Hi All,
Im struggling to pick a CPU for my upgrade!
I started collecting parts on sale/deals over 3 months ago now!
So far I have:
-be quiet Dark Rock Pro 5
-MSI MAG X870 Tomahawk
-Kingston FURY BEAST 2x32GB DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM
-2x Samsung 990 Pro 2TB NVMe (have flashed latest firmware)
-1x Samsng 1TB SATA SSD
-MSI RX6800
-Fractal Meshify 2
-Corsair RM750
I currently have a 5700G based system
I play some games “Paradox, Satisfactory” / do a bit of compiling of software / dabbling with the Fyrox game engine
I run Debian, but I used to run gentoo and may go that way again at some point
The 9800X3D seems to be unobtainium, if you are lucky it is £480 but listings are currently £530
the 9900X3D looks to be available march/April so ill be deep into RMA territory with the other parts once this comes out
likely to be £550 MINIMUM (assuming they can get supply sorted on the 9800X3D)
the 9900X is £400 - seems like it might be a good compromise in the current market, but ill be losing a lot of fps in games
im unsure exactly how the lack of cache will effect the “productivity” benchmarks compared to extra cores
any suggestions / thoughts / warnings / user experiences would be great!
1 Like
Are you sure? I’m running an RX 7800 XT with a Ryzen 7600 CPU and play usually at 1440p. I get rock steady 90 or 100 fps (limited by me*) in games like The Long Dark, Valheim, Outer Wilds, and Witcher 3. (I use generally high or highest graphics settings but disable things like motion blur and lens flare.) I game on Linux exclusively (currently on Ubuntu).
So even this basic CPU is not a limitation for me for gaming. I guess it depends on what games you want to play and at which settings.
I’m also dual booting Gentoo on this system and I don’t find rebuild times to be an issue, really. (I mean, it takes some time but I just leave it going over night.) I haven’t timed it properly, but if I remember correctly a Firefox build takes about 15-20 minutes. If I was getting another CPU today it would probably be a 7700 or a 9700X (because I like the 65 W TDP). The 9900X is just a little worse in performance per cost than the 7700 though, and a lot more performant, so looks like a nice choice if 120 W TDP is fine.
TL;DR: I wouldn’t care about the X3D parts unless also going with a much higher performance graphics card than the RX 6800. For productivity (code compilation and such) more cores seem to be preferred anyway.
* Edit: I let The Long Dark run free once (no VSync etc) and it ended up at about 250 fps. Just tried it for a minute or two though since the fans went kinda crazy. 
3 Likes
Yup totally agree with @homeserver78
With an RX6800 you should not be losing that much performance in most games,
when you go with a ¨non X3D¨cpu.
So yeah i would say something like a 9700X or 9900X would be a good option.
The 9800X3D is only going to be really interesting if you currently have gpu´s,
like a 7900XTX or a RTX4080 / RTX4090.
Or if you have urgent plans to upgrade your GPU soon as well.
Unfortunately the 7800X3D went also up in price drastically since August.
There is a 7600X3D released recently however that also isn´t really a bargain either.
Otherwise for gaming it would also have been a viable option as well.
However with a six core you will loose some productivity performance.
I´d would probably go with a 9700X or 9900X in this case,
depending on how much compiling work you do on a weekly bases.
2 Likes
Actually… Strangely enough, you need a great GPU to take advantage of those FPS, and the true benefit are on 1080p resolutions. The higher the resolution, the less important the X3D will be.
X3D is a tech mainly for e-sport titles, and then mainly for those who need to squeeze out every frame possible - for casuals they are not really worth the extra $100, if it was $50 it would’ve been more worth to consider it.
The X3Ds are best with a GPU that needs the high cache, like the 4090 - that is when the X3D truly shine. Pairing X3D with a lesser GPU makes very little sense, if you plan to upgrade to a 5090 or 6090 the X3D has some merit, but on the other hand you can easily buy an entire RTX 5070 + 9900X computer for the price of a 5090.
