AMD Ryzen 9 9900X falls behind 7800X3D in gaming, YouTuber reveals in early benchmarks

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Just ahead of AMD's Ryzen 9000 series processors release on July 31st, the benchmarks for Ryzen 9900X have emerged. An Italian YouTuber got his hands on a retail CPU before the launch and has run some early gaming benchmark tests, directly comparing it against the performance of Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
SaddyTech tested the upcoming processor with a Gigabyte X670 AORUS Elite AX motherboard and DDR5-7200 memory. Further, the YouTuber tested the Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs by playing various games at different resolutions. It turns out the 7000 series chip comes out on top. This isn’t a big surprise given the fact AMD said 7000X3D is still “king of the hill” for gaming.
Ryzen 7 7800X3D beats the Ryzen 9 9900X in gaming, just about
To start with, let's look at the specs of each of the CPUs.
Specification | AMD Ryzen 9 9900X | AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D |
---|---|---|
Architecture | Zen 5 | Zen 4 |
Cores | 12 | 8 |
Threads | 24 | 16 |
Base clock speed | 4.4 GHz | 4.2 GHz |
Boost clock speed | up to 5.4 GHz | up to 5.0 GHz |
TDP | 120W | 120W |
SaddyTech compared the two processors' performance on graphically intensive games like Alan Wake II, Cyberpunk 2077, and more. In addition to this, he tested both CPUs on competitive titles like CS2 which rely a lot more on the CPU for performance.
Game | Ryzen 9 9900X Avg. FPS | Ryzen 7 7800X3D Avg. FPS | Ryzen 9900X 1% Low FPS | Ryzen 7 7800X3D 1% Low FPS |
Alan Wake 2 (1080p Ultra) | 176.9 | 175.2 | 137.1 | 143.6 |
Alan Wake 2 (1440p Ultra) | 123.7 | 122 | 105.2 | 106.9 |
Alan Wake 2 (4K Ultra) | 66.7 | 66.7 | 60 | 60.8 |
Cities Skylines 2 (1080p Ultra) | 70.3 | 86.9 | 43.7 | 42.3 |
Cities Skylines 2 (1440p Ultra) | 66.3 | 77.6 | 44.4 | 43.4 |
Cities Skylines 2 (4K Ultra) | 40.2 | 54.2 | 33.3 | 38.5 |
COD: Warzone 2 (1080p Competitive) | 249.1 | 249.7 | 209.2 | 216.2 |
COD: Warzone 2 (1440p Competitive) | 248.8 | 249.6 | 204.2 | 212.2 |
COD: Warzone 2 (4K Competitive) | 220.5 | 222.8 | 181.7 | 183.1 |
CS2 (1080p Competitive) | 346.8 | 376.1 | 161.8 | 190.5 |
CS2 (1440p Competitive) | 344 | 373.1 | 154.9 | 189.3 |
CS2 (4K Competitive) | 341.8 | 370.2 | 159.1 | 188.1 |
Cyberpunk 2077 (1080p Ultra) | 165.2 | 191.1 | 93.5 | 122.3 |
Cyberpunk 2077 (1440p Ultra) | 139.1 | 150.5 | 91.8 | 99.7 |
Cyberpunk 2077 (4K Ultra) | 70 | 70.7 | 52.3 | 53.1 |
Fortnite (1080p Competitive) | 320.3 | 371.4 | 230.4 | 301.6 |
Fortnite (1440p Competitive) | 315.2 | 332.8 | 213.9 | 255.1 |
Fortnite (4K Competitive) | 287.5 | 294.3 | 124.4 | 168.8 |
Starfield (1080p Ultra) | 125.3 | 127.4 | 99.2 | 99.7 |
Starfield (1440p Ultra) | 109.3 | 109.9 | 86.9 | 87.8 |
Starfield (4K Ultra) | 78.7 | 73.5 | 64.2 | 60.2 |
The Last of Us P1 (1080p Ultra) | 201.1 | 238.1 | 117 | 142.8 |
The Last of Us P1(1440p Ultra) | 179.6 | 192.9 | 113.1 | 135.3 |
The Last of Us P1 (4K Ultra) | 106.5 | 105.8 | 77.9 | 81.5 |
As seen in the table above, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D beats the upcoming Zen 5 CPU by slight margins in average FPS and surpasses it with regards to 1% low FPS averages – in most games at least.
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X's slightly lower performance might not be a bad thing
It might appear that the Ryzen 7 7800X3D delivers better performance than the new Ryzen 9 9900X. However, it should be noted that this CPU was tailor-made for gaming builds. With the 3D V-cache, the processor can stack a massive 96 MB of L3 cache on the CPU, which enhances data access speeds while gaming. This is evident in some games; less so in others.
The trade-off here is that you cannot overclock this processor, or any of the X3D chips for that matter. In our review of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, we saw that the processor delivered an excellent performance for gaming but lagged behind in terms of productivity, as these tasks do not make full use of the V-cache.
Since the Ryzen 9 9900X is not an “X3D” CPU, it does not feature the 3D V-cache technology. But it also means that the CPU can be overclocked, and your build can be used for demanding non-gaming purposes. A true productivity powerhouse.

Further, in terms of power consumption, the Ryzen 9 9900X consumed an average of 102W while playing Warzone 2 and CS2, according to SaddyTech. Plus, the temperatures reached a max of 66 degrees. These are some great numbers when you look at the performance of the CPU.
Overall, the Ryzen 9 9900X could be one of the best CPUs for users looking to get strong multi-thread performance. AMD is rolling out the Ryzen 9000 series CPUs as well as two new AM4 processors on July 31st.

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D