Conclusion
In today’s performance comparison review, we compared the new AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D versus the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X to find out how they differ in many different types of workloads. We tested synthetic benchmarks, rendering benchmarks, workstation benchmarks, and games, and looked at CPU clock frequency and power, and temperature.
The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a cool new CPU from AMD, proving that its 3D V-Cache Technology can work on a production CPU. It takes the already well-established Ryzen 7 5800X and adds triple the L3 Cache to bring it up to 96MB of L3 Cache. This is an amazing accomplishment, and AMD was able to pull it off while also not creating major latency bottlenecking issues.
The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D has an MSRP of $449, the same as the Ryzen 7 5800X, so it doesn’t cost you an arm or a leg of a premium, which is really nice. AMD has positioned this CPU as a gaming-oriented CPU, aimed at maintaining gaming performance dominance. However, it is just a stop-gap solution until Zen 4 comes out, which will truly harbor major improvements in IPC and frequency for gaming performance. Until then, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a great example that shows AMD’s technology works, it’s a point to everyone out there that AMD is innovating, and that it has some great new technologies up its sleeve to play with on future iterations and architectures.
The Ryzen 7 5800X3D, while it increases L3 Cache capacity, it doesn’t bring that improvement freely. It does have to sacrifice clock speed, and Voltage, in the realm of 200MHz versus the Ryzen 7 5800X, and overclocking ability. That means there are many applications that will actually be slower on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. In our performance comparison today we found where the weak spots are for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and where its strengths are.
Synthetic and Rendering Performance
In our overall system testing, we started out with PCMark 10. In the standard benchmark, plus the Microsoft Office applications benchmark the Ryzen 7 5800X maintained the performance lead over the Ryzen 7 5800X3D by a few percent. The 5800X3D really offered no advantage. 3DMark’s CPU test continued to prove this, where its multi-threading performance was a few percent faster on the 5800X, and its single-threading performance was even greater, 7% faster on the 5800X. In Geekbench we saw the Ryzen 7 5800X3D come to the front, but only in multi-core, and only by a few percent. In single-core testing, the 5800X was faster by 5%. In PassMark, the CPUs were equal in performance.
When we looked closer at arithmetic and multimedia performance in multi-core and single-core testing in SiSoftware Sandra we saw these trends continue. The Ryzen 7 5800X was faster in all testing and had the biggest advantage in single-core testing where it could boost higher in terms of clock frequency.
When it came to rendering performance, in Cinebench and Blender, and V-Ray the Ryzen 7 5800X proved to be the fastest in every regard. The difference in Cinebench’s single-core testing of 7% for the 5800X was pretty significant. HandBrake showed no difference between the CPUs.
In SPECworkstation 3.1, doing heavy workstation workloads, the differences varied more here. There were finally many instances where the Ryzen 7 5800X3D was faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X, especially in Product Development and Life Sciences and Energy. The rest though, the Ryzen 7 5800X came out on top. Looking closely at the subsystem results performance was close between them, but there were a few specific applications that stood out on the Ryzen 7 5800X3D like WPCcfd, rodinioLifeSci, FFTW, srmp, and 7zip.
Gaming Performance
Gaming performance was also a mixed bag, just like productivity applications. Three of our games really showed no advantages with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, while three other games did. It was half and half, which shows how game dependent the Ryzen 7 5800X3D’s advantages for gameplay performance really are.
In Dying Light 2, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D was literally under 1% for performance advantages, even at 1080p. The two CPUs performed nearly identical here. In Cyberpunk 2077 we saw a slight difference at 1080p, the 5800X3D was 4% faster, but only at 1080p. There were no performance differences at any resolution in Forza Horizon 5.
While those three games above showed no advantages, the next three games showed huge gains, especially Far Cry 6. In Far Cry 6 the Ryzen 7 5800X3D was 28% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X, which is pretty massive considering the game is at “Ultra” settings with HD Textures. That performance advantage at 1080p fell off pretty quick at 1440p though, where it was only 8% faster than the Ryzen 7 5800X. At 4K performance was identical, no change.
