Visual performance in general tended to be a bit better on the IGPs on competing Intel chips here as well, so if you are buying a processor and don’t want to buy a graphics card, it’s worth keeping this in mind. Power and Thermal Performance We've been asked by some members of the driving simulator community to change the way we test ACC, moving away from the Medium preset to Epic, so that's what we've done and this has led to some interesting results which verify what some sim racers have been reporting.

All tests were performed inside of Windows 11 with the latest Windows updates installed. An Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 was also used for all tests except for those focused on integrated graphics performance. CPU TestsCalling these test scores for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D uninspiring for the money wouldn’t be too far off of the mark. We don’t say such things lightly, but all of the processors we just named cost less—some, like the Ryzen 5 7600 and the Core i5-12600K, by hundreds of dollars. Regardless, the Core i5-12600K had as much as a 12% performance advantage in select tests, and the two chips effectively tied in the best test-case scenario for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The cheaper Ryzen 7 7700X was also faster than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D by as much as 24%. Gaming Tests That’s not to say the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is slow because it’s not. It still shows massive gains over the previous generation in the web-based Jetstream benchmark, and it managed to match the Ryzen 9 7950X in Photoshop (though, Intel still claims the lead in Adobe benchmarks). Gaming performance Jacob Roach / Digital Trends

The 7950X3D is still broken in the Factorio benchmark, if you manually disable the second CCD it can match what we're seeing here from the 7800X3D, but failing to do so sees the gaming run on the second CCD. This is a good example of gaming performance-related issues you can avoid with the 7800X3D, as having just a single 3D V-Cache enabled CCD means the game or program always has access to the larger L3 cache. Hitman 3 doesn't run particularly well on Zen 4 processors, at least relative to Intel Raptor Lake CPUs. The 7800X3D is just 4% faster than the 7700X and that means it's 11% slower than the 13900K and 8% slower than the 13700K. The Riftbreaker is another game where Zen 4 processors aren't particularly impressive. The 7800X3D manages 225 fps on average, making the 13700K 2% faster which means performance between these two parts is basically identical, but the 13900K is 8% faster. Once again, if you're interested in productivity performance then the 7800X3D isn't going to be for you, unless your workload benefits from having the 3D V-Cache which isn't the case for Blender. System Power Consumption

Sub-$450 CPU is even faster for gaming than Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

We did measure total system power usage for this game and here the 7800X3D configuration consumed slightly more power than the 7700X, a 4% rise, but we saw a 27% increase in performance, so the 3D V-Cache part was significantly more efficient. It also consumed 21% less power than the 13900K, despite delivering 13% more frames, so while the 13900K was quite impressive in terms of performance, power efficiency is just horrible. No real surprise here. For gaming only the 7800x3d is the best choice. That's why I was a little surprised the came out with a 7900 and 7950 variant.

A processor that has impressive performance might fit well in a high-end work system, but be an unaffordable option for a home PC. A relatively low-performance chip might appear inadequate at first but be an ideal solution in a small form-factor PC where cooling and power limitations prevent power-hungrier chips from being used.Cyberpunk 2077 has been tested with ray tracing enabled and here the 7800X3D basically matched the 7950X3D while producing similar numbers to the 13900K, though 1% lows are a bit stronger. I am actually quite surprised by how closely the AMD supplied benchmark results were to the results for the same games in the review. Like all AMD Zen 4 chips, though, this one will require you to upgrade to the AM5 platform, so you'll need a new motherboard if you don't already have a Zen 4 Ryzen 7000-series setup. You'll also need new DDR5 RAM, so this could be a more expensive upgrade than just the chip itself. That said, the same is pretty much true about Intel Alder Lake and Raptor Lake, so if you're upgrading from an 11000-series Intel chip or older, you're going to be paying a lot of money to make the upgrade either way. John (He/Him) is the Components Editor here at TechRadar and he is also a programmer, gamer, activist, and Brooklyn College alum currently living in Brooklyn, NY.