9800x3d for 1440p gaming?

[lizzzardo]

Hey you lot, I have a question on whether the 9800x3d is overkill for a 1440p gaming setup. I'm currently on a Ryzen 7 5700x and looking to upgrade to an am5 build through Micro centers bundle system, and their 9800x3d bundle looks appealing to me. Still, I'm wondering if its even necessary if I plan on gaming strictly at 1440p. I'm currently running a RTX 3080 but plan on upgrading to a RX 9070 XT this summer once prices go down. Will the extra money I spend on the 9800x3d be worth it or should I go for a cheaper option? Any help is highly appreciated.

 

[EmmanuelMar]

If you're going to 1440p, you're not interested in X3D-ended CPUs because those fps are really for 1080p where there are more bottlenecks with the GPU. For 1440p/2160p resolutions, you're always interested in a more powerful GPU

 

[Bobaganoosh]

There's a few percent difference between the 9800X3D and other decent much cheaper CPUs at 1440p...with a 4090. With a 9070XT, that'll still be the entire bottleneck. So you'd still do great with a 7800X3D, 9700X, 7700X, or even 14900K, 14700k, or 265K. I'm not necessarily recommending those, I'm just saying they wouldn't be a bottleneck (except for 265k in some specific games like Balders Gate 3).

 

[Hereticbar]

Hey you lot, I have a question on whether the 9800x3d is overkill for a 1440p gaming setup. I'm currently on a Ryzen 7 5700x and looking to upgrade to an am5 build through Micro centers bundle system, and their 9800x3d bundle looks appealing to me. Still, I'm wondering if its even necessary if I plan on gaming strictly at 1440p. I'm currently running a RTX 3080 but plan on upgrading to a RX 9070 XT this summer once prices go down. Will the extra money I spend on the 9800x3d be worth it or should I go for a cheaper option? Any help is highly appreciated.

The resolution you are playing at is only part of the equation. It also really depends on what kind of games you are playing. Some MMORPG games like World of Warcraft for example benefits a lot from the 3d vcache.

 

[Macro Device]

CPUs actually don't care about the resolution. With a GPU powerful enough, a CPU capable of doing 200 FPS at 1080p will do the same 200 FPS even at 16K.

So your only question here is "Do I buy an absolute beast of a CPU now and hopefully upgrade to an absolute beast of a GPU later or do I buy a more quote-unquote 'balanced' system so I get the best of two worlds?"

And there's no obvious answer to that. Generally, if you're a competitive gamer that doesn't mind turning some GFX off completely to get the best out of the input latency then 9800X3D is a no-brainer (unless for some reason the game in question likes Intel's approach to the matter obscenely more). And if you're here for a cinematic experience in a set of fairly low paced games then this ridiculously fast CPU will be like "Yeah, whatever, call me if real shit happens" whilst your GPU is literally being molten. And here's some middle ground gaming where you hunt for 100+ FPS but don't really give a quack if it's 120 or, say, 200. Then you might prefer shaving three or four hundred off your shopping cart by subbing a 9800X3D for a 9600X or something along these lines and investing more into a GPU.

But once again, it mostly comes down to your goals and patience. 9800X3D is without a doubt a great CPU for a step-by-step approach. Not so great if you want the most of it right here, right now. And since you're only considering a 9070 XT which is for all intents and purposes not a very high end GPU... This X3D will serve you right not only with a 3080 you already own and with a 9070 XT you do yet not, but also with whatever GPU you throw at it thereafter. Maybe even two thereof. That is if you're more of an AAA guy rather than pew-pew-pew 500 FPS guy.

The final shot is for you to call. I can only say it's gonna roughly be 2035 when you'll need a CPU upgrade if you go this 9800X3D road.

 

[thestryker6]

I think the best way to approach things like this is overall use situation. I play games at UW 1440p and do some MT work so the 265K was the best choice in the price range I was looking at even though it's not necessarily the fastest CPU for any of the workloads. For gaming specifically look at 1% lows and see if the X3D parts benefit things you're likely to play. The other thing would be how long you plan on keeping it as for gaming the X3D parts will definitely stand up better over time than non.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I'd wait considering you'd need a whole new platform see how the 5700X behaves and go from there I have a 5800X paired with a 3080ti and it's fine for 1440p high/ultra in most games there are a few the 5000 non X3D struggle in but unless they are games you play it won't matter.

Alternatively a 7600-9700X with 6000 CL30 memory will get you in a pretty good place at 1440p if gaming is your primary usage but I'd still wait. For all we know gpus could be much more expensive in the summer with all the trade wars going on.

 

[cinemaware]

Page 3 | Is the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 still a smart CPU to buy in 2025?

