While AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is fast out the gate, the processor can go faster still through overclocking. Now, the CPU has reached new dizzying heights, operating at an eye-wateringly quick 7.3GHz.
During a Gigabyte product launch in China, overclooker Hicookie took the brand’s top overclocking motherboard, X870 Aorus Tachyon, for a spin. Using the board and some LN2, they were able to push Ryzen 7 9800X3D 40% beyond its stock boost clock of 5.2GHz.
More specifically, the overclocking team were able to achieve an operating frequency of 7,313.05MHz. This edges out the previous record by a mere 71MHz, but every hertz counts in this profession. Regardless, achieving 7GHz+ is notable, with only three of the top 10 HWBot results manging to do so.
X870 Aorus Tachyon was undoubtedly key to this success, as a motherboard purpose-built for extreme scenarios like this. It packs a custom 18+2+2 phase VRM design, optimised memory trace layout, and integrated overclocking controls to maximise the capabilities of AM5 processors.
To maintain stability at 7.3GHz, hicookie overvolted the processor to 1.631V and increased bus speed to 101.57MHz. The latter can quickly become unstable if pushed even a little bit further. The overclocker also disabled Simultaneous Multithreading to improve stability, but left all eight cores of Ryzen 7 9800X3D active. Thus, the bulk of the frequency boost came from the multiplier, which sat at 72.
Putting the overclocked CPU to the test, albeit at the slightly lower frequency of 6.64GHz, it was able to deliver 1,733 points in Cinebench 2024. For context, the processor achieved just 1,352 points in our Ryzen 7 9800X3D review.
While impressive, AMD’s gaming champion can’t compete with Intel chips when it comes to raw frequency. The fastest processor remains Core i9-14900KF with a 9.13GHz overclock, and we’ll unlikely see Ryzen 7 9800X3D come anywhere close to that.
These results make me excited for Zen 6, with rumours swirling that AMD is targeting 7GHz boost clocks. Whether 3D V-Cache successors will operate at such lofty speeds is uncertain, but I can live in hope.
