Ryzen 9 9900X falls short of AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D in early gaming review

Early Zen 5 gaming review places AMD’s new architecture behind AMD’s X3D enhanced Zen 4 chips

The Italian tech reviewer SaddyTech has managed to get his hands on an early sample of AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 9 9900X. Ahead of launch, this YouTuber has compared this processor with AMD’s last-generation gaming flagship, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Through this testing, SaddyTech has showcased the gaming prowess of Zen 5, and how close it can get to AMD’s Zen 4 X3D CPUs.

Overall, AMD’s new Zen 5 CPU can get close to AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D in many games, but AMD’s X3D enhanced chip remains ahead in most tests. This testing was conducted with an RTX 4090 GPU across three resolutions, 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. Both CPUs were also tested with DDR5-7200 memory.

(AMD Ryzen 9 9900X vs AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D in The Last of Us Part 1 – Via SaddyTech)

Based on SaddyTech’s review, AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains the best “gaming” CPU in AMD’s CPU lineup. That said, there are cases where the Ryzen 9 9900X is faster. For example, the 9900X is marginally faster in Alan Wake 2. Even so, 1 victory in a 10 game test suite isn’t a good look for AMD’s newest CPUs.

What should be noted here is that the Ryzen 9 9900X is not intended to be a Ryzen 7 7800X3D upgrade. We know that AMD’s Zen 5 CPU lineup will eventually have X3D counterparts. AMD has confirmed this. That said, we do not know when these new Zen 5 X3D models will arrive.

AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will become available on July 31st. Expect to see more reviews for AMD’s Zen 5 CPUs before this date.

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