The AMD Ryzen 9800X3D gaming CPU looks like it’s coming very soon, but there’s a catch

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D It is reported to be announced very soon, according to the latest word on the rumor. If this latest leak is correct, it looks like AMD plans to spoil Intel’s Arrow Lake launch by announcing the 9800X3D the day after the CPUs launch, but there also seems to be a big problem with this new chip.

If this release window is true as rumored, Intel’s Arrow Lake release will be hit hard. Even Intel admits that the 9800X3D will in all likelihood beat the Core Ultra 9 285K in terms of gaming performance, and now it looks like there won’t be a honeymoon period for Intel’s new chips when they come out, leaving AMD to pick up the best gaming CPU medal almost immediately.

This latest rumor comes from tech leaker wjm47196 on the Chiphell forums, who says the Ryzen 7 9800X3D release date is October 25th, with availability in the first week of November. Of course, none of this has been officially confirmed by AMD, so take it with a grain of salt for now, but this leaker has already offered reliable information about AMD CPUs. In May, for example, wjm47196 correctly stated that the AMD Ryzen 9000 line would feature chips with six, eight, 12, and 16 cores, based on a single Zen 5 core type, months before the CPUs were finally released.

The possible release date isn’t the only nugget of information from this leak either. In the same post, wjm47196 also claims that the CPU frequency is “quite high”, reinforcing earlier rumors that the 9800X3D’s clock speed is faster than the 7800X3D’s.

Previous 9800X3D benchmark leaks have also shown the new chip to be up to 13% faster than the 7800X3D in gaming tests and substantially faster than the old Cinebench chip, all pointing to a speed of highest clock

However, there is a word of caution in wjm47196’s post, which brings us back to the catch we mentioned above. In the post, wjm47196 says the price of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D “won’t be cheap.” The Ryzen 7 7800X3D launched at $449, which later dropped to around $399. Unlike the 7900X3D and 7950X3D, the 7800X3D has held its price strongly, thanks to high demand for the chip.

This latest leak suggests that its successor could be more expensive, perhaps because AMD knows that a highly rated eight-core X3D CPU will be more attractive to gamers than a 16-core CPU with potential latency issues. As such, we would predict that the price of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D could be $499, especially if there is no compelling competition from Arrow Lake.

If you’re thinking of building a new rig when AMD’s new CPU comes out, check out our guide on how to build a gaming PC, where we walk you through every step of the process.