Reece Bithrey answers the pertinent question of how good value the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is in 2025. Take a look and see how well it performs.

www.eurogamer.net

 

[Sol_Badguy]

@lizzzardo

Hello,

Here is my take on it, I'll expand on what Macro Device has said.

At first glance the initial impulse is to consider the 9800X3D + 9070 XT combo sub-optimal.
After all you would be pairing a high-end gaming CPU with a midrange GPU, and a quick look at their MSRPs ($480 and $600) would (seem to) confirm that.
Most people would say get a cheaper CPU (that is still close enough in performance to the 9800X3D) and the price difference use it on buffing the GPU.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Review - The Best Gaming Processor

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D establishes AMD as the leader in gaming performance. This Zen 5-based X3D chip is not only fast, it also comes with full support for overclocking. Besides gaming, application performance is considerably improved over the 7800X3D, but that comes at a price.

www.techpowerup.com

Okay, let's explore that scenario a bit.
For the current offer, if you get the 9700X that will give you access to the 5070 Ti which is better than the 9070 XT.
But now we would be comparing the 9800X3D + 9070 XT combo to the 9700X + 5070 Ti combo. How much better is the second combo? Will it age slower or would they be too close to call?
Suppose you go even lower like 7700X or 9600X or even lower than those, would that give you access to a 5080? Not really, the price difference to the 9070 XT is too big but for the sake of argument let's say it does. How much better is that combo, knowing that with a weaker CPU your 5080 does not achieve its full potential? Not only that the price-to-performance ratio of the 5080 is not good compared to the 5070 Ti so I would personally vote against this combo.
Going further down this rabbit hole, in order to save quite a bit of money, you could keep your current CPU and just buy a stronger GPU, like the 9070 XT or perhaps a bit stronger but that would be bottlenecked from the start. I guess we can all agree that isn't the right choice.

Right now you a have 5700X + 3080, going with a 9800X3D will give you significant improvements not just in gaming, as you can see from the relative performance charts.
Upgrading from 3080 to 9070 XT will again be substantial.

Let's focus on the 9070 XT and gaming at 1440p as per your requirements.
Right now the majority of games will run great at 1440p native when maxed-out, so the 1440p charts are the most relevant.

Sapphire Radeon RX 9070 XT Nitro+ Review - Beating NVIDIA

AMD's new RDNA 4 GPUs are launching today. The Sapphire Radeon RX 9070 XT Nitro+ is a fantastic custom design with powerful cooling and whisper-quiet fans. In terms of FPS, the RX 9070 XT offers competitive performance with similarly priced NVIDIA options in both raster and ray tracing.

www.techpowerup.com

However in the future, as time passes, there will be more and more examples of demanding games that will run great with upscaling, then the 1080p charts will start to become relevant (the lower the resolution the greater the difference between 9800X3D and the others).
If you have a 9800X3D that means you will get the most performance out of your GPU. With other weaker CPUs there will be performance left on the table especially with stronger GPUs.

Another aspect is the moment in the future when you will upgrade your GPU. Let's say you get 9800X3D + 9070 XT and two generations from now you'll feel like upgrading.
You should be aiming for 4090 level of performance or even greater, right now the upper limit that we know is the 5090. The current problem for that level of performance is the price which is prohibitive.
But in the future (no one can say exactly when) that level of performance (coupled with VRAM buffer) will be available for less money.
Let's imagine that two generations from now, that would probably be RTX 7000 series and whatever AMD's lineup will be called, you could get that level of performance for a price that you can afford.
It's going to be a substantial GPU upgrade compared to the 9070 XT, just as the 9070 XT is now compared to the 3080.
Looking at some benchmarks (@06:28) we see that the 9800X3D might not be able to keep up with the 5090 compared to the 4090, that means that in the future the "then-old" 9800X3D will be able to keep up with a GPU that has a level of performance like the 4090 maybe a bit more but much more than that means running into a bottleneck at 1440p.
So a few years from now you will be able to upgrade just your GPU and keep going for another several years without having a meaningful CPU bottleneck.

In conclusion I'm not saying that you should rush to buy this combo, but in my opinion you wouldn't be making a mistake.
There are arguments in favor of waiting like oxrufiioxo suggests, but we don't know what the future holds, maybe dark times are around the corner and then we would all say that now was still a good window of opportunity, maybe it's the other way around, we don't know, but again objectively I wouldn't view this combo as a mistake.

 

[cinemaware]

However in the future, as time passes...

...there will be other processors, and current prices will eventually drop. Buying 9800X3D now for 1440p, when it's still >500USD in most places, is overkill.

