Lately, I’ve noticed that the Ryzen 9800X3D is being recommended left and right, even for mid-range gaming PC builds that really don’t need a flagship-level CPU. Guess what, you don’t need the 9800X3D to get a great PC gaming experience, especially if you’re working with a limited budget.
Regular Ryzen CPUs Are Great for Gaming Too
On one hand, I can see why people on Reddit and other online communities recommend the 9800X3D so carefree. Compared to even an upper mid-range gaming GPU, such as the RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT, the 9800X3D is objectively affordable.
The thing is, though, said CPU is overkill for most PC gamers. Even if you pair a slower and cheaper CPU with a beefy GPU, you’ll hardly be CPU-limited at 1440p and higher resolutions, even in many esports titles.
Hardware Unboxed has a neat CPU scaling comparison video showing that, even when paired with an RTX 5080, the 9800X3D doesn’t provide that much of a performance boost at 1440p over mid-range and budget Ryzen and Intel CPUs, even when playing games at medium graphics.
Outliers are present, as always, on this particular occasion in the form of Space Marine 2. However, for the majority of PC games, something like a Ryzen 9700X, even the 6-core Ryzen 7600X and 9600X, is plenty to enjoy high fidelity and high refresh rate PC gaming.
If you’re in the middle of selecting components for your next gaming PC build, and you’re working with a limited budget, think twice before you add the 9800X3D to that list.
Instead of getting the best gaming CPU on the market (alongside its flagship cousin, the 9950X3D), consider getting a more affordable Ryzen CPU and funnel the cash you’ve saved into a faster graphics card, more storage, more (or faster) RAM, or a better monitor instead of wasting it on a CPU that won’t give you a perceptible performance improvement.
The 9800X3D Has Its Place
That said, I do recommend getting a 9800X3D in some cases, even when building a mid-range PC gaming rig. Interested in esports gaming and want to enjoy the absolute highest frame rates while being okay with playing games with competitive (read: low) settings? Since you’ll be CPU-limited even with a mid-range GPU at most resolutions, get a 9800X3D for the best possible experience, and feel free to pair it with a mid-range GPU.
Are you a fervent enjoyer of CPU-bound titles, such as 4X strategies, MMOs, simulators, or automation games like Factorio? If so, then I recommend getting a 9800X3D.
The 9800X3D also comes in handy with certain CPU-demanding RPG games, such as Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3. However, if you’re mostly a single-player gamer who prefers cranking visual settings to high or ultra, I still recommend opting for a more affordable CPU since even non-X3D CPUs can net you excellent performance in CPU-demanding RPGs.
In general, if you prefer single-player titles and high-fidelity over ultra-high-refresh gaming, the 9800X3D is overkill. I recommend getting it only if money’s not an issue and spending more cash on the CPU won’t limit your GPU choices.
Need a Mixed-Use CPU? Consider Intel Too
PC gamers who also use their rigs for CPU-demanding work should consider an Intel Core Ultra CPU instead of a Ryzen processor.
While they’re a bit slower than their 14th-gen Intel predecessors and Zen 4 and Zen 5 CPUs, Intel Core Ultra processors remain a solid choice for powering mixed-use machines. They come with a bunch of cores, excel at multithreaded tasks, are easy to cool, and sport very competitive prices compared to equivalent Ryzen options.
For example, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K comes with 20 cores in total (8 performance and 12 efficient cores), easily beats the pricier Ryzen 9900X and comes very close to the Ryzen 9950X in virtually every productivity task while being a tad behind non-X3D Ryzen CPUs in gaming performance. The best part is that the CPU has been discounted to around $300 for a while now.
When you account for its productivity prowess, coupled with more than decent gaming performance, the Core Ultra 7 265K at $300 is a genuinely great deal for every PC builder who plans to use their rig for more than gaming.
The Core Ultra 5 245K is even cheaper, often discounted at around $260, but the Core Ultra 7 265K is a much better deal since it packs two more performance and four more efficiency cores for only $40 extra.
Consider These CPUs for Budget and Mid-Range Builds
If you’re building a budget or mid-range gaming rig and your budget doesn’t allow you to get both a 9800X3D and a beefy graphics card (say RTX 5070 Ti, RX 9070 XT or higher), which CPU should you aim for?
We’ve got some recommendations.
AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
Don’t let its $200-ish price fool you; the Ryzen 5 9600X is a brilliant gaming CPU. It can easily chew through any game you throw at it, and its six Zen 5 cores will be sufficient for any game that will come out in the next five or so years. You can pair it even with an RTX 5080, and you’ll hardly notice the difference compared to the 9800X3D in most games at 1440p and higher resolutions.
You can often find the 9600X for just below or above $200, which is an attractive price for such a potent gaming CPU. If you opt for a 9600X instead of a 9800X3D, which sells for around $470, you’ll save $270.
That’s enough cash to go up a GPU tier and, for instance, snag an RTX 5070 Ti instead of an RTX 5070 and have enough money left for a decent 1TB SSD, faster memory, and a set of well-made RGB case fans. Add $30 to the sum you’ve saved, and you can snag an RTX 5070 Ti instead of, say, a 16GB RTX 5060 Ti, the former offering ~65% higher gaming performance!
The last-gen Ryzen 5 7600X is about five percent or so slower than the 9600X, but it only costs about $10–$20 less. Thus, I recommend getting the newer part, as the slight price premium is worth the performance boost the 9600X brings to the table.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The Ryzen 7 9700X is another worthy alternative to the 9800X3D. At 1440p, the 9700X is less than 10% slower than the 9800X3D on average. If you aren’t almost exclusively playing esports games or titles that love X3D chips, you’ll hardly see the difference between the two.
The Ryzen 7700 and 7700X are also great options, especially if you can find them for around $50 less than the 9700X.
The roughly $170 price difference between the 9700X and 9800X3D is a nice chunk of change that can improve your build in various ways. You can get a faster GPU and anywhere between 20% and 50% more gaming performance, depending on the upgrade. $170 can also mean the difference between an LCD and an OLED monitor, or 32GB instead of 16GB of memory. You can also get a high-end 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD, a better case, more case fans, or a more powerful PSU.
Intel Core Ultra 7 265K
By far the best purchase out of all Core Ultra desktop CPUs, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a steal at ~$300, a price it’s virtually constantly discounted to. Productivity-wise, it gets very close to the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X and easily beats its Ryzen equivalent, the 9900X.
Gaming-wise, you’re looking at less than 10% slower performance than the 9800X3D at 1440p, which is a pretty good result considering the price difference between the two. If you’re a gamer who also needs a beefy CPU for demanding productivity tasks, you ought to seriously consider getting the Core Ultra 7 265K.
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Last but not least, we’ve got the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Despite its age, the 7800X3D is still one of the best gaming CPUs around, being only about 5% slower than the 9800X3D and the flagship 9950X3D at 1440p while costing $100 less than the 9800X3D.
That’s not that much, but it can net you an RX 9070 XT instead of an RX 9070, or a better monitor with a higher refresh rate or larger diagonal. You can also get more storage, or bring about multiple smaller improvements to your build (faster memory and a better motherboard, or more memory and more powerful PSU, and so on).
There’s no doubt that the Ryzen 9800X3D is the best gaming CPU around. It’s perfect for every gaming PC build, but only if you aren’t compromising other parts of your gaming PC build.
So unless you’re working with an unlimited budget or intentionally choosing the 9800X3D because you mostly play CPU-limited titles, consider getting a more affordable CPU and putting the savings toward upgrading the GPU or other components of your build. If you’re new to PC building, you should watch out for these 5 things when building a PC and follow this build order to make things easier.