AMD’s new Ryzen 7 9850X3D has a price and release date — it’s more affordable than I was expecting, putting the 9800X3D’s future into question

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AMD recently announced the price and release date for its new Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor, following its debut at CES 2026 a few weeks ago.

The Ryzen 7 9850X3D will be released on January 29th with a price of $499. It’s also worth mentioning that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D remains readily available for $469 and continues to be a popular choice.

We anticipate a lot of discussion around the launch of the new chip. This is partly because a recent Windows Central poll showed significant interest – 42% of readers said they’d consider buying it over the 9800X3D, even before the price was announced at CES.

The 9850X3D is very similar to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. Some people are calling it a refined version of the 9800X3D, meaning it’s the same chip but with a little extra performance tuning.

Given how similar the two processors are, it’s easy to see why people feel that way. Like the 9800X3D, the 9850X3D features eight Zen 5 cores, 16 threads, a 104MB cache, and a power draw of 120W. The main upgrade is a slightly faster boost clock – increasing from 5.2GHz to 5.6GHz – which AMD claims makes it the fastest gaming CPU currently available.

AMD claims their new 9850X3D processor will be about 27% faster than Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285K when gaming at 1080p. That’s a 3% improvement over their previous 9800X3D processor in the same tests. We’ll have to wait for independent reviews to see how it performs in the real world.

The new 9850X3D processor works with the same AM5 socket as the 9800X3D, so upgrading is straightforward. However, the relatively small performance boost means AMD likely isn’t trying to convince owners of the 9800X3D to upgrade.

I’m interested to see how the new 9850X3D processor will impact the value of the 9800X3D. With only a $31 price difference, it’s worth considering if the performance between the two turns out to be significantly different.

AMD extends an olive branch for those struggling to find affordable RAM

One of the key strengths of AMD’s advanced 3D V-Cache technology – what makes it so effective for gaming – is its ability to achieve high frame rates without needing extremely fast RAM.

I was reading AMD’s latest news, and it really struck me how little performance you actually gain by going beyond DDR5-4800 RAM. They’ve tested it in over 30 games, and the difference between 4800 and 6000 is less than 1%! Considering how expensive high-end DDR5 is becoming, it makes a lot of sense why the 9850X3D – and other recent X3D chips – are so popular with us enthusiasts. It’s a sweet spot for performance without breaking the bank on RAM.

I’m really looking forward to getting the 9850X3D when it’s released so I can directly compare how it performs in games against the 9800X3D. I’m also interested in testing out the claims about how fast the RAM is on this new processor.

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2026-01-24 17:39