The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D revisited Now a good deal?
What makes the 5800X3D special
In the summer of 2021, AMD announced the arrival of a 3D V-Cache. That is an extra L3 cache that is not in the processor chip itself as usual, but in an extra chip literally on top of the regular. AMD uses chip-on-wafer technology from chip maker TSMC for this. The 5800X3D, therefore, does not have a 32MB L3 cache, like the regular 5800X, but 96MB: three times as much. The L3 cache is the largest cache within the processor and if the necessary data for a calculation cannot be found in it, it must be used in the working memory, which is an order of magnitude slower.
In particular, tasks that work on a lot of data at the same time or for which the required data is difficult to predict generally benefit greatly from adding more L3 cache. Games are an excellent example of this. However, if the data required for a particular application already fit within the existing cache at any given time, adding more cache is pointless. In addition, cache is relatively ‘expensive’; the slice of 64MB of additional L3 cache is more than half the size of the 5800X’s entire original chip. So the amount of cache in a CPU is always a balancing act.
Due to a large amount of cache, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D performs particularly well in games, especially compared to other models of its generation, and it does so very efficiently. The extra cache is more economical than alternative ways to increase gaming performance, for example increasing the clock frequency.
Limitations of the 5800X3D
One downside to the 5800X3D is that it’s the first Ryzen desktop processor that you can’t overclock or undervolt. AMD has removed those settings because the new manufacturing technique limits the scalability of the clock speed in relation to the voltage. Because the characteristics of the cache and the processor cores themselves are linked in various ways, the CPU cores cannot be overclocked or underclocked manually either.
Users have since worked out a way to use Precision Boost Overdrive 2 on the 5800X3D, but it is not very user-friendly and is obviously not recommended by AMD.
Current price-performance ratio
The price is the most important thing that has changed on the 5800X3D since we discussed it on Tweakers at its introduction. At that time I thought it was way too expensive at 499 euros. What about now? Time to dig into our price-performance charts, starting with gaming performance. After all, that’s what the 5800X3D is all about.
The trend line indicates the average price-performance ratio in a segment and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D scores well above that for its new price. The difference with the regular 5800X, which is cheaper, but ends well below the trend line, is very significant here. The Ryzen 5 7600X scores identically to the 5800X3D for less money, but of course that requires a system based on the AM5 platform, which I’ll get into in more detail later.
However, if we look at the performance in all our tests, the 5800X3D comes off less rosy. Many applications other than games do not benefit or benefit to a much lesser extent from the extra L3 cache, while you do of course pay for it.
Purely based on the prices of the processors in relation to the performance offered, we can therefore conclude that the 5800X3D has indeed become an interesting option for gamers, but for non-gamers, it is still not a logical purchase.
In addition to the performance, the power consumption also makes the 5800X3D a special processor. Due to the slightly lower clock speeds, this is lower than with the normal 5800X, while the performance, especially in games, is therefore considerably higher. For example, when gaming in Metro Exodus, the 5800X3D is almost as economical as a Ryzen 7 5700G, while it is of course a lot faster.