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I’m trying not to be too down on the new(ish) AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D. After all, we are living in a time when the regular narrative is that all hardware is brutally overpriced and every tech company out there is trying to make a quick buck off the back of an AI bubble that is ever more certain to wipe out the global economy in one big pop. But here’s AMD trying to give us an even more affordable AM5 gaming processor with a lovely dollop of the 3D V-Cache good-stuff. And yet I’m still not happy.
I guess, fundamentally, I don’t get it. You see, what we have here is a slightly slower Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU with slightly lower MSRP. On the surface, that sounds great. The 7800X3D was the best gaming CPU of its generation, and only dropped off our recommended list when its Zen 5 replacement, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, dropped in price.
The issue is that the 7800X3D is old now. I reviewed it—very favourably I might add—back in April 2023. That in itself is not an issue; the underlying silicon is still excellent and still performs fantastically well up against the latest from either AMD or rivals Intel. The issue is that it’s been out in the market a long while, most enthusiasts have their eyes on that 9800X3D (or even its slight upgrade, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D), and the ol’ 7800X3D still has plenty of numbers out in retail, too. For essentially the same price as this ‘new’ 7700X3D. Sometimes cheaper.
And therein lies the friction. Why isn’t AMD just making more 7800X3D chips and giving them a permanent price cut? Does it really have so many 3D V-Cache’d Zen 4 CCDs lying around—that couldn’t quite get to the right clock speeds—that the only way to ship them would be to have them clocked lower out of the gate under a different chip name? And if so, wouldn’t you rather spend the same money on the older, slightly faster, theoretically more reliable, CPU?
I kinda feel like I would.
Buy if…
âś… You find it in a bundle or well-priced PC: We’ve already seen some Newegg bundles featuring the 7700X3D alongside motherboard and RAM options for less than 7800X3D equivalents, and I’ve got to believe there will be budget-friendly systems built around this chip from the usual suspects.
Do not buy if…
❌ You’re looking for an affordable AM5 CPU upgrade: The standard 7800X3D will be a better purchase right now as it’s either around the same price as the slower 7700X3D, at places such as Amazon, or sometimes even cheaper.
A CPU practically as good as the classic 7800X3D, but one that’s limited by the regular discounts on the older chip and the number of them still left on the shelves. That makes it a difficult DIY recommendation, but full 7700X3D systems could be very competitively priced. There is Intel-shaped competition, however, in the shape of the $100 cheaper and more well-rounded Ultra 5 250K Plus.
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D features
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D |
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D |
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Architecture |
AMD Zen 4 |
AMD Zen 4 |
AMD Zen 5 |
|
Socket |
AMD AM5 |
AMD AM5 |
AMD AM5 |
|
Lithography |
TSMC N5 (CCD) / N6 (IOD) |
TSMC N5 (CCD) / N6 (IOD) |
TSMC N4 (CCD) / N6 (IOD) |
|
Cores / Threads |
8 / 16 |
8 / 16 |
8 / 16 |
|
Base clock |
4 GHz |
4.2 GHz |
4.7 GHz |
|
Boost clock |
4.5 GHz |
5 GHz |
5.2 GHz |
|
L2 cache |
8 MB |
8 MB |
8 MB |
|
L3 cache |
96 MB (inc. 64 MB 3D V-Cache) |
96 MB (inc. 64 MB 3D V-Cache) |
96 MB (inc. 64 MB 3D V-Cache Gen2) |
|
TDP |
120 W |
120 W |
120 W |
|
MSRP |
$329 |
$450 |
$479 |
|
Current price |
If you remember the old Ryzen 7 7800X3D, then you know exactly what we’re talking about here, because this is essentially the exact same silicon, except this time clocked a little lower out of the box.
That headline difference translates to a base clock of 4 GHz for the 7700X3D and 4.2 GHz for the 7800X3D, and then a boost clock of 4.5 GHz versus 5 GHz. That’s where the differences begin and end, even when we’re taking pricing into consideration, too. The starting price for the 7700X3D is $329, but while the 7800X3D launched with a $450 MSRP that’s not its cost right now. There are so many of the excellent old chippies out in retail that the price for a 7800X3D on Amazon right now is just $334; just $5 more than this new budget option.
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Otherwise, we’re still talking about a Zen 4 CPU, using a single eight-core, 16-thread CCD with a 64 MB dollop of 3D V-Cache slapped on top of it. That layering, and the insulating nature of having some extra silicon sitting between the CPU cores and the CPU cooler, means the Zen 4 iteration of 3D V-Cache necessitated a drop in clock speed. This is why the 7700X3D has a boost clock of 4.5 GHz while the 7700X, with no extra L3 cache, has a maximum boost clock of 5.4 GHz.
Zen 4 itself was, in large part, a respin of the Zen 3 architecture, but with the CCD built on a TSMC 5 nm production process and the IOD on a 6 nm one. It was also AMD’s first native PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 platform, too. It got a little more cache, and with the X3D chips a lot more cache. Though the essential design remained more or less unchanged compared with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D which kicked it all off.
The difference between the Zen X3D chips and the Zen 5 X3D chips, however, is in where the extra cache sits. The likes of the 9800X3D and 9850X3D don’t have to compromise on clock speed because the 3D V-Cache layer sits beneath the CCD instead of between it and the cooler.
