AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU arrives on November 7th for $479

After bizarrely teasing a 9000-series X3D announcement last week, AMD is making it official today that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D will be available on November 7th. Priced at $479, the 9800X3D is a direct successor to the best gaming CPU on the market right now, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. There’s a lot to be excited about with this next-generation X3D chip, too.

AMD is increasing the base clock speed up to 4.7GHz on the 9800X3D, with a max boost of 5.2GHz. Combined with an increase to a 120-watt TDP, this may well help improve productivity workloads — something the X3D chips have always fallen behind their non-X3D counterparts on.

The 9800X3D is really focused on gaming, though. AMD is calling it “the world’s best gaming processor,” and promising an 8 percent uplift in average FPS over the 7800X3D. Those gains are thanks to the Zen 5 architecture and a second generation of 3D V-Cache technology.

AMD even claims the 9800X3D will be up to 20 percent better than Intel’s latest Core Ultra 9 285K in gaming. In a video announcement, AMD computing and graphics boss Jack Huynh reveals that “in many games such as Far Cry 6 and Cyberpunk 2077 we are more than 40 percent faster.”

The 9800X3D is also the first X3D processor to be fully unlocked, allowing enthusiasts and gamers to overclock it and squeeze more performance out of their systems. AMD is launching the Ryzen 7 9800X3D on November 7th, priced at $479.