Home > News

The 7800X3D is available for just $12 more than the 9700X as reviews call it boring

The 7800X3D is still the leader for gaming, and the 9700X isn't too exciting
Last Updated on August 7, 2024
With the 9700X reviews still falling behind X3D, the 7800X3D is currently on sale
PC Guide is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Read More

Table of Contents

You can trust PC Guide: Our team of experts use a combination of independent consumer research, in-depth testing where appropriate - which will be flagged as such, and market analysis when recommending products, software and services. Find out how we test here.

It’s that time again with the release cycle coming around once again for the next generation of AMD CPUs. Well now the Ryzen 7 9700X release date, although initially delayed by a couple of weeks has come around. Now a day before, reviews went live and showed it was a bit underwhelming as there are no massive improvements to the processors other than some power efficiency boosts. But it did show that the X3D CPUs are still at the top of the list in terms of gaming even if productivity might fall behind slightly.

So as the better recommendation for overall usage, it might be the better option. Especially as currently you can buy the 7800X3D on Amazon for $371.83 with a 17% discount. That puts it just $13 above the 9700X pricing as AMD confirmed the 9000 series pricing ahead of the reviews. That makes it basically an easy recommendation for buying beating out even these new CPUs and you get a greater choice over them as our 7800X3D review shows.

9700X vs 7800X3D

Comparing any benchmarks of the two CPUs, it’s easy to see the X3D dominance when it comes to gaming. The 7800X3D in TechPowerUps game performance overview shows how it leads in gaming performance. Still holding the lead across the board and doing so with great value next to the runner-ups. Of course, in applications, it does start to fall behind and so for the productivity tasks it might not be the best choice but it is quite the gaming machine.

That difference primarily comes from only one feature of the processor. As comparing the specs between the 9700X and 7800X3D, there seemingly isn’t too much. Of course, the power does jump up significantly as the X3D doubles the needed power for it to function and from the Zen 4 architecture. Yet its boost clock is lower and instead, it gets all its power from the L3 cache onboard as it triples the 9700X, the stacked memory providing games with a bigger boost than any improvements Zen 5 might bring.

SpecificationRyzen 7 9700XRyzen 7 7800X3D
Cores88
Threads1616
Base Clock3.8GHz4.2GHz
Boost Clockup to 5.5GHzup to 5GHz
L3 Cache32MB (shared)96MB (shared)
TDP65W120W
PPT88W162W
SocketAM5AM5
Core architectureZen 5Zen 4

With a fascination for technology and games, Seb is a tech writer with a focus on hardware and deals. He is also the primary tester and reviewer at BGFG and PCGuide.