 

[Sol_Badguy]

@cinemaware

Of course there will be, but that means he should wait (on all fronts), and while he is waiting he is stuck with his current rig which will offer less and less performance in relation to the new stuff as time passes. If he is okay with that then fine. People have different requirements, some people are okay with upgrading only when components break or performance is too low to be practically usable for modern requirements.

Regarding the economic situation, who knows how things will progress? Maybe it won't be an abrupt descent but it will still be negative no matter how shallow the slope. Or maybe I'm just overly pessimistic.

 

[Rungar]

just get it. Its the one you want. Let the endorphins flow. I imagine itll be great for a long time for $200 hundred extra bucks. Better to have it and not need it, than want it later and have something you didnt really want..if you can afford it. Its a great pairing with a 9070xt or anything really.

 

[inquisitor1]

ram/mb prices to add to your calculation obviously
9070xt looks good

 

[Veseleil]

CPU doesn't care about display resolution. Get the best one you can afford right now. Hardware prices are ramping up, take it while it's still available, thank me later. Better be safe than sorry. There's no such thing as overkill. X3D is a game changer and a smart investment for gaming overall.

 

[Maxiaid]

Not overkill, go for it.

 

[jormungand]

if you have the money and is msrp price $479.99, get it.
careful with some Chinese vendors if buying from amazon selling at $399.

i have the 3080 12gb paired with the 9800x3d, i wont go back and waiting on a possible gpu upgrade too.

imo the 7800x3d still an amazing cpu but is priced around $399, i wont pay that atm.
stretch your budget and grab the 9800x3d if possible

Bundles from Microcenter? Try to check their - motherboard open box - sales
sometimes their bundles suck and maybe you end paying the same or less with an open box item.

Me personally did that and grabbed my b650 tomahawk for $165 with better ram kit, cheaper than the one they had in bundles.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Hey you lot, I have a question on whether the 9800x3d is overkill for a 1440p gaming setup. I'm currently on a Ryzen 7 5700x and looking to upgrade to an am5 build through Micro centers bundle system, and their 9800x3d bundle looks appealing to me. Still, I'm wondering if its even necessary if I plan on gaming strictly at 1440p. I'm currently running a RTX 3080 but plan on upgrading to a RX 9070 XT this summer once prices go down. Will the extra money I spend on the 9800x3d be worth it or should I go for a cheaper option? Any help is highly appreciated.

You really don't need to upgrade your base system. A GPU upgrade would be all you need. A 5700X is still an excellent gaming CPU! A 9070XT is a good upgrade and will do 1440p or even 2160p like a breeze. Now if you only have 16GB of system RAM, you should bump up to 32GB. Other than that, you should be golden!

 

[Veseleil]

if you have the money and is msrp price $479.99, get it.
careful with some Chinese vendors if buying from amazon selling at $399.

i have the 3080 12gb paired with the 9800x3d, i wont go back and waiting on a possible gpu upgrade too.

imo the 7800x3d still an amazing cpu but is priced around $399, i wont pay that atm.
stretch your budget and grab the 9800x3d if possible

He mentioned the Microcenter bundle deal. Kind of a deal the rest of the world is not getting BTW, not even remotely close. A no-brainer purchase decision really.

 

[inquisitor1]

You really don't need to upgrade your base system. A GPU upgrade would be all you need. A 5700X is still an excellent gaming CPU! A 9070XT is a good upgrade and will do 1440p or even 2160p like a breeze. Now if you only have 16GB of system RAM, you should bump up to 32GB. Other than that, you should be golden!

very smart/logical comment

 

[jormungand]

He mentioned the Microcenter bundle deal. Kind of a deal the rest of the world is not getting BTW, not even remotely close. A no-brainer purchase decision really.

i just edited my post thanks

 

[cinemaware]

Better be safe than sorry. There's no such thing as overkill. X3D is a game changer and a smart investment for gaming overall.

You managed to cram quite a few platitudes there

This is a huge problem with the internet tech "advice" and I bet it causes millions of dollars spent in vain every year by people who follow it. It parrots the sensationalist headlines from the gaming press which declares such products as "The King", "Best Gaming CPU!!1!" etc, while ignoring the fact they're mostly testing on top-of-the-shelf cards and in low resolutions, thus completely distorting the real world results.

Your only saving grace here is the fact that indeed, we live in absolutely topsy turvy world atm, and who knows what will happen with prices over the next 3-12 months or so (this is also in regard to 9070XT that the OP hopes will become cheaper "in the summer").

