AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D vs Ryzen 7 7800X3D Gaming Performance: Worth the Upgrade?

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.

Similar to several other games, even at 1080p on a GeForce RTX 5090, running at a high quality setting, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is only 2% faster than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. This game seems to be rather GPU-limited, even at 1080p on an RTX 5090. Both CPUs allow for close to 200FPS in framerate, so high refresh rate gaming is possible in this game with both CPUs, and the experience is similar.

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. In Hogwarts Legacy, we are testing at 1080p on the “Ultra” preset, but we can see that this game scales well with CPU performance, needing all that can be provided. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a large 33% faster than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in this game. This shows the maximum potential the Ryzen 7 9850X3D can make over the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in the best-case CPU-limited game scenario. For this game, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a major upgrade in the experience, though it can’t be said for every game; for this one, it matters big time.

In Horizon Forbidden West, we are running at 1080p on the GeForce RTX 5090 FE with the “Ultra” preset enabled. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D has a smaller 4% performance advantage over the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in this game. We thought this one would show a bigger difference, but it might depend on where you are in the game. If you are in a village with many NPCs, that difference will be larger; if you are out in the open world, the difference will be smaller. Both CPUs allow high framerates nearing 200FPS on a GeForce RTX 5090 FE.

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. That said, we see a similar difference as we have in many other games; the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is only 3% faster than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. However, both CPUs struggle to get over 100FPS in this game, even at 1080p on Epic settings on a GeForce RTX 5090 FE.

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, just like Hogwarts Legacy. The Ryzen 7 9850X3D is 32% faster than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which is similar to what we experienced in Hogwarts Legacy. This shows that there is potential, depending on the game and location, that the Ryzen 7 9850X3D is upwards of 30% faster, but it depends on the game. In this game, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D helps a lot to achieve over 100FPS, where the Ryzen 7 7800X3D struggles.