r/ryzen

CPU choice paralysis: 9800X3D vs 9850X3D vs 9950X (all same price)

I’m trying to decide between these three CPUs, and they’re currently all priced the same where I’m looking:

• Ryzen 7 9800X3D
• Ryzen 7 9850X3D
• Ryzen 9 9950X

My use case is pretty mixed but weighted:

• ~75% productivity / multitasking (IT work)

  • 10–25+ browser tabs, multiple profiles
  • PowerShell / VSC
  • Calculator
  • Notepad
  • OneNote
  • Teams / Word / Excel / Outlook Classic
  • Microsoft To Do
  • PSA desktop app
  • Password manager
  • Desktop softphone
  • Two 1080p monitors with dashboards/logs/monitoring tools running

• ~25% gaming (still very important to me)

  • Currently 1080p, upgrading to 1440p (2K) in the next 1–2 years
  • Target is 144–240Hz gaming experience

• No VMs, no rendering, no heavy compute workloads

• Plan to keep this CPU for ~8+ years minimum

At this point I’ve basically ruled out choosing based on price/performance since they’re all the same. I’m trying to decide based on:

• long-term “feel” of the system
• gaming experience over time
• multitasking responsiveness
• reliability/simplicity
• how it will age into ~2030+

I keep going back and forth:

• X3D chips seem better for gaming + responsiveness
• 9950X seems better for long-term core headroom and multitasking, and is a great deal right now for about $610 CAD on NewEgg (9800X3D is $629 and 9850X3D is $639)

For people who’ve been through similar choices: What would you pick here, and why?

Build:

The problem:
Across every benchmark I’ve tried, my CPU performs at roughly 17-20% of expected:

Benchmark | My Score | Expected | %
---------------------|------------|------------|-----
Geekbench 6 Single | 687 | ~3,400 | 20%
Geekbench 6 Multi | 3,509 | ~21,000 | 17%
CPU-Z Single | 180 | ~880 | 20%
CPU-Z Multi | 1,390 | ~8,500 | 16%
Cinebench R23 Multi | 3,341 | ~22,000 | 15%
AIDA64 Memory Read | 24.7 GB/s | ~62 GB/s | 40%

Real-world games also feel slow despite 5080. CPU under load clocks correctly to 5.6 GHz, temps stay around 50°C, all 8 cores at 100% during multi-thread runs. Effective clocks under load match core clocks (~5.0 GHz average), so it’s not a throttling issue.

Geekbench result: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/17922911

• Loaded Optimized Defaults, then enabled EXPO only
• Disabled Memory Integrity / VBS
• Disabled hypervisor (bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off, removed Hyper-V/VMP/HypervisorPlatform features)
• Disabled ECO Mode in BIOS (was on by default — improved nothing)
• Reverted earlier core parking regedit tweaks
• Reset Windows power plans (powercfg -restoredefaultschemes), set to Balanced
• Tried disabling background processes, antivirus, etc.
• Confirmed no thermal throttling, no power limit hits

Has anyone seen this exact pattern? CPU clocks fine, temps fine, all settings look correct, but performance is dramatically deficient across multiple unrelated benchmarks. About to start the RMA process but wanted to ask the hive mind first in case I’m missing something obvious.

Edit :

I ran some Cinebench R23 and with Hwinfo I can see that HTC and PROCHOT EXT are always on and seems like they are holding the CPU. This may explain why I’m not getting full power.

Edit 2 :

I can confirm it’s the VRM HTC that is throttling the CPU. Disabling it from the bios unlocks the full power. Now I’m not comfortable leaving it disabled. So I will look into the mother board or send the whole build back.

Thanks!

Hey everyone, I’m trying to choose a CPU for a PC that will be used both for gaming and for work/rendering, and I’d really appreciate some advice from people who actually use their PCs for both.

My main uses:

• Gaming (modern AAA games, probably 1440p/4K)

• 3D modeling/sculpting

• Possibly animation and game-ready characters/assets later

• Video editing/rendering

• Recording gameplay while gaming

Gaming is currently the bigger priority, but I seriously want to get into 3D work and rendering too, so I’m looking for something balanced and long-term.

Right now I’m considering: Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D

I’ve also looked at the 9950X3D, but honestly I’m not sure I want to pay that extra unless the difference is really worth it for mixed gaming + productivity workloads.

Which CPU would you personally choose for a balanced gaming + rendering build?

• Is the 9900X3D basically the sweet spot here?

• How big is the real-world difference between the 9800X3D and 9900X3D in productivity tasks?

Also, would the MSI PRO B850-S WIFI6E motherboard be a good match for these CPUs, or would I be limiting performance/features too much with that board?

Would really appreciate opinions from people who actually game AND do creative work on the same PC.

