AMD Ryzen 9800X3D leak shows it running at 5.6GHz on all cores – could this be the CPU to take down Intel in PC gaming?

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AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D has an impressive potential to be tuned for amazing performance levels, or so is the latest rumor (among many) surrounding the soon-to-be-unleashed Zen 5 processor.

Wccftech spotted that on the Anandtech forums, Igor Kavinski leaked some benchmark scores for the Ryzen 9800X3D. These include CPU-Z details on the clock speeds and notes on the processor configuration used to achieve the boost clock shown, which is just over 5.6GHz on all eight cores .

The Ryzen 9800X3D (likely a pre-release engineering sample chip) was turbocharged to these levels using Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) and Curve Optimizer (CO) in addition to a number of other manual CPU tweaks from Kavinski . We can assume that the cooler used was also a high-end effort, which explains the arrival of 5.6 GHz, which is quite noticeable across all processor cores.

To put that in perspective, the 9800X3D’s rumored all-core boost is 5.2GHz (without tuning), though that’s still much faster than the 7800X3D (at 4.8GHz).

As for the benchmarks shown, one is from Cinebench R23 and the Ryzen 9800X3D also fares well here, scoring 2,261 in single-core and 25,258 in multi-core. As Wccftech points out, for the latter, the Ryzen 7800X3D typically falls between 18,000 and 19,000, so this seems to indicate that this (heavily boosted) 9800X3D could be 30% faster when it comes to non-gaming performance .

On the gaming side, a Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail benchmark is broadcast here, showing a score of 62,360 (but the GPU the 9800X3D was paired with isn’t shared). We don’t have comparisons for the 7800X3D there, but the general reaction to the result is that it’s again impressive, as you’d expect from the extraction that’s been done here.

Analysis: Try to guess the real generational rise

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not every buyer of the Ryzen 9800X3D will do everything Kavinski has done here, many won’t, and there are unknowns like the cooling setup and how cool it was. So the benchmark leaks should be interpreted with a healthy dose of skepticism, but just seeing the whole-core boost pushed this high is promising.

Looking at the gains here, we can anticipate (read: assume) that out of the box, with standard cooling and no CPU tuning, we could see the 9800X3D be 10%, or possibly up to 15%, faster than the 7800X3D for games. And much more than that for everyday use outside of PC gaming, as this isn’t the only leak that has suggested that overall X3D performance has been seriously improved with Zen 5. Mainly because AMD seems to have solved the problem problem of clock speeds being slowed down by this 3D V-Cache with the 9800X3D (and by extension the other X3D chips for Zen 5 when they arrive later).

We can certainly be broadly optimistic about a decent performance boost, both in terms of gaming and overall, given that we’re (allegedly) getting a huge clock speed boost, in addition to the generational gains for Zen 5 X3D at the top (Though some other leaks have outlined a more bleak situation – a spill that needs to be taken with a grain of salt in our opinion).

Whatever the final increase in generational performance, the other vital part of the equation will be price: Will the 9800X3D retail for $449 (in the US and prorated elsewhere) like its predecessor did? Or will AMD charge a little less than that? The latter is probably leaning too far on optimism, but the point remains that any performance gains we get from the 9800X3D will have to be viewed through the lens of MSRP, naturally.

AMD has confirmed that Ryzen 9000X3D will arrive on November 7, 2024; all rumors point to it being the Ryzen 9800X3D CPU only, with a possible reveal in just a couple of days. The 9800X3D is, of course, highly anticipated as the successor to the popular 7800X3D (which is now all but gone from the shelves), with the hope that it will erase some of the bad taste that the Ryzen 9000 launch has. left (in the mouths of gamers of PC anyway).

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