Hunting for the elusive Ryzen 7 9800X3D? You aren’t alone, as the world’s fastest gaming CPU has been difficult to find in stock for a while. Alternatively, for the low price of $359 at Amazon, you can get the Ryzen 7 7800X3D instead, which is positioned as the fastest Zen 4 gaming processor, only second to the 9800X3D per our exhaustive testing. Plus, you can spend the extra cash on a better GPU or faster RAM to pair with your shiny new processor.
The Ryzen 7 7800X3D offers eight cores and sixteen threads based on AMD’s Zen 4 microarchitecture. What’s special about this chip is that AMD has slapped on an additional V-Cache chiplet with 64MB of L3 cache, hence the name X3D, for a total of 96MB of L3 cache and 8MB of L2 cache.
Likewise, the CPU is no slob when it comes to clock speeds, capable of boosting as high as 5 GHz. All this power comes under a 120W TDP (162W PPT), so you will need sufficient cooling. Unlike the 5800X3D, the 7800X3D offers an iGPU (Integrated GPU) for lightweight encoding and as a backup display output. JEDEC specifications recommend you pair the 7800X3D with DDR5-5200 RAM, however, select RAM kits with EXPO capabilities allow for faster DDR5-6000 CL30 speeds as well.
While the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is obviously faster, there is always the potential of upgrading later on since both chips can be slotted into the same AM5 socket. Likewise, AMD’s X3D chips have been in extremely high demand, so it’d be a no-brainer to snag this processor while supplies last if you’re eying for an upgrade.
The CPU is available directly from AMD and currently reigns as the top-seller CPU on the platform. You can learn more about the shipping options and other details on the Amazon listing.