Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Ryzen 7 9800X3D: New Ryzen CPU is faster in gaming but consumes 32% more power
The newly launched $499 Ryzen 7 9850X3D is AMD’s fastest gaming CPU. Per 3DCenter’s analysis of 14 launch reviews, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is reportedly around 3.2% faster in gaming than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, 5% faster than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, and a whopping 32% faster than the Core Ultra 9 285K. However, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D’s added gaming performance comes at the cost of much higher power consumption.
The Ryzen 7 9850X3D reportedly uses 32% more power than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, with an average power consumption of 104 W vs 79 W. This is a huge increase over the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, one of the most power-efficient CPUs per our testing.
The Ryzen 7 9850X3D’s worse power consumption is not surprising, however. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is simply a Ryzen 7 9800X3D that AMD has overclocked by 400 MHz to 5.6 GHz. As we’ve seen plenty of times with Intel chips like the 14th-gen Core i9-14900K, aggressively boosting the clock speeds of a CPU raises the power consumption by quite a lot. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a prime example of this.
Finally, higher power consumption means higher heat output. So, gamers who want to buy the Ryzen 7 9850X3D should also ensure that their CPU coolers are up to the task. With a 32% higher power consumption, it is not a given that your cooler, which works fine for the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, will also be able to handle the Ryzen 7 9850X3D.
Do people even need a new CPU?
Consumers are no longer buying new CPUs as much as they used to. The global DRAM shortage has raised the prices of components like RAM and GPU, making it practically impossible to build a reasonably priced gaming PC. So, how well the Ryzen 7 9850X3D sells is anybody’s guess.
What consumers do need, however, is access to affordable memory and GPUs. Only then will new CPUs make sense in the current market.
Source(s)
3DCenter, Teaser image source: AMD, RachelRitchecy on Pixabay, Growtika on Unsplash, edited
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