So, a 9900X is probably the best option here. Let’s see how prices develop though…
Thanks for the input! I will upgrade the GPU eventually, but no plan yet
X3D is more a nicety and game type exploitation hasn’t been definitive
And the 9900/9950 X3Ds, are akin to the predecessors [1CCD carries the X3D]
… I wouldn’t be surprised, if the whole core parking thing resurfaces again
2 Likes
I have been reading that L3 cache is beneficial for doing calculations in the paradox games. although i’ll get 64mb shared with the 9900x vs 96+ with an x3d chip. I just need someone to do really specific and obscure benchmarks for me 
Here is what the price / perf looks like:
CPU |
Price |
Performance |
9700X |
$319 |
100% |
9800X3D |
$479 |
120% |
9900X |
$409 |
150% |
9950X |
$599 |
180% |
From this, the 9800X3D is not really worth the price it currently is set at, not in my opinion atleast, but yes some games and specifically CPU bound games will benefit a lot from the increase in cache - at the expense of everything else. The X3D chips would need to fall to $399 before I would even start considering them, personally.
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I guess we just blame intel for their lack of competition and begrudgingly open our wallets 
I´m kinda jealous of those US cpu prices.
I mean up here the 9800X3D costs actually €630,-.
If you put that in perspective the 9700X costs like €365 i mean that,
price gab is enormous and if you don´t have the highest end of gpu.
It would not really matter that much.
Keep in mind almost no one in the US will pay those prices, either. State sales tax and/or municipal taxes will add on top of that based on region. I ordered my 9800X3D on Newegg November 7th. It was $479 but ~$510 with taxes, and my state ranks #37 in sales tax. Still a decent bargain compared to 530 Euro but not an eye-watering amount.
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Yeah, I used the MSRP in the US it’s currently as expensive as a regular 9950X…
I mean, which one is better, an 8 core or 16 core with the same cache size, tough call 
Well it depends on what the main focus of the system is.
With compiling it´s likely that the extra cores of the 9900X / 9950X will help.
But at gaming in most games less so.
The upcoming 9900X3D and 9950X3D cpu´s are just like their predecessors a bit,
of a difficult one i guess.
Because you will basically be reliant on the AMD driver team to improve the scheduler driver.
And yeah for gaming the 9800X3D would still be better anyways so i still don´t,
really see the point of those but maybe they made some huge improvements on the driver.
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The 9800x3D has 96MB of L3 and the 9900X & 9950X have 64MB
its a shame the R9’s didn’t get extra cache on each CCD
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According to AMD technicians from what i read providing extra stacked cache on,
both CCD´s would barely improve the cpu´s overall performance.
And i guess that kinda makes sense because you still have to deal with the latency,
between both CCD´s and there for driver / software optimizations.
I think they kinda need to rethink that design.
WELL!
9900X listed at 390, so i just bought it.
threw it all together boot spits through codes
00 - CPU TEMP RANGE?
46 - CPU TEMP RANGE?
15 - Pre-memory system agent initialisation started
EC - Reserved for future AMI error codes
stayed on EC
tried clear CMOS
now just sits on 00
stuck a USB in the BIOS flash port with latest firmware,
pressed flash bios - nothing happens
time to tear this apart piece by piece and hope i get a different error /resolve this without retailers/RMA 
might try flashing the bios without RAM installed or something 
now off to work to think about this all day HAHA!
The AMD tax is going to be heavy this time around. My local Micro Center has been tapped out for a long time now. Since you bought parts already I would have suggested upgrading what you had. Everyone forgets AMD is a very small company and they have always honestly have not been good on supply.
OK, I had to remove everything to flash the bios!
it wouldnt let me do with CPU RAM OR Disks.
the realtek Ethernet is a real PIG though i have had to download and compile it directly for realtek! (not easy without an internet connection)
My Older 5700g based system actually used to be my home truenas server, so it will return to that once i get my entertainment PC back to spec
1 Like
so you need a Ryzen, faster is better
fastest is bestest
put yourself on a waitlist for the 9950X3D, if you can afford to replace the entire build in 3 years.
Else, buy upper mid range and upgrade in a year or 2.
Your AM5 build is a great platform, but the second generation on the platform so unlikely to have an upgrade path going forward so don’t worry about havin the best toady when the 9950x3d isn’t shippin til tomorrow.