AMD today lifted the covers off its Ryzen 7 9800X3D Socket AM5 processor powered by the "Zen 5" microarchitecture and 3D V-cache technology. The company did not put out any product specs or other details, except announcing November 7, 2024, as the product availability date for this chip. This would put its launch exactly two weeks from that of Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 "Arrow Lake-S" processors, and give reviewers time to include the performance results of the new Intel chips in reviews of the 9800X3D. AMD is looking to extend its gaming performance leadership which it held with the 7800X3D. The switch to the newer "Zen 5" microarchitecture and higher clock speeds could push gaming performance up beyond the 7800X3D by a few percentage points. The 7800X3D is already faster than the Core i9-14900K in gaming workloads, so we're being set up for an exciting clash between the Core Ultra 9 285K and the Ryzen 7 9800X3D for gaming performance.

Next up, AMD announced official price cuts for all four current models in its Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processor family. Buyers in the retail channel should be able to find the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X 16-core/32-thread processor up to $50 cheaper than its launch price, which should bring it down to $600. The Ryzen 9 9900X (12-core/24-thread), the Ryzen 7 9700X (8-core/16-thread), and the Ryzen 5 9600X (6-core/12-thread), each get a haircut of up to $30. You should be able to find the 9900X for as little as $470. The 9700X should be down to as low as $330. The 9600X, the most affordable "Zen 5" part, should go for as low as $250. The price-cuts should be effective immediately. Although all pre-launch info points to this being an 9800X3D-only launch, our AMD PR contacts used the plural term ("X3D processors") when referring to the November 7 date. Could we see more than one X3D processor model launch, especially given the $50 price cut given to the 9950X? Watch this space.