AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D Hits EOL Status But Here's A Better Gaming PC Build Config

The foremost Dutch tech site, Tweakers, is reporting that AMD's Ryzen 7 5700X3D has now reached End-of-Life (EOL). That means that any stock remaining in the channel is what's left, so if you want one of these chips, you'd better pick it up real soon now. The Ryzen 7 5700X3D is the second-fastest gaming processor for the Socket AM4 platform being eclipsed only by the original V-Cache CPU, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. That chip was discontinued in October of last year, so they've become quite hard to find now.

In fact, even the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is no longer available at Amazon. You can still pick them up over at Newegg, but the boxed chip is only available from third-party sellers who are charging $400 for the EOL'd CPU. Tray processors without a box (or a warranty) are cheaper, coming in at "only" $240—plus $29.99 shipping from Hong Kong.


These processors represent the absolute best gaming performance available on the Socket AM4 platform. If you're a die-hard intending to ride your AM4 machine until it's literally unusable, then these are your best options. Likewise, these will likely be the most cost-effective upgrades if you already have a Socket AM4 machine with at least 32GB of RAM and a competent modern graphics card—let's say, GeForce 20 series, AMD RX 6000 series, or newer.

Indeed, there's no getting around the fact that if you're upgrading an older machine, you're going to have to at least replace your motherboard and RAM along with your CPU. So saying, a system upgrade like this is almost assuredly going to be more expensive than even those overpriced X3D CPUs at Newegg.

Our Recommendations For Revitalizing An Older Rig

With that in mind, we have a handful of recommendations for you if you're in the unenviable situation of considering a 3D V-Cache upgrade for your AM4 CPU. All of these processors will provide a better gaming experience than the Ryzen 7 5700X3D—at least, when paired with our recommended low-latency memory, in the majority of games. Naturally, they'll also whomp the old Zen 3 chip in productivity, too.


For CPUs, you have a few options. At today's pricing, the best pick for price-to-performance in gaming is going to be AMD's Ryzen 5 7600X. This budget stalwart offers performance comparable with or better than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D at an attainable $179.68. The newer Ryzen 5 9600X is faster, but how much faster depends a lot on whether your game or application makes use of AVX instructions. Most games don't, so they don't care that much about the Zen 5 upgrade. Certain applications, like RPCS3 emulator, do absolutely prefer the newer architecture, so spend the $28 for the newer chip in that case.


Of course, six CPU cores isn't a lot, and if you're after better productivity performance, you'll want to look at the 20-core Core Ultra 7 265K. For $279.99 you can't beat this chip. With appropriately spec'd memory, it offers gaming performance on par with non-X3D versions of AMD's Ryzen 9000 Zen 5-based CPUs, and it blows the similarly-priced Ryzen 7 9700X out of the water in most productivity tasks. If you're looking in the circa-$300 price range, this is the chip to get, hands down.


Finally, if you're looking for the biggest upgrade possible, the absolute fastest gaming CPU in the world right now is the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It's not cheap at $449.99, but nothing else really competes in gaming. Thanks to both Zen 5 architectural improvements and a 500 MHz clock bump over the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, it's actually markedly faster in a lot of games, so if you're spending for the last-gen chip, might as well get the latest hotness.


Don't forget you'll need a CPU cooler, as these chips don't include one. For the Socket AM5 CPUs, or even for the Core Ultra 7 at stock settings, you'll have no problems with a simple ID Cooling SE-214-XT. It's a four-heatpipe 120-mm tower cooler that can easily handle heat loads up to 150W. However, if you're planning on overclocking any of these CPUs, we'd instead recommend the Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 EVO. It's not cheap, but it's not too pricey, either, and cooling performance doesn't get better than this without moving to liquid loops.

Of course, you'll need a motherboard. Our baseline for picking a board comes out like this: at least 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet, at least Wi-Fi 6E, and at least three M.2 storage slots. This weeds out the absolute bottom of the barrel, and gives us easy picks for appropriate platters onto which you can slap down your CPU and RAM. So saying, all of these motherboards have PCI Express 5.0, at least three M.2-2280 slots, and Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7.


