The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is now official: AMD's fastest gaming CPU just got faster

AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D has indisputably held the gaming crown on desktops over the last few years, with little competition from traditional rival Intel, as the latter's Rocket Lake effort gave way to an efficiency-focused, core-heavy Arrow Lake offering last year.

While AMD is already leading the segment, it is looking to build on its lead while also offering a small speed bump to gamers looking to eke out a few extra FPS by providing an upgrade that should appeal to those still on the fence: The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, simply put, is a 9800X3D with a significant core clock bump that makes it noticeably faster than its predecessor, at least in FHD gaming.

AMD has published slides that compare the CPU to the current-generation Intel flagship, the Core Ultra 9 285K, showcasing a clear lead over the competition.

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is an 8-core, 16-thread CPU that leverages AMD's fastest Zen 5 cores, clocking them at an impressive 5.6 GHz boost clock (versus the 9800X3D, which maxes out at 5.2 GHz), while otherwise offering a similar configuration that leverages what makes the latter such a strong contender.

The 96 MB of L3 cache that its predecessor has are still in play, even as the 9850X3D still offers a long-term TDP envelope of 120 W, much like the 9800X3D. This indicates that the 9850X3D is essentially a better-binned 9800X3D primarily.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9850X3D, based on tests by AMD, offers an impressive 27% performance gain versus the Core Ultra 9 285K across 35 games at high quality presets at FHD 1080p, but the benchmarks, while showing the strength of AMD's offerings, might not paint the entire picture.

Most users looking to spend the $450 (or potentially more in the case of AMD's Ryzen 9 9850X3D) for the 9800X3D might want to game at higher resolutions, where the GPU becomes potentially more of a bottleneck (such as 1440p, 4K, or even higher), resulting in lower real-world performance gains.

Perhaps less surprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X shines against Intel's fastest models in older game releases, even as it offers the largest possible lead versus the 9800X3D in e-sports, leveraging the clock-speed boost, making it arguably the de facto contender for e-sports tournaments and professionals. To provide context, the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D offers modest 3% gains in current and previous-generation titles versus the 9800X3D, but the gap widens to an impressive 6% in e-sports titles.

Naturally, this new AM5-socket chip is officially overclockable. Like its 9000X3D brothers, it also has PCIe 5 support and a DDR5-5600 RAM controller, along with a very basic 2-CU Radeon iGPU.

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is expected to trade at a premium versus the competition, possibly even higher one than the 9800X3D. There are no specifics yet but we do have a glimpse at what pricing and release date may be like for AMD's latest octa-core gaming juggernaut, thanks to the leaks surfacing over the last few days.

Buy the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D on Amazon here.