Although AMD’s claims about competitive performance are likely to hold up, the bigger question is how the Ryzen 7 9850X3D will manage to find a foothold with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D still available. Ultimately, it will depend on how prices shake out once the chip is available.
The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the fourth X3D chip AMD has released this generation, crowding an already dense lineup even further. Although the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best CPU for gaming, and the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X3D earned an elusive Editor’s Choice badge in our review due to its prime mixture of gaming and productivity performance, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D didn’t fare as well. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D, with its close proximity to the base Ryzen 7 9800X3D, may also struggle.
AMD hasn’t shared pricing details for the Ryzen 7 9850X3D yet, but it says the chip will arrive in the first quarter of 2026. Although AMD hasn’t provided a more specific release date, Alienware revealed that a version of the Area-51 Desktop will arrive in February with the Ryzen 7 9850X3D.
In this generation, AMD raised the price of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, with the chip launching at $479 compared to the $449 the previous-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D released at. You can find the Ryzen 7 9800X3D for around $450 now, so hopefully the Ryzen 7 9850X3D will create downward pressure on prices for its current model. It’s hard to say until AMD reveals the MSRP of its latest X3D CPU, however.
The Ryzen 7 9850X3D slots into existing Socket AM5 motherboards. If you’re socketing the chip into an existing AM5 motherboard, make sure to grab the BIOS image with the latest AGESA before installation. Both 600- and 800-series motherboards support the Ryzen 7 9850X3D, but if you’re using a 600-series board, double-check the compatibility for your specific motherboard. Although the Ryzen 7 9850X3D will technically work with Socket AM5 motherboards with an A-series chipset or the B840 chipset, those chipsets don’t support CPU overclocking.
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Jake Roach Social Links Navigation Senior Analyst, CPUs Jake Roach is the Senior CPU Analyst at Tom’s Hardware, writing reviews, news, and features about the latest consumer and workstation processors.
Makaveli The 9800X3D + PBO 200mhz easily does 5.4Ghz. And since the 9850X3D is a high binned chip i'm expecting the same PBO + 200mhz to hit 5.8 on that chip. Reply
usertests Overall, AMD claims the Ryzen 7 9850X3D leads its predecessor by an average of 7% in games Did they make this claim on a slide? I'm seeing less than 3% by doing some simple math on one of their slides. Reply
PCWarrior It is definitely not 7% better average gaming performance. What is 7% higher is the single-core frequency (5.6/5.2=1.077 i.e. 7.7% higher) which is only achievable during very short bursts. AMD’s own slides avoid comparing directly the two cpus but they do compare both against the 285K. Even so you can calculate how they directly compare and there is only one case where the 9850X3D is 7% better than the 9800X3D. The biggest uplifts of the 9850X3D Vs the 9800X3D are in the seven following games only: 1. League of Legends: 7.3% 2. Far Cry 6 – 6.3% 3. CS2 – 5.7% 4. Rainbow Six Siege – 5.55% 5. Baldur's Gate 3 – 4.57% 6. Hogwarts Legacy – 4.3% 7. Watch Dogs: Legion – 3.95% The rest is between 0% and 3%. On average across 35+ games (including the aforementioned seven best cases which represent around 1/5 of the total games tested) the difference is 2.4%. TLDR: Up to 7% better, not on average. On average is only 2.4% . Reply
-Fran- Absolute nothing burger. I would've been more excited about AMD making the 9950X3D2 official. Well, if they accelerate Zen6 to AM5, I'll take that trade off, but nothing mentioned in either case. Like the more exciting product they mentioned is the HX388 (EDIT: AI Max+ 388… what an awful name, jeez): 8 C 40 CU part for mobile. That is mighty interesting for budget gaming laptops and handhelds. Regards. Reply
Dan_Turism0 Would love to see a benchmark comparison of a 9800x3d at 5.6ghz, granted not all will easily hit 5.6ghz but still Reply
LordVile Who is this for though. Those who already have a X3D chip don’t need one and for those on AM4 the RAM market makes upgrading to AM5 cost prohibitive Reply
Gururu The king of gaming CPUs should be the fastest CPU without a dGPU. Reply
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- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/amds-ryzen-7-9850x3d-promises-7-percent-uplift-over-ryzen-7-9800x3d-amd-fights-itself-with-new-fastest-gaming-processor#main
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