MSI OCLab made some groundbreaking disclosures about the gaming performance of upcoming AMD Ryzen 9000X3D processors. It looks like AMD is set to dominate the Intel Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors in gaming performance, if these numbers hold up. In the games that MSI tested, namely "Far Cry 6," "Shadow of the Tomb Raider," and "Black Myth: Wukong," the "8-core 9000X3D" processor, or the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, is found to be 11% faster on average than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The "16-core 9000X3D" processor, which is expected to be the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, is an impressive 13% faster than its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

Normally we'd expect bigger gen-on-gen gains for the 8-core part than the 16-core part, but the 16-core 9000X3D pulling ahead by that much over its predecessor hints at the possibility of AMD either giving it significantly higher clock speeds, or the rumor about AMD deploying both 3D V-cache on both its CCDs could be true after all. The 9950X3D could end up roughly on-par with the 9800X3D if this turns out to be true, given that the gaming performance delta between the 7800X3D and 7950X3D is roughly that much—2-3 percentage points. Intel earlier this week officially announced the Core Ultra 2-series desktop processors. As part of the announcement, the company put out some first-party gaming performance numbers, which put the top Core Ultra 9 285K either on-par with the Core i9-14900K, or faster by 2-3%, which means it should land behind even the 7950X3D in gaming performance, and AMD is set to dominate Intel in gaming performance with the 9000X3D series.

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is rumored to launch sooner than expected, with the company targeting at least an announcement within October, with reviews and product availability within Q4 2024. The chip combines the latest "Zen 5" microarchitecture with 3D V-cache technology, and is expected to increase AMD's gaming performance outlook compared to the 7800X3D, which remains the fastest processor for gaming. An alleged screenshot of the processor grinding away at Cinebench surfaced, which reveals that the processor is capable of a 5.20 GHz all-core boost frequency, and comes with an impressive 4.70 GHz base frequency.

To put these clock speeds into perspective, the current Ryzen 7 9700X processor without the 3D V-cache, comes with a 3.80 GHz base and 5.50 GHz maximum boost frequency. This would be the first time that an X3D SKU is coming with a higher base frequency than a regular SKU. For example, the 7800X3D comes with a 4.20 GHz base frequency compared to the 4.50 GHz of the 7700X. Interestingly, the 5.20 GHz all-core boost frequency of the 9800X3D is on par with the all-core boost of the 9700X, which only hits 5.50 GHz boost on lightly threaded workloads. It remains to be seen what TDP and package power tracking (PPT) values AMD gives the 9800X3D, given that it had to retrofit the SKU with a 105 W cTDP mode via firmware, to eke out an up to 10% performance gain over the original specs.

We've known about the upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D for a good long while now, and previous leaks and rumors indicated that it would offer a rather significant boost in gaming performance thanks to changes to the 3D V-cache amounts and layouts. Now, a new leak, which purports to show off the official retail packaging for the new CPU, suggests that clock speeds will get a boost over the existing AMD Ryzen 7 78000X3D.

The leak, shared by Moore's Law Is Dead on YouTube, shows off a supposed retail box for the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D that was sent to AMD's partners for marketing, and along with that, he claims to have had access to the entire marketing slide deck, which is where the frequency boost information comes from. According to the leaker, the 9800X3D's marketing material specifically calls out the processor as being "designed for increased frequencies."