Ryzen 7 9850X3D: ~2% gaming gain but ~43% higher power draw, PC Gamer says

PC Gamer's review of AMD's Ryzen 7 9850X3D finds the new chip is only marginally faster than the 9800X3D—roughly a 2% higher frame rate in many tests—despite being identical apart from a 5.6 GHz boost clock. PC Gamer notes the 9850X3D keeps the same Zen 5 architecture, 4nm process and second‑generation 3D V‑Cache.

That 3D V‑Cache now sits under the CCD, which allows higher clock speeds and better overclocking while preserving the cache benefits that boost gaming performance. In GPU‑heavy testing with an RTX 5090, PC Gamer saw at most about a 2.5% frame‑rate uplift for the 9850X3D; with a more typical RTX 4070 the results were mixed and sometimes favoured the older 9800X3D.

Cinebench scores reported were 142 single‑core / 1,358 multi‑core for the 9850X3D versus 133 / 1,307 for the 9800X3D, showing only modest gains in productivity tests. Where differences show up is power and heat: PC Gamer measured the 9850X3D drawing about 43% more power in gaming and running around 24% hotter than the 9800X3D.

The review also points out the 9850X3D is binned from higher‑quality cores and carries a small MSRP premium (about $20 in the table, nearer $30 at current prices in the story) that some may pay for perceived extra reliability amid reports of 9800X3D failures. PC Gamer's conclusion is that the 9850X3D remains one of the fastest gaming CPUs you can buy, but with only marginal performance gains over the 9800X3D and substantially higher power and thermal costs.

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