Hey, I got a PC with a Ryzen 5 9600X, Ram Clearance is okay I can get the air cooler fit, my case is NZXT H5 Elite, so I got only the 240mm aio option not 360mm, I live in Saudi Arabia and the price here on deal, note that PC things here are more expensive than USA or UK. The PA120 is $39.70 and The AIO is $49.60. Now my question is im selecting between these two, and no I don’t wanna get another cheaper one. With pure reference to performance & thermals, which one should I get, and whether the AIO is reliable for long use, I’m gonna use this PC for 3 years at most from now.

Please if anyone has the same AIO and the Air Cooler, leave your experiences, which could help me justify my decision, Thanks ya’ll :)

Hey,

So as title states, I'm considering upgrading to am4 x3d, because of ddr5 prices. Is it worth overpaying for 5800x3d when it's back? Or just maybe go for 5500 x3d as it's dirt cheap? I know that maybe it's not worth for anything over 1080p, but I'm considering this mainly, because of PoE2 or occassional CS2. For now, I only have 4060ti, but maybe I'd consider upgrading to 5070ti/5080 to play on a TV.

I've pretty new DRR4 (because of RMA), so probably it's not worth selling and upgrading to AM5.

I’m upgrading my 4gb AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT to a 12gb ASRock AMD Radeon RX 7700 Challenger and I have an AMD Ryzen 5 5000 series CPU. My friend is telling me there will be a really bad bottlenecking issue but I’ve been looking into it for a bit and it doesn’t seem like it will be devastating as he says. Should I get a new CPU with it or could I wait?

Hi all,

I bought a 5800xt one day before they announced the upcoming anniversary edition of the 5800x3d. The xt is still in my return window and i still have my 3600 as a spare to bridge the gap. What would you do? Return the xt and get the x3d or keep the xt? I'm leaning towards returning but want a sanity check from this community!

EDIT: thanks everyone for the many responses! I've got some more thinking to do. Right now I'm leaning to still return the 5800xt as it's not the jump I had hoped to get for the $225 I paid for it and see if the 5800x3d becomes available and otherwise go hunt for a 5700x3d.

I just built a PC for my nephew. ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2 (BIOS 3.40), Ryzen 8400F, Patriot Viper 16GB DDR5 6000 CL30 (9DE00412-VEB516G6030W).

It only works at base 4800 CL40 AUTO. I tried EXPO 6000 CL30, EXPO 5600 CL36, XMP 6000 CL30, XMP 5600 CL36, and manual settings for 5600 CL40 at 1.35V, and none of those boot. EXPO 5600 CL36 reboots but falls back to 4800, everything else looks completely dead. I let each “dead” configuration train for at least 15 minutes, probably closer to 20. Nothing. The only way to get it working again is clearing CMOS and going back to 4800.

This is new for me. I’ve never had RAM issues like this on AM5 with either manual tuning or EXPO/XMP profiles. This is my fourth AM5 build. I have my own Ryzen 7600 with the exact same motherboard and RAM, except my kit doesn’t even officially support EXPO (Intel XMP only), and it runs 6400 CL32 without issues. I ended up settling at 6000 CL30 anyway. Same story with a 7800X3D build I did for a friend, and another one with a 9700X. I also had random 6000 CL30 kits work first try on this same motherboard.

The only difference in this build is that we’re using a single 16GB stick for now, since we all know why. He’ll add another stick later if prices become reasonable again. All my previous AM5 builds were dual channel. (single dimm is in the slot further from CPU)

Any ideas what could be causing this? Is it just that the 8400F memory controller is that bad, or am I missing something obvious?

Good evening, I have a B650M Aorus Elite AX motherboard with a 7800x3D processor, 32GB of 6000MHz RAM, and I also have another kit I got: a Rog Z690e Gaming motherboard with a Core i7 13700K processor and a 3080 Suprim X graphics card. Should I stick with my Ryzen or is it worth switching to Intel?

I want to upgrade to one of these 2 cpus, I want to make it a multirole pc, potential llm training, gaming, productivity, 3d modeling, coding, media playing, etc, literaly what a pc can do over a console (general use), what should I pick?

I do lean towards gaming use more, but not to the point where its hardcore, just enough to get consistant smooth fps throughout.

I have rx9060xt 16gb and before adding it to system i had rx6600
Now before u say anything i updated bios, did all bios changes did ddu in safe mod, last night i did fresh windows but this morning i got black screen but i hear that i get into windows but no picture
My 650w and ryzen 5 isnt enough?
When i turn it off and on i get normal boot and get picture
So what can iz be? With rx6600 worked great
I did furmark test and no crash no nothing on 9060xt
Games run smooth. I just need clarification on what is happening if its power supply i will change it