Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsOverrated
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2024
Purchased this to compare to my AMD 7900X which I purchased at launch. I had read some reviews and had a friend tell me that the 7800X3D was a great CPU. For reference I have been building PC's for over 20 years and worked in the tech space so my experience, knowledge and expectations are unique. I primarily use my machine for heavy multitasking and the the 5-10 hours of gaming with friends weekly.
The gap between the 7900x and 7800x3d was negligible in gaming using a 3080ti and 6950xt. The 7800X3D has a much lower boost clock but obviously has faster/more cache. Once living with it and testing it out I returned it. I was not impressed in gaming and was noticeably less capable from a productivity perspective.
What is interesting to me is the 7900x is not a monolithic 12 core and still uses a dual CCX with 6 cores on each. The latency has improved a lot from Ryzen 1/2/3 as well as in Threadripper. Where as the 7800x3d is a mono CCX 8-core CPU. I thought having a singular 8-core die would make a more significant improvement in daily tasks and gaming. But it did not.
If you are using a 4080 or 4090 at 1080p for certain games like DOTA2, then sure this chip makes sense. But for everything else it doesn't. Likewise if someone is planning on buying this CPU and staying with it for several years and buying 4090 or an equivalent in a year or 2 and with specific titles that benefit from the cache then i can maybe see a use case.
As stated, I returned the 7800X3D, sold the 7900X and bought a 14900K instead.
In my experience the multi CCX/chiplete designs might be resourceful and have an inherent value to them. However, for what I am looking for is a nimble, reactive and powerful PC, similar to a race car. What I've found AMD to be good at giving power, speed and specs when it comes to measurements (similar to a Dodge/Ram TRX) at a lower price than the competition. But it does not have the nimble, no compromise attributes that Intel offers.