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D performance
You will probably not be surprised to hear the performance you should expect to see from the Ryzen 7 7700X3D isn’t a big surprise. This is, after all, an eight-core Zen 4 chip with an extra 64 MB of L3 cache bolted onto it. Just like the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. So yes, gaming performance and productivity metrics are pretty damned similar.
There are some differences, though those are minimal and largely down to either the slight difference in clock speed out of the box or simple testing variance.
When it comes to gaming you’re looking at 1080p performance that is around 94-95% that of the top of the class, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D of Zen 5 fame, and that means frame rates at the same sort of levels as the 7800X3D. Which, in short, means you’re getting excellent gaming performance from this affordable CPU, even if it’s not performance we haven’t seen before.
1080p gaming performance
We test games at 1080p to ensure variance between CPU performance is captured
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D | 112 Avg FPS, 73 1% Low FPS |
| AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D | 120 Avg FPS, 88 1% Low FPS |
| AMD Ryzen 7 7700X | 107 Avg FPS, 79 1% Low FPS |
| Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus | 118 Avg FPS, 93 1% Low FPS |
| AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 112 Avg FPS, 76 1% Low FPS |
The benefits of the 3D V-Cache lump bonded to the 7700X3D’s CCD, however, are most clearly demonstrated by the differences in gaming performance between this newer chip and the older Ryzen 7 7700X.
Just take a look at the frame rate delta between those chips in the particularly cache-sensitive Homeworld 3 and Baldur’s Gate 3 benchmarks. The straight 7700X, despite its considerably higher clock speed, is considerably slower than X3D model. An easy example of where fighting over a couple hundred megahertz isn’t a battle that PC gamers really need to get into.
Compute performance
We may be PC Gamer, but we also want to know how our CPUs perform in general compute tasks, too
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D | 102 Single-core index score, 1011 Multi-core index score |
| AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D | 113 Single-core index score, 1082 Multi-core index score |
| AMD Ryzen 7 7700X | 118 Single-core index score, 1104 Multi-core index score |
| Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus | 138 Single-core index score, 1817 Multi-core index score |
| AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 133 Single-core index score, 1307 Multi-core index score |
But if you’re after a bit more than just gaming performance from your processor then there are other options you should be considering. Obviously it’s a different platform, so if you’re just talking about an upgrade to your existing AM5 system then it’s not an easy option, but Intel’s excellent Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is an outstanding budget processor.
Its eighteen cores of Arrow Lake processing power gives it the edge over all of AMD’s eight-core, 16-thread chips when it comes to actual compute power. And it’s none too shabby when it comes to the gaming performance in general, either. So, if you wanted something a bit more rounded than a pure-blood gaming chip, the Intel CPU is an outstanding option for just $200.
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D thermals
Despite some Zen 4 CPUs being rather toastie when it comes to their cooling demands, the 7700X3D remains pretty chill, largely thanks to that slower clock speed. Because of that it’s drawing less power from the PSU, with the chip pulling down almost half that of the straight 7700X during gaming workloads. As we’ve noted, that lower clock speed doesn’t actually have a huge impact on its gaming performance, but does mean that you’re only looking at around 61 °C on average in our looped Metro Exodus stress test.
Thermal and power performance
We use three looped runs of Metro Exodus: Enhanced Edition to get a bead on sustained thermal and power draw
020406080
Avg CPU temp (°C)
| Product | Value |
|---|---|
| AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D | 61 |
| AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D | 64 |
| AMD Ryzen 7 7700X | 69 |
| Intel Core Ultra 5 250K Plus | 57 |
| AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D | 51 |
Referring back to the Intel option, however, and while that might be a power-sucking beast when it comes to compute-heavy workloads, it is one of the coolest-running of our tested chips here when it comes to gaming performance. You’re looking at just 57 °C in our looped Metro Exodus stress test, even while drawing an average 91 W.
AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D value
Notions of value are a tricky thing to realise for the Ryzen 7 7700X3D. Kudos to AMD for releasing a similar CPU to the 7800X3D yet with a massively lower MSRP, but the realities of retail means that the two processors currently exist at effective price parity. The 7800X3D has been out for a long time now, has a lot of stock still in retail and is regularly discounted.
And while we have noted that higher clock speeds don’t necessarily always translate into higher gaming performance, I would have more confidence in the established silicon of the 7800X3D, especially when I’m still uncertain over the provenance of the 7700X3D chips’ CCDs.
Are they cores that couldn’t hit 7800X3D clock speeds out of the factory and so had to be managed down? Else why not just make more 7800X3Ds? This is my conundrum, and why, if the prices are the same, I would spend the same money on the older, quicker chip.
But the DIY market is not the only market. So while there is price parity here at Amazon for chips purchased on their lonesome, there are other ways to access the CPU. We’ve seen some excellent 7700X3D chip/mobo/RAM bundles on Newegg that come in at a cheaper price than equivalent 7800X3D options, and I would not be surprised to see full system builds from PC makers coming in undercutting 7800X3D machines.
In that context, the value proposition of the 7700X3D is far more pronounced. The only fly in the AMD ointment here is that Intel’s excellent Core Ultra 5 250K Plus is still just $200. That is a bargain price for a chip that is far better at productivity and gets mighty close when it comes to gaming performance, too.
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