AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review: obliterating the competition

Gaming benchmarks: Counter-Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Crysis 3 Remastered.

Review by Will Judd Deputy Editor, Digital Foundry

Published on Nov. 6, 2024

We've done the bulk of our testing with DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM, as this is the sweet spot for many AMD and Intel systems. Faster RAM tends to not deliver much extra performance on AM5, but you can see the difference betwen our standard DDR5-6000 CL30 and base spec DDR5-4800 CL40 on page seven if you're interested.

Remember that you can mouse over the results in the tables below (as long as you're using a desktop browser rather than a phone) to get dynamically generated performance readouts for all processors we've tested. Meanwhile, clicking the graph swaps you into percentages, making it a bit easier to judge relative performance at a glance.

This page is about first-person shooter frame-rates, or FPS fps. Our titles here are a good mix of new and classic releases, including the premiere esports FPS in Counter-Strike 2, RT powerhouse Cyberpunk 2077 and recently upgraded classic Crysis 3 Remastered.

Counter-Strike 2

Counter-Strike 2: DX11, High

Counter-Strike 2 is a lovely rebuild of a game that has entertained for decades, and it also demands extremely high frame-rates for top level competition. The 9800X3D takes its place as the best option for aspiring pros, with the highest average frame-rate we've ever recorded - albeit just seven percent ahead of 7800X3D, good for over 650fps. Our worst one percent scores are just about maxing out a 240Hz monitor at this stage, which is an incredible feat.

It's worth noting that the 14900K, Intel's fastest performer for CS2, is outdueled by a huge list of AMD alternatives: the 9700X, 9900X and 9950X in addition to the 7800X3D and 9800X3D. There are several more AMD options within five percentage points, including the 5800X3D (!), 7700X and 9600X.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, RT Ultra, DLSS Performance

Cyberpunk 2077 continues the 9800X3D pain train, with a clean 15 percent margin over the 7800X3D and 19 percent advantage over the 14900K. With many good CPUs averaging in the 60s and 70fps in this torture test through one of the most demanding areas in the game, the 9800X3D is comfortably averaging above 90fps - outstanding.

Crysis 3 Remastered

Crysis 3 Remastered: DX11, Very High, DLSS Performance

Crysis 3's cutscenes are indelibly seared into my memory now, after running these benchmarks hundreds of times, but the game still looks good after all this time - especially in this 2021 remaster. The game exhibits a bit more GPU load than our other tests, with DLSS performance mode testing showing a 14 percent lead for the 9800X3D over the 7800X3D. In terms of the Intel comparison, the 9800X3D is 21 percent faster than the new Core 9 Ultra 285K.