX 4090 does technically take first place at 1080p ultra, it's the 1440p and especially 4K numbers that impress. It's less than 2% faster than the RTX 4080 Super at 1080p ultra, but that increases to 9% at 1440p and then 25% at 4K. Also note that the fps numbers in our table incorporate both the average and minimum fps into a single score — with the average given more weight than the 1% low fps.

Again, keep in mind that we're not including any ray tracing or DLSS results in the above table, as we use the same test suite with the same settings on all current and previous generation graphics cards. Since only RTX cards support DLSS (and RTX 40-series if you want DLSS 3), that would drastically limit which cards we could directly compare. You can see DLSS 2/3 and FSR 2 upscaling results in our RTX 4070 review if you want to check out how the various upscaling modes can help.

The RTX 4090 comes at a steep price, though on paper it's not that much worse than the previous generation RTX 3090. In fact, we'd say it's a lot better in some respects, as the 3090 was only a minor improvement in performance compared to the 3080 at the time of launch, but with more than double the VRAM. Nvidia pulled out all the stops with the 4090, increasing the core counts, clock speeds, and power limits to push it beyond all contenders. There are two problems with the 4090, however: It's not available at MSRP any longer, due to demand from the AI sector — it often costs $2,000 or more — and there are still concerns with pulling 450W of power over the 16-pin connector.

Stepping down from the RTX 4090, the RTX 4080 Super and RX 7900 XTX trade blows at higher resolutions, while CPU bottlenecks come into play at 1080p. We'll be switching our testbed in the near future, with the current results from our 13900K testing in the charts at the bottom of the page.

Outside of the latest releases from AMD and Nvidia, the RX 6000- and RTX 30-series chips still perform reasonably well and if you're using such a card, there may not be any need to upgrade at present. Intel's Arc GPUs also fall into this category and are something of a wild card.

We've been testing and retesting GPUs periodically, and the Arc chips running the latest drivers now complete all of our benchmarks without any major anomalies. (Minecraft was previously a problem, though Intel has finally sorted that out.) They're not great on efficiency, but overall performance and pricing for the A750 is quite good.

Turning to the previous generation GPUs, the RTX 20-series and GTX 16-series chips end up scattered throughout the results, along with the RX 5000-series. The general rule of thumb is that you get one or two "model upgrades" with the newer architectures, so for example the RTX 2080 Super comes in just below the RTX 3060 Ti, while the RX 5700 XT basically matches the newer and less expensive RX 6600 XT.

Go back far enough and you can see how modern games at ultra settings severely punish cards that don't have more than 4GB VRAM. We've been saying for a few years now that 4GB was just scraping by, and these days we'd avoid buying anything with less than 8GB of VRAM — 12GB or more is the minimum we'd want with a mainstream GPU, and 16GB or more for high-end and above. Old cards like the GTX 1060 3GB and GTX 1050 actually failed to run some of our tests, which skews their results a bit, even though they do better at 1080p medium.

Now let's switch over to the ray tracing hierarchy.

Ray Tracing GPU Benchmarks 2022–2024

Enabling ray tracing, particularly with demanding games like many of those we're using in our DXR test suite, can cause framerates to drop off a cliff. We're testing with "medium" and "ultra" ray tracing settings. Medium generally means using the medium graphics preset but turning on ray tracing effects (set to "medium" if that's an option; otherwise, "on"), while ultra turns on all of the RT options at more or less maximum quality.

Because ray tracing is so much more demanding, we're sorting these results by the 1080p medium scores. That's also because the RX 6500 XT, RX 6400, and Arc A380 basically can't handle ray tracing even at these settings, and testing at anything more than 1080p medium would be fruitless.

The five ray tracing games used are Bright Memory Infinite, Control Ultimate Edition, Cyberpunk 2077, Metro Exodus Enhanced, and Minecraft — all of these use the DirectX 12 / DX12 Ultimate API. The fps score is the geometric mean (equal weighting) of the five games, and the percentage is scaled relative to the fastest GPU in the list, which again is the GeForce RTX 4090.

If you want to see what the future may hold with ray tracing, check out our Alan Wake 2 benchmarks where the full path tracing barely manages playable performance even with upscaling on non-Nvidia GPUs. However, and this is a critical point, the number of games where RT truly makes a striking difference in visuals is extremely limited. For most games, we still feel running pure rasterization rendering makes more sense.