AMD adds the Ryzen 7 9850X3D to its X3D line-up
Fear not, Team Red will continue selling the Ryzen 7 9800X3D.
AI may have been AMD’s key focus at CES 2026, but Team Red still made time to reveal the Ryzen 7 9850X3D. An iteration of the best gaming CPU of this generation (yes, it really is), the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, it is also the fourth processor in the Ryzen 9000 Series family to feature the gaming-centric 3D V-Cache silicon,
Like the 9800X3D, the 9850X3D combines eight Zen 5 cores and 16 threads with a 120W TDP, and retains a large stacked cache to improve latency and throughput in game workloads. The key difference lies in clock speeds: AMD has pushed the peak boost frequency to 5.6GHz, and is 400MHz faster than the 9800X3D.
According to AMD in-house benchmarks (which should also be taken with a slight pinch of salt), the higher clocks should translate to an average performance gain of about 7% in games versus the 9800X3D model. Fast esports titles seem to benefit the most, while improvements in more demanding AAA titles are more unsurprisingly modest.
AMD also couldn’t resist the chance to pick on Intel’s much maligned Core Ultra 9 285K (read our review),and the same presentation highlighted how the 9850X3D outpaced Intel’s gaming flagship in select gaming benchmarks – score double-digit percentage advantages in some cases. And in case you’re wondering, the 9850X3D isn’t replacing the 9800X3D – AMD will continue to sell the latter.
The Ryzen 7 9850X3D will be available at retail this quarter, with pricing to be announced at a later date. In the meantime, do look forward to our review later this month.