AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review: obliterating the competition

We've run our CPU benchmarks this time around at 1080p, 1440p and 4K, often using DLSS performance mode to shift the burden to processor performance even more heavily - so the 4K results serve as a rough proxy for native 1080p gaming in these cases. We're using an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition graphics card on each of our test beds, armed with DDR5-6000 CL30 memory for the majority of our platforms and DDR4-3600 CL16 for AM4.

This page contains three speed-type games, starting with the classic CPU torture test that is a low-level flight over the Big Apple in Flight Simulator 2020. We then proceed to two racing sims at different points on the arcade/realistic spectrum: F1 24 and Forza Horizon 5.

Flight Simulator 2020

Flight Sim 2020 is brilliant for reviewers because flying low to the ground is incredibly demanding on the CPU, as new and high-quality data is streamed in rapidly. Here, we see a 22 percent margin for the 9800X3D over the 7800X3D, 29 percent over the 5800X3D and 33 percent over the 14900K. Meanwhile, the 285K is trounced by a mighty 52.69 points - not so nice.

F1 24

F1 is one of the few games on our benchmarking list that I play regularly, and for competitive play you really want as many frames per second as you can muster. The RTX 4090 we're using here is combined with the Ultra (but not Ultra High) graphics preset, so we have all of the bells and whistles except for RT enabled plus DLSS in performance mode.

The 9800X3D continues its reign of terror here, with a more modest 15 percent advantage over the 7800X3D, or 33 percent over the best Intel CPU, the 14900K.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5's integrated benchmark stresses both CPU and GPU, so we've opted for DLSS performance mode to keep things as CPU-heavy as possible. This is still the most GPU-bound test in our suite, and as such the 9800X3D and 7800X3D are nearly indistinguishable. There's still a 10 percent lead over the 14900K and a seven percent lead over the 285K to report though, so AMD retains the performance crown overall.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D analysis

• Introduction, test rig and content creation benchmarks
• Gaming benchmarks: Dragon's Dogma 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Starfield
• Gaming benchmarks: Flight Simulator 2020, F1 24, Forza Horizon 5 [this page]
• Gaming benchmarks: Counter-Strike 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Crysis 3 Remastered
• Gaming benchmarks: Far Cry 6, Hitman World of Assassination
• Power analysis: Counter-Strike 2, Far Cry 6, Forza Horizon 5
• RAM gaming benchmarks: Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry 6, Flight Sim 2020
• AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D: the Digital Foundry verdict