Leaker indicates that a budget 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D is in the works

AMD is reportedly working on a budget-friendly Ryzen 7000 series X3D CPU for gamers that doesn’t break the bank while still delivering top-tier gaming performance in CPU-intensive titles.

This rumor comes from a reliable hardware leaker who goes by "chi11eddog." According to the leaker, AMD is currently preparing to launch the Ryzen 7 7700X3D, a brand-new Zen 4-based CPU that will use the company’s 3D V-Cache technology. That would make it the latest entry in the Ryzen 7000 X3D family, particularly aimed at budget-conscious gamers who don’t want to burn a hole in their wallets.

It’s rumored that the Ryzen 7 7700X3D will be priced at $300 retail, potentially making it one of the best price-to-performance CPUs in the gaming market and helping to make AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology accessible to a wider audience. Some speculate that AMD may be using leftover or repurposed chips to create this budget-friendly processor. 

The leaker’s post on X simply listed some key specs for the rumored AMD CPU: “R7 7700X3D, 120W, 8C16T, 96MB.” Compared with the incumbent Zen 4-based X3D octacore CPU, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D appears very similar on paper to the popular 7800X3D. Both chips feature eight cores, sixteen threads, and a large 96MB of L3 cache (32MB standard with 64MB stacked on top via 3D V-Cache). However, the difference lies primarily in clock speeds.

The 7700X3D is said to operate at a base clock of 4.0 GHz and boost up to 4.5 GHz, which is 200 MHz and 500 MHz lower, respectively, than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D’s 4.2/5.0 GHz clock speeds. It reportedly retains a total power draw of 120 watts, so customers shouldn’t need high-end cooling solutions, and the lower clock speeds should allow the CPU to run a bit cooler than its bigger sibling, the 7800X3D.

Reports suggest that in-game performance will see only a 5–10% dip compared to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which would be an interesting tradeoff against a CPU that launched at a retail price of $449 in 2023 and still sells for an estimated $350 to $380, depending on the market and retailers in question.

Despite the rumors, AMD has yet to announce the Ryzen 7 7700X3D. Given the company’s track record of releasing more affordable chips once high-end (read: better-binned) units have thinned out in stock, the Ryzen 7 7700X3D could arrive fairly soon to a PC gaming market that could, very frankly, use a break when it comes to hardware costs.