Heads Up, AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D Is Finally Back In Stock At MSRP
If you've been itching to build a new gaming PC (or upgrade an existing one) around AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D, we have good news—it's finally back in stock at multiple retailers, and priced at MSRP. Yes, availability and MSRP pricing are things we celebrate these days, as stock shortages, price hikes (whether due to tariffs or anything else), an endless barrage of scalpers, and other factors have made things difficult as of late.
Officially, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D released to retail on November 7, 2024. However, it's been one of the more difficult chips to come by, for reasons mentioned above. Not anymore, though, at least for the moment—at the time of this writing, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is in stock at Amazon for $479, and also at Best Buy for the same price.
You can check out our Ryzen 7 9800X3D review for lots of benchmarks and analysis. At the time, we called it an "ideal CPU for PC gamers" and that remains true now four months later. It's since been eclipsed by the Ryzen 9 9950X3D ($649 at Best Buy, out of stock on Amazon) and Ryzen 9 9900X3D ($599 at Amazon and out of stock at Best Buy), which offer more cores/threads and L3 cache, but if your main or sole goal is gaming, the bang-for-buck factor on the 9800X3D is tough to beat.
To recap the specs, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D serves up 8 cores and 16 threads clocked at 4.7GHz (base) to 5.2GHz (max boost). It also features 8MB of L2 cache and 96MB of L3 cache for 104MB of total cache (along with 640KB of L1 cache).
It's that L3 cache that gives games a boost compared to non-X3D models. And versus previous generation designs, AMD shifted the placement of its 3D V-Cache to enable higher clock speed and, for the first time, enable end-user overclocking.
"With 2nd Gen AMD 3D V-cache in the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, we turned the entire design on its head. With the extra memory now sitting below the processor cores, those cores now have direct access to the cooler. And when a chip runs cooler, it can run faster. That’s exactly what happens," AMD explains.
That's actually true of all 9000X3D CPUs, not just the 9800X3D. But the point remains, it's a better implementation this time around. Plus you get the benefits of AMD's Zen 5 architecture and, optionally, the latest platform designs.
In any event, hopefully the current stock status is a sign that supply has improved and can keep up with demand going forward. Which, looking at Amazon's list of best selling CPUs, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D currently sits in the top spot.