Another game that seems to massively benefit from more L3 Cache is Flight Sim 2020, this game is heavily CPU bound, and the 5800X3D made a huge difference. This was also the only game where there was also an advantage at 4K. At 1080p the 5800X3D was 21% faster and at 1440p it was 24% faster and at 4K even 9% faster. This game was pretty surprising but can show in such a CPU-limited game how a CPU like the 5800X3D can really benefit it at all resolutions shockingly enough.
Another game that benefited from the 5800X3D was a game like Crysis Remastered, which is also known to be CPU bound. We saw an increase of 14% at 108op with the 5800X3D. However, that did drop off at 1440p and 4K.
Comparison Summary
When you look at the Ryzen 7 5800X3D as a whole, it does have some misses in several areas, mostly down to its lower clock frequency in comparison to the Ryzen 7 5800X. It’s also limited in its ability to utilize AMD Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO) or overclocking. We need to bring AMD PBO up because the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X fully supports PBO, while the Ryzen 7 5800X3D does not.
With AMD PBO you can turn this on in the BIOS or with Ryzen Software on the Ryzen 7 5800X. This can auto-overclock the Ryzen 7 5800X CPU by as much as 200MHz. When you take into consideration this overclock, we are now looking at a large 400MHz clock difference between the Ryzen 7 5800X and Ryzen 7 5800X3D. A Ryzen 7 5800X with PBO will improve its performance in everything, from applications to productivity, to rendering, to gaming. Whereas, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D really only has one claim to fame, potentially better gaming performance.
Even then, it is entirely game dependent on if that extra L3 Cache will actually provide a performance improvement in your game. We found that the game needs to be CPU dependent, to begin with, and or at a low resolution with a fast GPU. If you are playing games at a high resolution, like 4K, you are going to be GPU bound no matter what. If you aren’t running a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti or greater, then you are most likely also going to be always GPU bound at 1440p. That leaves only 1080p where it might benefit performance.
When it comes down to it, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is the better all-arounder CPU, as it provides better performance in everything you do with your PC beyond just gaming. If you want it to go faster, you can enable PBO and that will increase performance in everything non-gaming related, plus gaming related. That PBO increase will also help your gaming performance as the frequency is increased, perhaps even negating some of the impact of the 5800X3D’s extra L3 Cache.
Final Points
As it stands, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a great proof of concept CPU, it’s a phenomenal engineering feat and shows that AMD 3D V-Cache technology works well. The technology is pretty amazing and shows what we might expect more of in the future. AMD should get a round of applause for proving this technology works. We want to be hopeful that we will see 3D V-Cache again in future iterations of next-generation CPUs. Imagine a Zen 4 with 3D V-Cache, that’s something that really gets us excited.
The fact that the 5800X3D specifically has to run at a lower clock speed, and lower Voltage, and doesn’t support PBO or overclocking ultimately shows the current weakness that is inherent at this time. That overall does hinder it a bit except for specific cases.
Unless you want to try something uniquely cool out of curiosity, we’d suggest sticking with the regular Ryzen 7 5800X for all-around better performance, and a better value. Since the Ryzen 7 5800X has been out a while, its pricing is much more tolerable, it can be had for around $310 these days. That’s a $140 savings over the Ryzen 7 5800X3D right now.
With the Ryzen 7 5800X you can simply enable PBO in your BIOS which will improve performance in everything, from productivity to gaming. Attach good cooling to the 5800X, enable PBO, and you’ll enjoy improved performance beyond the 5800X3D in clock speed, by quite a wide margin, and with the prices as they are today, the 5800X is just the better deal.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →I'll say that, for me, coming from a 3700X, I've seen much bigger FPS gains. I wasn't able to use resizable bar with that CPU and seeing it in action now with Horizon Zero Dawn has been impressive as well. It used to take ~30+ seconds to load and now it's more like 10. I don't know if Crysis 1-2 remastered use but they seem to load a little quicker now but that could also be due to those last patches Crytek put out.
