AMD 9850X3D CPU Review: Is it Worth the Upgrade?

The 9850X3D: A Minor Iteration

• 💡 The AMD 9850X3D is essentially the same CPU as the 9800X3D, but with a 400 MHz faster boost clock.
• 🚀 This improvement is attributed to process refinements since the 9800X3D's launch, offering higher speeds at the same TDP, power draw, and thermal levels.
• ⚠️ The speaker expresses fatigue with finding positive spins, suggesting this release is a small concession to maintain relevance in a stagnant CPU market.

Synthetic Performance Benchmarks

• 📊 In Cinebench R23, the 9850X3D showed an improvement of approximately 1,700 points over the 9800X3D, scaling well with frequency.
• ⚡ Single-threaded performance saw a noticeable uplift, with the 9850X3D boosting to 5.6 GHz compared to the 9800X3D's 5.2 GHz.
• 📉 While synthetic benchmarks like Cinebench and 3DMark CPU Profile show gains, these do not always directly translate to gaming performance uplift.

Gaming Performance Analysis

• 🎮 In gaming tests across various resolutions (4K, 1440p, 1080p) and titles like Black Myth: Wukong, F1, Borderlands 3, and Cyberpunk, the 9850X3D offers marginal gains over the 9800X3D.
• 🎯 The 3D V-Cache continues to be a significant factor in gaming, particularly in maintaining higher 1% low frame rates, which contribute to perceived smoothness.
• ⚠️ An anomaly was observed in F1 where the 14900K showed no performance increase from 1440p to 1080p, while AMD systems scaled as expected.
• 📈 In most gaming scenarios, the difference between the 9850X3D and the 9800X3D was often within a few FPS, sometimes even less than run variance.

Value and Conclusion

• 💰 The 9850X3D launched with an MSRP of $499, making it approximately $30 more expensive than the 9800X3D ($469) and the 14900K ($468.98) at the time of review.
• 🤔 For existing 9800X3D or 7800X3D owners, upgrading is not recommended; the performance gains do not justify the cost.
• 🎯 The 9850X3D is positioned for new buyers looking for the absolute best CPU performance, willing to pay a slight premium for the marginal gains.
• ⚠️ The speaker suggests that the 9800X3D can often be found cheaper, sometimes bundled, and that manual overclocking might yield similar results for less money, though their own 9800X3D sample had limited overclocking potential.