AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is now official, following a big reveal at CES 2026. All the 9850X3D specs are now out in the open, revealing that this new gaming CPU will be very similar to its predecessor, the 9800X3D. However, it has a significantly higher 5.6GHz boost clock speed, which is a good 400MHz quicker than the 9800X3D’s 5.2GHz.
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D specs
| Ryzen 7 9850X3D | Ryzen 7 9800X3D | |
| Cores | 8 | 8 |
| Threads | 16 | 16 |
| Max boost clock | 5.6GHz | 5.2GHz |
| Base clock | 4.7GHz | 4.7GHz |
| L3 cache | 96MB (32MB on-die + 64MB 3D V-cache) | 96MB (32MB on-die + 64MB 3D V-cache) |
| Socket | AM5 | AM5 |
| Architecture | Zen 5 | Zen 5 |
| TDP | 120W | 120W |
As you can see from the table above, 9850X3D doesn’t bring anything majorly new. It has the same eight cores and cache structure as the 9800X3D. That’s no bad thing, though. After all, the 9800X3D is widely acclaimed as the best CPU for gaming.
Again, like its predecessor, but unlike Zen 3 and Zen 4 X3D chips, the 9850X3D’s 64MB 3D V-cache chip is mounted underneath its 8-core chiplet, rather than above it. This frees up some thermal headroom, as it means the CPU’s heatspreader makes direct contact with the CPU cores, rather than the cache, enabling AMD to push up clock speeds further. That meant a climb from 5GHz on the 7800X3D to 5.2GHz on the 9800X3D, with AMD even unlocking overclocking abilities on the latter.
Pushing a 9800X3D up to 5.4GHz is straightforward enough if you have a decent enough cooler, and AMD has now clearly been able to bin enough high-quality chips to release a clocked-up CPU running at 5.6GHz out of the box. This is tremendous speed for an X3D chip, making it even faster than AMD’s non-X3D Ryzen 7 9700X. There’s basically no downside to having all that extra cache any more – this chip should be fast at gaming and everything else you’d expect from an 8-core CPU now.
Surprisingly, despite this extra clock speed, AMD also claims that 9850X3D has the same 120W TDP as its predecessor. As such, you should be able to cool it easily enough with a decent air cooler. We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out when we get to test one for ourselves, though. Faster clock speeds nearly always mean a toastier temperature and higher power draw in our experience.
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D release window
The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D release window is Q1 2026, referring to the first three months of the year. AMD officially announced the Ryzen 7 9850X3D on January 5th at the CES tradeshow in Las Vegas. The company hasn’t revealed a specific release date for the chip yet, but in a press briefing, the company told us to expect it “very soon”.
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D price
AMD hasn’t officially announced how much this new CPU will cost, but 9850X3D price leaks suggest it won’t be much more expensive than a 9800X3D. We expect it to come in at around $529 / £475, but we’ll have to wait for an official MSRP from AMD before we know for sure.
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D performance
AMD is clearly loving Intel’s comparable lack of gaming pace at the moment, and has taken the opportunity to compare the 9850X3D to the Core Ultra 9285K in its official figures. According to these benchmark results, across a suite of games, 9850X3D is, on average, 27% faster than the 285K when running at 1080p with high detail settings.
The biggest benefit is shown in Baldur’s Gate 3, where AMD says the 950X3D is 60% faster than a 285K, while Black Ops 7 shows a relatively small 5% performance boost. The big question, of course, is how performance compares to the 9800X3D.
In a press briefing about the new CPU, AMD’s VP & GM of Ryzen CPU and Radeon graphics, David McAfee, told us that 9850X3D vs 9800X3D performance “depends on the game title or type of game you’re talking about. I’d say if you look across a whole suite of 35+ games, it’s going to be a few per cent, 2-3% on average across all those titles.”
McAfee suggests that the “performance delta is going to be relatively small” in triple-A games, but that “if you look at esports titles that require high frequencies, super high frame rates, you’re going to see a 5% or more performance uplift across some of those game titles.”
Basically, if you already own a 9800X3D, it won’t be worth upgrading to 9850X3D. If you’re building a new rig, though, and you want the best gaming performance possible, 9850X3D will be the superior chip if you can afford it.
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