Enlarge / The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)
If you were intrigued by AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X3D but didn't want to spend $700 on a processor, the $450 Ryzen 7 7800X3D might be the chip you've been waiting for.
Like the more-expensive X3D chips, the 7800X3D is a regular Zen 4 processor with an extra 64MB of L3 cache stacked on top of it. That extra cache isn't always useful, but it does tend to boost game performance, and AMD has marketed the X3D series mostly to PC gamers looking for a processor to pair with high-end GPUs like the GeForce RTX 4090 and Radeon RX 7900 XTX.
The X3D chips all come with compromises, mainly in the form of lower clock speeds and less-flexible overclocking support. But if you mainly care about games, the good news is that the 7800X3D runs them just as well as the more-expensive 7950X3D for less money, and it does so without generating too much heat or using too much power.
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