AMD’s Zen 4 3D V-Cache CPUs are true marvels of modern CPU performance. They offer exceptional gaming performance on par with the absolute best that Intel has to offer, and yet do it at a fraction of the power draw and heat output. They lose out on productivity performance, but that’s what the non-X3D AMD CPUs are for. And if you want all-rounders, but don’t mind high thermal design power ratings, then Intel’s offerings are always an option.
Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming Check your inbox! Privacy Policy Specs Despite all three of these processors being from the same generation and all sporting the same additional L3 cache stuck on top of the main CPU die, the configuration of these CPUs is still quite distinct. On the surface, there are the core count differences, with the 7800X3D sporting eight Zen 4 cores, the 7900X3D 12, and the 7950X3D 16 — mirroring their non-X3D counterparts.
That means the 7900X3D has only six cores with 3D V-Cache support, while the 7800X3D and 7950X3D have eight, though the 7800X3D has no higher clocked cores to work with. Despite these differences, TDP is basically the same across the board, highlighting the impressive efficiency of 3D V-Cache CPUs. Although the 7950X3D holds a significant lead in synthetic tests like 3DMark, where the additional CPU cores can be leveraged, in real-world gaming benchmarks, that lead disappears completely. In our own testing, we found the 7800X3D was competitive, or even slightly better than, the 7950X3D in most games, and TechPowerUp agrees with us. It shows the 7800X3D being faster than the 7950X3D on average in games at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, despite the added cores of the higher-end chip.
Productivity, however, is another matter entirely. There, the 7950X3D absolutely walks away with it, thanks to its greater core count and access to higher clocked cores. The 7900X3D follows along in second place, in some cases offering very credible competition to the 7950X3D in apps where not all 32 threads of the higher-end chip can be leveraged. The 7800X3D comes in last place and often by quite a margin. Eight cores just can’t measure up to 12 or 16 in apps that can use them.