The $449†£429 Ryzen 7 5800X3D is different from AMD, a processor that exists to showcase the power of the company’s 3D V-Cache design for its upcoming Ryzen CPUs and beat Intel’s 12900KS for the title of “fastest gaming processor” . It’s also one last hurray for the surprisingly long-lived AM4 platform, which debuted in 2017 and survived half a dozen Intel generations as Ryzen CPUs improved by leaps and bounds.
So what is a 3D V-Cache anyway? Let’s start with the basics. You can think of a processor’s cache as a place to store data it’s currently working on – kind of like RAM, but because it’s in the CPU, it’s an order of magnitude faster to access and an order of magnitude smaller in terms of the amount of data it can store. Modern processors typically use three levels of cache – L1, L2, L3 – with L1 cache being the fastest to access but the smallest, L2 being slower but bigger, and L3 being slower and bigger again. It is this third level of cache that AMD has changed from a traditional 2D design to a 3D design, a stack of cache that takes up more vertical space. This allows much more data to be stored in the CPU at once, increasing the likelihood that the necessary data is already inside and speeding up subsequent processing.
AMD plans to use this technology for its future Zen 4 processors, but right now it’s just this one special 5800X3D, an upgraded version of the Ryzen 7 5800X that launched in 2020. Compared to the 5800X, the 5800X3D trades a bit of frequency and some overclocking control for a significantly larger 96MB L3 cache — three times the size of the 5800X’s.
| CPU design | boost | base | L3 cache | TDP | Recommended retail price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen 5950X | Zen 3 16C/32T | 4.9GHz | 3.4GHz | 64MB | 105W | $799 |
| Ryzen 5900X | Zen 3 12C/24T | 4.8GHz | 3.7GHz | 64MB | 105W | $549 |
| Ryzen 5800X3D | Zen 3 8C/16T | 4.5GHz | 3.4GHz | 96MB | 105W | $449 |
| Ryzen 5800X | Zen 3 8C/16T | 4.7GHz | 3.8GHz | 32MB | 105W | $449 |
| Ryzen 5700G | Zen 3 8C/16T | 4.6GHz | 3.8GHz | 16MB | 65W | $359 |
| Ryzen 5600X | Zen 3 6C/12T | 4.6GHz | 3.7GHz | 32MB | 65W | $299 |
| Ryzen 5600G | Zen 3 6C/12T | 4.4GHz | 3.9GHz | 16MB | 65W | $259 |
Before we get into the initial test results, let’s take a quick look at the rig we’re using. For the AMD side, we’ll be using an Asus ROG Crosshair 8 Hero, while the 11th gen Intel gets an Asus ROG Maximus Z590 Hero and the 12th gen the Asus ROG Z690 Maximus Hero – all high-end boards for their respective platforms. DDR4 motherboards used G.Skill 3600MT/s CL16 memory, while 12th Gen Intel got the benefit of faster Corsair 5200MT/s CL38 RAM with higher latency.
The AMD and 11th Gen Intel CPUs were cooled with an Eisbaer Aurora 240mm AiO, while the 12th Gen tests were conducted with an Asus ROG Ryujin 2 360mm AiO. (And to answer the obvious question, 240mm and 360mm AiOs tend to deliver equivalent performance based on our testing – especially for an open-air test bench in cool (21C) ambient conditions. The only difference is usually the fan speed, which is higher on the 240mm than the 360mm.) Our setup was complemented by a 1000W Corsair RM1000x power supply from Infinite Computing.
To reduce run-to-run variance and make sure we’re as CPU-constrained as possible, we’re using the Asus ROG Strix 3090 OC Edition. This is a massive three-slot, three-fan design that keeps the card surprisingly cool and quiet.
One of the biggest questions about the 5800X3D is where exactly that upgraded cache will come in handy – because if a game or other application doesn’t fit a specific performance profile, it may not see any performance advantage on the 5800X3D at all – and indeed, it could be worse. run because of the clock speed AMD sacrificed to make the design work.
To find out, we tested the 5800X3D in a range of content creation and gaming scenarios – against the original 5800X and a number of other recent AMD and Intel processors. We’re hoping to see some major performance gains, especially in video games, but let’s start with a few quick content creation benchmarks: a Cinebench R20 3D render and a Handbrake video transcode.
| CB R20 1T | CB R20 MT | HB h.264 | HB HEVC | HEVC power consumption | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9 12900K | 760 | 10416 | 70.82 fps | 29.26 fps | 373W |
| Core i7 12700K | 729 | 8683 | 57.64 fps | 25.67 fps | 318W |
| Core i5 12600K | 716 | 6598 | 44.27 fps | 19.99 fps | 223W |
| Core i5 12400F | 652 | 4736 | 31.77 fps | 14.70 fps | 190W |
| Core i9 11900K | 588 | 5902 | 41.01 fps | 18.46 fps | 321W |
| Core i5 11600K | 541 | 4086 | 29.00 fps | 13.12 fps | 250W |
| Ryzen 9 5950X | 637 | 10165 | 70.28 fps | 30.14 fps | 237W |
| Ryzen 7 5800X3D | 546 | 5746 | 42.71 fps | 19.10 fps | 221W |
| Ryzen 7 5800X | 596 | 6118 | 44.18 fps | 19.50 fps | 229W |
| Ryzen 5 5600X | 601 | 4502 | 31.75 fps | 14.43 fps | 160W |
Neither content creation result is particularly impressive for the 5800X3D, which outperforms the 5600X and Intel 12400F but lags behind its past competitors like the 12900K, 12700K, and 5800X (the latter by two to six percent). This isn’t a huge surprise – neither task would logically benefit from a larger cache, so you’re only seeing the effect of the new CPU’s lowered core clocks compared to the stock 5800X. However, the results aren’t disastrous either; this is still a perfectly capable CPU for these tasks that handily outperforms previous generations, but not a market-leading one.
Now that those are out of the way, let’s move on to the fun stuff: seeing how the 5800X3D performs in a range of games. Click the shortcuts below to jump to the titles you’re most interested in, or click the ‘next page’ button to take it all in!