But other than that, telling people to spend money just for the sake of it is silly. First of all, depending on games one likes to play and what target fps they have, there might not be any tangible benefit from getting a monster CPU. Secondly, in a normalized situation, hardware does go down in price over time, so if you don't really need something now (eg maybe your GPU won't care much about that CPU) it's better to wait.

 

[Ruru]

Well, why not. It's the best gaming CPU, and at 1440p it's still noticeably faster than other CPUs.

I have a 3080 like OP has but I play at 4K so the CPU isn't that important as with 1440p, I'm still fine with my 5800X.

 

[Zazigalka]

it's a good setup. cpu is a little overkill, but that means you'll be fine for another gpu upgrade.

 

[Veseleil]

You managed to cram quite a few platitudes there

This is a huge problem with the internet tech "advice" and I bet it causes millions of dollars spent in vain every year by people who follow it. It parrots the sensationalist headlines from the gaming press which declares such products as "The King", "Best Gaming CPU!!1!" etc, while ignoring the fact they're mostly testing on top-of-the-shelf cards and in low resolutions, thus completely distorting the real world results.

Your only saving grace here is the fact that indeed, we live in absolutely topsy turvy world atm, and who knows what will happen with prices over the next 3-12 months or so (this is also in regard to 9070XT that the OP hopes will become cheaper "in the summer").

But other than that, telling people to spend money just for the sake of it is silly. First of all, depending on games one likes to play and what target fps they have, there might not be any tangible benefit from getting a monster CPU. Secondly, in a normalized situation, hardware does go down in price over time, so if you don't really need something now (eg maybe your GPU won't care much about that CPU) it's better to wait.

And your actual advice to the OP is? Where is your X3D CPU at?
You managed to type all those words and say nothing of relevance to the OP, but instead all of the usual internet smartass non-advice BS I'm seeing all the time.

My advice comes from my own experience with an X3D CPU for gaming scenarios. It's a game changer in every way.
And you can't buy a new 5800X3D, can you? The same will eventually happen with the 9800X3D.
That Microcenter bundle deal is too good to miss if you want to invest in a good gaming rig, while the prices and availability are still somewhat sane.
That's as straightforward advice as it can be, no frills, no BS.

while ignoring the fact they're mostly testing on top-of-the-shelf cards and in low resolutions, thus completely distorting the real world results.

That's how the CPUs are tested, for obvious reasons, for decades.
And 9800X3D will obliterate every other CPU on the market in gaming, regardless of the resolution, because CPU doesn't care about the damn display resolution. How many times it needs to be said for you people to understand, it's mind boggling.

Get the best CPU you can afford, and then upgrade a GPU when the time comes, because the 9800X3D is that good, and will last many GPU generations, while still delivering top of the line performance.

 

[cinemaware]

@Veseleil Preach, brother, preach There's nothing more amusing than a tech-zealot in a full battle rage.

As for my advice to OP, I think it'd be rather easy to suss out, both from my 1st and 2nd post in this thread (which you possibly missed) and that last one too. It's really not rocket science to figure out what it is.

Where's my 9800 X3D, by the way? Right in that big black box behind me. What is that supposed to prove anyway? I bought it when I was aiming for min-60fps-maxed-out-4K-gaming target, meaning to pair it with 5080 or even 5090. Should I know that everything will go head over heels and I will end up with 9070XT (which I had to return because of stupid VRAM temps), I probably wouldn't bother and keep my 5600X.

As for your "advice", I haven't seen anything bar some vague guff about "game changer" and "CPU doesn't care about resolution". Wow, muh wisdom here.

Regarding CPU benchmarking, the fact "it has been done for years this way" is meaningless and it doesn't make it gospel. It’s always been one of the "the king is naked" things in tech. Sometimes a real-world benchmark appears though and then you can see what's what. From that link I posted earlier - https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfo...ryzen-5-5600-still-a-smart-buy-in-2025?page=3

If you bothered to actually check it out before accusing somebody of providing "smartass non-advice BS" you'd see that:

At 1080p, the 7800X3D is, on average, 20 percent faster than the 5600, with the gap remaining consistent at 1440p and dropping down to just 11.6 percent at 4K. They are lower numbers than the game-to-game averages may suggest, which redresses the balance somewhat between a £100/$120 CPU and a £400/$400+ option.

Extrapolating to 9800X3D vs 5700X you could maybe stretch this number to "25% faster". Whoa, amazing! The King is here! Right? Yeah...sort of. First, perhaps it's worth considering that :
-you'll need to spend at least 600-700 USD (MB, RAM, maybe new PSU, etc) vs spending nothing
-that 5600 is already delivering 100fps average in 1440p
-the prices will most likely fall within a year or so (ok, this one is a gamble, but still)