I only just went to using an AIO with this chip but I've been able to keep the Plex 360 at stock speeds and it's been able to keep this CPU at ~65c or less during gaming, mostly in the 50s, and that was in a room that was 75 degrees Fahrenheit at the time so I'm happy everything will work well in the summer. The two combined have also resulted in my GPU running a few degrees cooler as well which was an unexpected bonus. Up until recently, I had been setting the AIO to max fan speeds for gaming but now I see that is totally unnecessary.
For me, gaming just feels smoother than when I had the 3700X, even in titles like SOTR and Metro Exodus. Granted, since I never had a 5800X I couldn't say what that would've been like but it was also Brent's comparison review between the two that first got my attention in regards to an upgrade. He'd already seen some unusual FPS gains back then.
I game almost entirely at 5120x1440 with my rig, usually at 100 Hz so I can use HDR with my monitor but then 120 Hz for non-HDR gaming, and things definitely seem more fluid regardless if there's a significant gain in frames but even then I'm seeing anywhere from ~5 to ~20, depending on the game plus the lows seem to have gone up a bit. I also use DLSS on the quality setting as much as possible to try and offload some work from the GPU and give a little more to the CPU. I had games that would hang ~70-90 FPS that are now basically hammering 100 FPS or at the least the high 90s. Obviously, like @Brent_Justice 's review shows, moving from a 5800X is mixed at best and its ability to use PBO will definitely pull ahead but there's a cost of power and heat when you do that as well. I'm loving that I can now cut back on the fans and still enjoy more than I used to when everything was maxed. Definitely not a chip for everyone but for me, for the games I play, I'm loving it.
Yes, coming from a 3700X that makes sense. The goal of this review though was to see what advantages, if any, versus the 5800X. If you had purchased a 5800X now, you would save quite a bit of money over the 5800X3D, and still get similar gameplay performance as the 5800X3D, yet you'd save money, and have the ability to use PBO, and everything else besides gaming would also just run faster with the 5800X due to the higher clock speed natively. That is honestly the best value until Zen 4 comes out the end of this year, which is not too far away now.
And also, we have done coming from a 3700X to the 5800X benchmarks and gaming performance here:
https://www.thefpsreview.com/2021/10/06/amd-ryzen-7-5800x-vs-ryzen-7-3700x-performance-review/
Absolutely! That was the review you did that really raised my eyebrows! I was totally shocked to see so much gain in one CPU gen. Thanks!
I'm only just coming to realize how much I've shorted myself over the years in using more mid-grade CPUs. Moving forward I'll definitely be aiming a bit higher, but for now, pretty happy. My previous home desktop CPUs have been in the order of 2600K(OC'd to 4.2 GHz)>4930K(OC'd to 4.3 GHz-still in the cave), 3700X(stock)>5800X3D(stock) so I'm still getting used to identifying other performance metrics of how CPUs can affect high-end GPUs. I've been using the fastest GPUs I can afford for some time since I stopped using SLI: 1080 Ti>2080 Ti>3090, and now I've got a 3090 Ti coming via EVGA Step Up. Thanks again for the great review!
edit: Just to add that I'm only including what I consider modern CPUs in my previous desktop rigs. It'd take some thought to remember all those other ones from the 80s-2000s-lol!
This is a good comparison of the similarly priced 5800X vs 5800X3D.
It does not, however, actually address the title question: how much does the cache actually benefit?
You can only answer that question if you either lower the clocks/voltages to match on the 5800X (essentially under clock it), or lower the cache to match on the 5800X3D (which I don't know of any handy tool to accomplish this, but wouldn't call it impossible). You should expect them to perform identically except for cases where the cache actually benefits -- or detriments, although I can't think of any cases were it ~should~ do that, but this test as run would completely mask if that were the case, since you would just think it's because of the clocks difference.
Or you could change the title.
Here, we see many situations where the faster clocks allow the older chip to eek out the lead, and a few where the cache actually plays a big role, but it's not just the effect of the cache being evaluated because you have the clock mismatch.