On the Socket AM5 side of things, we have two recommendations: an entry-level board and a fancier model for those who want more. Our entry-level board is the ASRock B850M Pro-A WiFi. This is a no-frills mobo that offers PCI Express 5.0 on the primary graphics slot and the first M.2 socket, includes Wi-Fi 6E, and all for just $139.99. Very few users will need more than this.

If you're keen to try overclocking, though, we'd recommend a board with a little bit beefier power delivery hardware. This MSI X670E GAMING PLUS WIFI motherboard isn't the newest model on the block, but it offers an integrated I/O shield, improved power delivery, and additional PCIe expansion slots compared to the ASRock board above. It's on sale for $208.73 right now, which is bonkers cheap for this class of motherboard.


Over on the Intel side, we've also got two options. Generally speaking, most users will be well-served by the ASRock B860M Pro-A WiFi, which is essentially the same motherboard as the first AM5 recommendation above—just for LGA 1851 instead of Socket AM5. It has PCI Express 5.0 on the primary graphics slot, it has 2.5-Gigabit Ethernet, it has Wi-Fi 6E—everything you're likely to need.

However, if you really want the best performance out of a Core Ultra CPU, that means enabling 200S Boost Mode, and that requires a Z890 motherboard. Fortunately you don't have to spend a lot more to get one. MSI's PRO Z890-P WiFi motherboard fully supports overclocking, and it comes with Wi-Fi 7 and a pre-installed I/O shield, too. This is a fantastic board that's currently 25% off the list price at $179.99; we promise you won't be disappointed.

Finally, you'll obviously need some RAM. Socket AM4 systems and contemporary Intel rigs used DDR4 memory, which isn't compatible with the latest platforms. You'll have to upgrade to DDR5, and we recommend going straight to 32GB as a minimum. Also, like most desktop platforms for the last 20 years, these machines have 128-bit memory controllers, and that means you need to install DIMMs in pairs.


For Socket AM5 and entry-level Intel machines, we've got two options for you: a 32GB TeamGroup kit that sports some seriously short memory timings for the price. At just $91, you get two 16GB modules with 6000 MT/s transfer rates and 30-cycles CAS latency, as well as pretty short sub-timings. If you'd really like to future-proof your machine, you can instead grab this Silicon Power kit which sacrifices some sub-timing speed for double the capacity at 64GB.


Alternatively, if you're looking for the absolute maximum performance in this post, you'll want to grab this 48GB kit of G.SKILL Trident Z5 CK Series memory. These two modules are CUDIMMs, meaning they include dedicated clock drivers on each module to improve stability at high speeds. That's what allows them to run at over 8000 MT/s—a requirement if you want to enable Core Ultra 200S Boost mode, which we recommend with these processors, especially for gaming use.

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All told, the cheapest configuration here is going to run you about $430. That's for a quality ASRock motherboard, a fast six-core Socket AM5 processor, a capable 120-mm tower cooler, and 32GB of speedy DDR5 memory. This machine is perfectly competent for gaming, but it's also well-poised for a drop-in CPU upgrade when AMD releases the next-generation Ryzen processors next year, which are supposed to bring a huge performance uplift thanks to a massive boost in clock speeds. 

The fastest configuration here in most cases would be for the Core Ultra 7 265K with the 48GB CUDIMMs and the fancy MSI Z890 board. That will run you around $760, but you get a 20-core machine with absolutely brutal multi-core performance and impressive gaming speed too. Of course, if all you care about is gaming, then you should stick with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, because its combination of the fast Zen 5 architecture and massive second-generation 3D V-cache means that it's pretty well untouchable for now.

We could have built a cheaper configuration, but remember that this post was written specifically from the perspective of someone on a relatively recent machine that wants a gaming performance upgrade. If you're rocking some old museum piece like a Core i7-4790K, something like a Core i5-12600K on a DDR4 motherboard would still be a huge upgrade, and you could easily come in under $300. However, even in that case we would recommend looking at the parts selections above if you can stretch your budget, because you'll end up with a better machine overall.

Did we miss any killer parts deals? Let us know in the comments below if you find some cheaper components!

_{Hat tip to Tweakers for pointing out the 5700X EOL story.}