AMD’s CPUs are the kings of gaming in 2025, with Intel’s latest-generation Arrow Lake CPUs performing worse than their 14th generation counterparts. But if you’re trying to pick the best CPU for gaming, then AMD’s 9800X3D and 9950X3D are a tough choice to pick between. The former is far more affordable, but it also misses out on eight full-size Zen 5 cores and a lot of extra multi-threading performance.
Does that make much of a difference in gaming, though? Let’s find out.
Pricing and availability
AMD launched the Ryzen 9800X3D in November 2024, a few months after the debut of the Ryzen 9000 generation of CPUs. Its launch price was $479 and besides a brief spike after it initially went on sale, it’s maintained that price ever since.
The 9950X3D launched in March 2025 with a suggested price of $699. However, its popularity has made it hard to find, meaning it’s often out of stock and prices have risen in turn. At the time of writing, it’s available at major retailers for around $835.
Specifications
| Ryzen 7 9800X3D | Ryzen 9 9950X3D | |
| Architecture | Zen 5 | Zen 5 |
| Cores/Threads | 8/16 | 16/32 |
| L3/L2 Cache | 96MB / 8MB | 128MB / 16MB |
| Base frequency | 4.7GHz | 4.3GHz |
| Max turbo frequency | 5.2GHz | 5.7GHz |
| Socket | AM5 | AM5 |
| Max temperature | 95°C | 95°C |
| TDP | 120W | 170W |
It’s clear looking at the specifications that the 9950X3D is the big brother of the comparatively-humble 9800X3D. It has double the cores and thread support, more L3 cache, a higher clock speed, and a higher TDP to go along with it. However, this is all fair enough considering the 9950X3D is close to double the price of its eight-core counterpart.
Outside of extremely well optimized games, too, the 9950X3D doesn’t showcase much of anything in this spec table which would give it a big advantage in gaming, which is what these CPUs are primarily designed to do. The extra boost clock mighth come into play, but that’s more likely a single core boost. When all its cores are at work it’ll run closer to 5GHz.
Performance
We did review the 9800X3D when it launched last year, so if you want some detailed results from us on how that chip performs, check out our in-depth testing. However, we haven’t had a chance to play with the 9950X3D yet, so we’ll be looking to extensive third-party results to see how well it performs and compares to the gaming king 9800X3D.
First, we’ll cover gaming, and as expected the 9950X3D is amazing. How amazing? About as amazing as the 9800X3D, it turns out. In TechPowerUp’s coverage, the two CPUs trade blows at 1080p across a range of games, and the differences between them are even less distinct at 1440p and 4K.
Overall, the 9800X3D ends up slightly faster across its suite of games, but only by a couple of percent, and even then it really depends on the games you play. It’s a real toss up in gaming.
TomsHardware reports very similar results in gaming, but when switching to productivity workloads like Handbrake video encoding or Blender rendering, showcases the additional power those eight extra cores can bring to the table. With 16 cores and its higher overall clock speed, the 9950X3D blows the 9800X3D away, and even manages to eclipse the 9950X at a times, as well as giving the Intel 285K a run for its money.
It seems that in certain apps, the added cache on the 9950X3D gives it a leg up over its X3D-less counterparts.
GamersNexus confirmed the same kind of results, finding the 9950X3D to be about the fastest chip you can find in almost any category. It’s the best at gaming, except when the 9800X3D just pips it at the post. It’s also extremely capable in professional workloads, often trading places with the Intel 285K and it shows clear advantages over the 9950X at times — that’s a major achievement for AMD, and its 7950X3D often fell well behind the 7950X in demanding multithreaded workloads.
Buy the 9800X3D for pure gaming
If you’re just in it for the frames in your games, the 9800X3D is by far the better buy. It offers the same, or even slightly-better performance than the 9950X3D and it’s available in greater quantities at around half the price. If you can’t make use of those extra eight cores in more demanding workloads, then there really is no need to pay for them.
Similarly, while the 9950X3D is great for content creation and productivity workloads, it’s about as good as the 9950X in most cases. There are certain applications and programs where the extra 3D V-Cache does give it a slight edge, but we’re talking about shading a second or two off a 40 second render run. You aren’t going to notice a huge difference. With the 9950X and Intel Core Ultra 285K 200-300 dollars cheaper, too, it’s easy to recommend those alternatives if you’re just looking to do professional work on your new PC.
If, however, you’re that rare breed of PC builder who wants a powerful gaming machine and render machine in one, then the 9950X3D is by far the best option. It’s blazing fast in gaming and in productivity workloads, making it the best general purpose CPU out there. You just need to pay for the privilege.
