More evidence is piling up about AMD having a new 8-core gaming CPU in the works, and this time we may have been given a glimpse of the clock speed. Regular tech leaker HXL has shared an Asus BIOS screenshot from Chinese social media channel QQ, and it appears to shows the chip running at 5.3GHz.
While that’s 100MHz faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D peak 5.2GHz boost clock, it’s also a fair way off the 5.6GHz clock speed mooted by previous leakers. That doesn’t necessarily mean 5.3GHz will be this chip’s peak boost clock, however. The CPU in this system may be an engineering sample that doesn’t run at full speed, or it may be running an all-core overclock to 5.3GHz.
According to the information in the screenshot, the 9850X3D is installed in a new Asus B850 AYW Gaming OC WiFi7 motherboard, which is an ideal candidate for overclocking. Despite its low price and budget chipset, Asus has already shown off this board’s potential for breaking overclocking records.
We have to say we’re particularly impressed by the G.Skill memory apparently running at 9,800MT/s in this rig as well. Weirdly, whoever took the screenshot also appears to be using their PC as a time machine, as the year is shown as 2037.
As always with leaks and rumours, it’s best to take all this with a pinch of salt for now, especially as we have no information about how the clock speed was achieved. There are good reasons for AMD to release a clocked-up 8-core CPU with 3D V-cache, though, and the screenshot does at least appear to confirm the 9850X3D’s existence.
We’ve still got a wait ahead of us for Zen 6 and Nova Lake, and AMD’s 9800X3D is the best gaming CPU in its class. Having an even faster gaming chip in its arsenal will give AMD more ammunition against the forthcoming Arrow Lake Refresh, and the 9800X3D has proved immensely popular with gamers.