Also - curious, why disable Resizable BAR?
The chart on Pg 6 where you break down the results so far -- nice to have the chart. It needs some coloring or something so you can tell which one was the winner, or include it in a bar graph or something. Just a chart of numbers is... hard to really interpret.
The CPU speed charts on Pg 8 are awesome, they do illustrate the clock delta that I did complain about allowing above -- but if you're going to allow it, and it's a valid point in a CPU vs CPU comparison (just not in a cache-only benefit analysis), may as well make it easier to interpret. They would be better if you could fix them so they have the same vertical range - would make it better to make a cross comparison, especially since they are sitting side by side.
This is interesting.
I haven't been in the CPU market lately, so I haven't kept up. I had heard of the new cache AMD was bringing out, but when I saw the 5800X3D I had assumed it was just the same CPU as the 5800X but with the improved cache. I didn't realize they were cutting the core clock so much.
Curious choice. I wonder why they did that. To get better yields? Or to offset the extra power used by the cache?
I'd be curious how they look clock to clock, to tease out just how much good the cache itself does.
Also, I thought it was really odd that 1080p performed worse than 1440p in Ms Flight Sim....
This review is one of the reasons I am pissed at AMD for shafting us TRX40 users and refusing to give us a Zen3 version.
I hate compromises. I want a build that gives me everything a HEDT system offers (primarily ECC, high PCIe lane counts and IOMMU, but high core counts don't hurt either) without sacrificing top of the line game performance.
I hate compromises. They drive me nuts.
My understanding is the stacked cache is more voltage sensitive, so the 3D version has lower voltage limits, which in turn limited the clocks. The TDP remained unchanged, but you just can't get as much if you can't boost the voltage as far.
Is the L3 cache directly on the core? It ought to be able to operate at a different voltage than the rest of the package...
Not an engineer so I don’t know — could be some limits on AM3 pinouts at play there - you only get so many to do different voltages.
The cache also acts as an insulator with respect to heat transfer - a disadvantage of stacking technology at this time. Wattage isn't changing as you note, yet temperatures from the same sensors as on the 5800X at the same power draw may be higher. And thus temperature throttling limits lower, leading to the need for more cooling capacity to get the best out of the CPU.
It will be interesting to see how far the more adventurous 'extreme' overclockers are able to push the 5800X3D. Last I checked they were manually flipping bits in BIOS images to try to turn on things that AMD thinks should be left off :D
It would be nice to see the min frames as well here.
Im curious if in the stress cases the cache is helping or not.
I fell thats a pretty important metric to expose for all video card/cpu reviews.
Honestly,. I don't even understand why they have to stack it on the CPU core.
It's not like there isn't PLENTY of space underneath the heat spreader to put them side by side and allow for more efficient cooling.
Here is the 5800x for reference:
Shift one of those chiplets to the side and you have almost half the area under the heat spreader to work with, where you could shift in a 3rd chiplet containing the cache.
I too would have liked to see the impact of the cache by itself - although that may never be truly possible because the latency is increased (but then, that is part of the cost of having more cache).
To be honest, the games that show the most benefit may be those that are least optimized, because they have been designed to access more data at once than will fit in the cache. Both Crysis and Flight Simulator feature vast vistas which can drain frame rates. I suspect some database operations could also benefit significantly from this, and that overall games are likely to operate more smoothly, even if they don't go as fast at their peak.
I think the real benefit will come five years down the line when every new CPU has 96MB cache, and software (especially games) expects to make use of that, because you won't need to get a new CPU to keep up. Of course, might want it to go a bit faster, but the CPU might also be less likely to bottleneck a new graphics card (whereas now, the card is clearly the bottleneck for 4K, and to an extent 1440p).
It'll also benefit your electricity bills over that time. If you use the CPU continuously, you'll be using 20W less, the temperature will be 8°C lower, and the fan may be quieter as a result. This is a big win from AMDs perspective of performance per watt. Even if you don't game all the time, many run BOINC or similar to use up idle CPU.