AMD's first CPU to sport 3D V-cache—the Zen 3-powered Ryzen 7 5800X3D—proved to be a real hit with PC gamers. And that was no surprise; the extra slice of L3 cache attached on top of the CPU die did wonders for minimum frame rates in dozens of games, especially the likes of Factorio, Minecraft, and many others that were traditionally really CPU-heavy.
So when AMD did the same with its Zen 4 chips, expectations were high. Fortunately, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D easily lived up to the hype and the newer architecture, high clock speeds, and mountains of cache just bulldozed its way to the top of the performance charts. It really is the best pure gaming CPU you buy right now.
We were happy to recommend the chip when it launched at its $449 release price, but now prices have dropped below the $400 mark—it's $359 (w/ code BFDAYW23) at Newegg right now—it's an even easier recommendation from our side.
Such gaming strength does put into stark relief what it's not so good at, however. The relatively small number of cores and threads, and low clock speed owing to that L3 cache hat atop the compute die, means the are better choices if you're going to be doing productivity work alongside your hobby, or just need something that provides a good balance between gaming and content creation.
For those scenarios, AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Intel's Core i9-13900K are more suitable, but you'll need to hand over a lot more cash for these, and they both use more power (and therefore generate more heat) than the 7800X3D.
If you already have a PC using the AM5 platform, it's arguably not worth upgrading the CPU to this one, unless you're using something like a lowly Ryzen 5 7600. However, if you're looking to move up from an older setup that uses DDR4 system RAM, and you want to do nothing but build yourself a bruising gaming PC, then the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is the only choice worth considering.
And with $90 off the usual price, those extra bucks can go toward a nice set of DDR5 RAM, a better AM5 motherboard, or a large capacity SSD.
