What's the fastest CPU for gaming on the market today? On our GPU hierarchy, we rate the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D as fastest. But, in AMD's product stack, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is the top dog and it came out a barely-perceptible 4 fps behind the 7800X3D on our tests. In addition to gaming prowess, you get great multi-threaded performance thanks to the 7950X3D's 16 cores, 32 threads and 5.6-GHz boost clock (the 7800X3D has just 8 cores).
Normally $539, the 7950X3D is now $469 at Amazon, in a pre-Prime Day discount. That's the lowest price we've ever seen on it by $5.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D: now $469 at Amazon (was $532)
This 16-core, 32-thread CPU has 140MB of L2 / L3 cache and a boost clock of 5.6-GHz. It is at the very top of AMD's stack of 3D VCache CPUs, making it the highest-end gaming CPU on the market, ahead of Intel's 14900K.
In our GPU hierarchy, the 7950X3D comes in second place in 1080p gaming by a mere 4 fps and it is tied for first place with the 7800X3D in 1440p gaming. Note that the prices in the chart below are launch prices, not current prices.
(Image credit: Amazon)
The Ryzen 7950X3D fares so well thanks to its 140MB of L2 / L3 cache (128MB of L3 cache). That allows it to dominate at 1080p and 1440p resolutions where many games are CPU limited. Even if you have the top GPU on the market, an RTX 4090, you'll get more frames with the 7950X3D than with Intel's top processor, the Core i9-14900K.
If you want the best combination of gaming and multitasking you can get today, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is your top choice and now it's at its lowest price ever.
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Avram Piltch is Managing Editor: Special Projects. When he's not playing with the latest gadgets at work or putting on VR helmets at trade shows, you'll find him rooting his phone, taking apart his PC, or coding plugins. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram developed many real-world benchmarks, including our laptop battery test.
What kind of joke is this, even by your OWN CHART its not AMDs fastest gaming CPU. But hey, you get a cut of the sale if we follow that overpriced link...
What kind of joke is this, even by your OWN CHART its not AMDs fastest gaming CPU. But hey, you get a cut of the sale if we follow that overpriced link...
Did you read at least the 1st paragraph or just the lead?
Did you read at least the 1st paragraph or just the lead?
I mean. It's technically correct that it's not their fastest gaming CPU. You know. In games... if you look at more than just gaming, of course, it's the better pick. But gaming alone? Well.
