## 4 CPUs You Should Buy Instead of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is one of the best gaming processors you can buy, but it’s not the right chip for everyone. If you’re looking for a more affordable option, or if you need a CPU that’s more powerful for non-gaming applications, there are several other processors you should consider.
### AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is still a monster gaming CPU in 2024. It’s the older version of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and it comes in anywhere from $70 to $110 cheaper depending on sales. On top of that, it uses AMD’s mature AM4 platform. If you’re making a full platform upgrade, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D can end up between $200 and $250 cheaper than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D between the CPU, motherboard, and RAM.
Based on our testing, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is about 16% slower than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 1080p. The same isn’t true at higher resolutions, however. At 1440p, the difference is often less than 10%, while at 4K, that drops down to single digits. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is faster, but you can get most of the way there with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D if you’re playing at higher resolutions and graphics settings.
### Intel Core i9-13900KF
The Intel Core i9-13900KF is a class above the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and it comes with a price to match. It’s anywhere from $40 to $90 more expensive depending on sales, and it’s slightly slower than AMD’s chip when it comes to gaming. However, the Core i9-13900KF is significantly faster when it comes to non-gaming applications.
The 24-core CPU unsurprisingly rips apart the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in multi-core performance. In Cinebench R23, for example, we found that it’s a massive 121% faster than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. That translates into real applications, too. The Core i9-13900KF was able to complete a transcode in Handbrake 37% faster, and it was more than twice as fast at CPU rendering in Blender.
### AMD Ryzen 7 7700
There are some games that love AMD’s 3D V-Cache, but in others, it does very little. That’s especially true at resolutions above 1080p. If you don’t need the extra cache, you can save quite a bit of money with the Ryzen 7 7700. It’s between $100 and $120 cheaper than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D depending on sales, and it still gives you access to eight Zen 4 CPU cores.
The Ryzen 7 7700 is essentially a weaker version of the more expensive Ryzen 7 7700X. At least, it’s supposed to be weaker with a power limit of 65W (the X-series part goes up to 105W). In reality, the Ryzen 7 7700 is able to get most of the performance of the X-series chip because of the architecture’s excellent efficiency. On top of that, it’s unlocked for overclocking, allowing you to close the gap with AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO).
### AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
What if budget is no concern to you? If you have all the cash to spare, consider picking up the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. It offers basically identical performance to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in games, but the CPU also sports 16 Zen 4 cores. That gives you a lot more muscle to power through productivity tasks where the Ryzen 7 7800X3D can struggle.
It’s within a few points of the base Ryzen 9 7950X, which itself matches Intel’s high-end Core i9-13900K. Here, you’re getting the best of both worlds. Overall, gaming performance is on par and sometimes slightly better than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and productivity performance is sometimes twice as fast.
