AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D CPU Review: Fastest 8-Core

Dying Light: The Beast is a new game we have been adding to benchmarks, and it has recently received some big patches that give it Ray Tracing support. For our testing, we are just running the “High Quality” preset, which does not enable Ray Tracing, and we are using a long manual run-through. We have found this game to be very GPU-dependent.

Oddly, this is the only game where the Ryzen 7 9700X came out on top in performance. We thought this was weird, so we reinstalled the 9700X and the 9850X3D, and verified results, and that is what we saw. Maybe it’s a clock speed thing? Maybe it’s a cache or latency thing? Whatever the case, this game prefers the Ryzen 7 9700X, but it is the only game in our testing that did this. We would like to further test this, perhaps at lower game settings or with Ray Tracing, to see what happens.

Regardless, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a top performer, but still only minor when compared to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 1% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, a common theme we are finding. Performance is identical to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Intel is once again lagging far behind. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 8% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and 11% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K.

The section we used in Hogwarts Legacy for testing, in the Hogsmead area, has always proven to be an excellent test of CPU-bound performance. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D tops the charts on performance, and well Intel gets absolutely destroyed in this game. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 5% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 7% faster than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. This game loves 3D V-Cache, and thus the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 36% faster than the Ryzen 7 9700X! But if you really want to see a blow, then look no further, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 56% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and 68% faster than the Intel Core Ultra 265K!

In Horizon Forbidden West, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is the fastest CPU yet again, topping the charts. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 2% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 4% faster than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 8% faster than the Ryzen 7 9700X. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 12% faster than the Core Ultra 9 285K and 15% faster than the 265K.

Mafia: The Old Country is another new game we have been testing. This game is also very GPU-dependent, and we are running it at the “Epic” quality setting, which is GPU-heavy, as you can see. We are running at 1080p, but even that only gives us around 100FPS. Still, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is able to provide the highest performance, matching the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 2% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and the Ryzen 7 9700X. Either this game doesn’t benefit well from 3D V-Cache, or it is not very CPU-dependent even with the RTX 5090. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 8% faster than the 285K and 265K.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl has always proven to be a great game to use for CPU testing, as it is CPU-dependent, especially in towns and around NPCs. This game shows off the CPU performance differences very well. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D sits at the top and is 5% faster than the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and 8% faster than the Ryzen 9 9950X3D. Compared to the Ryzen 7 9700X, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 30% faster, showing the great advantage of that 3D V-Cache. Intel gets destroyed in this game. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 50% faster than the 285K and 47% faster than the 265K.