AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review: An Ideal CPU For PC Gamers
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review: CPU, Memory, System, And Browser Benchmarks
When configuring our test systems for benchmarking, we first make sure all firmwares are up to date, and then we enter each system's respective BIOS / UEFI and set the board to its "Optimized" or "High Performance" defaults. We then save the settings, re-enter the BIOS, and set the memory frequency to the maximum officially supported speed for the given platform without overclocking. After that, we format the SSDs and install and fully update Windows 11 Pro.
When the Windows installation was complete, we installed all of the drivers necessary for our components, disabled auto-updating and OneDrive, and installed all of our benchmarking software. When that process was done, we performed a disk clean-up, cleared any temp and prefetch data, processed idle tasks, and optimized all of the SSDs using Windows' built-in tools. Finally, we enabled Windows Focus Assist to minimize any potential interruptions and let the systems reach an idle state before invoking any tests.
HotHardware's Test Systems:
With "only" 8 cores / 16 threads, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D lands about in the middle of the pack in terms of multi-threaded performance in Geekbench -- which is to be expected. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D's single-thread performance is quite good though, and clearly outguns any of the Ryzen 7000 series or more mainstream, lower-clocked Intel processors.
It's single-CCD design (which lowers latency), competitive clocks, and all of that cache memory helps the Ryzen 7 9800X3D land in second place in our PCMark testing. While its 8-cores / 16 threads may not make demanding creators drool, AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D is clearly a great CPU for general computing tasks and Microsoft Office applications.
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D landed exactly where you'd expect it to in our Crossmark tests, based on its model number. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D slots in ahead of the 9700X, and just a notch behind the previous-gen 16-core Ryzen 7 7950X.
When the Windows installation was complete, we installed all of the drivers necessary for our components, disabled auto-updating and OneDrive, and installed all of our benchmarking software. When that process was done, we performed a disk clean-up, cleared any temp and prefetch data, processed idle tasks, and optimized all of the SSDs using Windows' built-in tools. Finally, we enabled Windows Focus Assist to minimize any potential interruptions and let the systems reach an idle state before invoking any tests.
HotHardware's Test Systems:
AIDA64 Memory Bandwidth, Memory Latency & Cache Latency
AIDA64's CPU Cache and Memory benchmarks measure memory bandwidth during read, write and copy operations, in addition to memory latency, and cache bandwidth and latency.
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D's memory bandwidth characteristics lands right in between the Ryzen 5 9600X and Ryzen 7 9700X, which is to say there's nothing extraordinary to report.
Memory latency is another story altogether, though. Despite using a similar memory configuration with similar timings, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D's memory latency was somewhat higher than all of the other Ryzen-based systems.
Cache latency with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, however, is somewhat better than the previous-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D, at least in terms of its L1 and L2 cache. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D's cache latency is also much better than any of the Intel offerings from the last couple of generations.
Memory latency is another story altogether, though. Despite using a similar memory configuration with similar timings, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D's memory latency was somewhat higher than all of the other Ryzen-based systems.
Geekbench v6.3 CPU Benchmark
The GeekBench CPU tests stress only the processor cores in a system (not the graphics card/GPU), with both single and multi-threaded workloads. The tests are comprised of encryption processing, image compression, HTML5 parsing, physics calculations and other general purpose compute processing workloads.
With "only" 8 cores / 16 threads, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D lands about in the middle of the pack in terms of multi-threaded performance in Geekbench -- which is to be expected. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D's single-thread performance is quite good though, and clearly outguns any of the Ryzen 7000 series or more mainstream, lower-clocked Intel processors.
UL PCMark 10 Applications Benchmarks
Next, up we have some full-system testing with PCMark. We're reporting all test results from the PCMark 10 Applications benchmark suite, which uses actual Microsoft Office applications, in addition to the Microsoft Edge browser. The workloads are specific to each Office application (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), and the Edge tests simulates real-world web browsing.
It's single-CCD design (which lowers latency), competitive clocks, and all of that cache memory helps the Ryzen 7 9800X3D land in second place in our PCMark testing. While its 8-cores / 16 threads may not make demanding creators drool, AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D is clearly a great CPU for general computing tasks and Microsoft Office applications.
Bapco Crossmark Benchmark
Crossmark is a cross-platform benchmark from Bapco that's available for Windows, Android, iOS and MacOS. Like PCMark, Crossmark measures overall system performance and using real-world applications. It provides an overall score based on the results of its Creativity and Productivity benchmarks and system responsiveness tests.
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D landed exactly where you'd expect it to in our Crossmark tests, based on its model number. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D slots in ahead of the 9700X, and just a notch behind the previous-gen 16-core Ryzen 7 7950X.
Browser & Web App Benchmarks: Jetstream 2.2 And Speedometer 3
Next up, we have some numbers from the Speedometer 2.0 and Jetstream 2 tests available at Browserbench.org. The Speedometer Benchmark Suite uses a wide array of latency and throughput benchmarks to evaluate web application performance, while Jetstream evaluates Javascript and WebAssembly performance; both tests take all of their individual results and tabulate them into a final score.
These benchmarks measure performance of an array of browser-based technologies used on modern, rich web applications. Scores in these benchmark are an indicator of the performance users would see when browsing the web and running advanced web apps. All of the systems were tested using the latest version of Google Chrome, with default browser settings, on a clean, fully-updated install of Windows 11.
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D also performed relatively well in our browser-based tests. Here, AMD's latest desktop processor finishes up near the top of heap, and is plenty fast for any web-apps.
These benchmarks measure performance of an array of browser-based technologies used on modern, rich web applications. Scores in these benchmark are an indicator of the performance users would see when browsing the web and running advanced web apps. All of the systems were tested using the latest version of Google Chrome, with default browser settings, on a clean, fully-updated install of Windows 11.
7-Zip Data Compression / Decompression Tests
The 7-Zip benchmark measures compression and decompression performance using the LZMA method, which leverages the Lempel–Ziv–Markov chain algorithm to perform lossless data compression. The benchmark produces a final rating in GIPS (giga instructions per second).
Once again, these compression / decompression workloads will gobble up any and all available CPU resources, so the Ryzen 7 9800X3D's 8-cores / 16-threads can't hang with the higher-core count chips. Its single-thread performance is right in the mix, though.
Once again, these compression / decompression workloads will gobble up any and all available CPU resources, so the Ryzen 7 9800X3D's 8-cores / 16-threads can't hang with the higher-core count chips. Its single-thread performance is right in the mix, though.
