Comparatively, AMD’s two 6-core 3rd-gen Ryzen
CPUs, the Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X, have two fewer
cores so they have 1MB less L2 cache than the 8-core
CPUs. All four of the above CPUs have 32MB of L3 cache,
and are made up of two quad-core Core Complexes,
with two cores disabled on the 6-core chips.
In terms of the competition, the Ryzen 7 3800X is around
£40 more expensive than Intel’s Core i7-9700K thanks
to Intel’s recent price cuts, but it still remains far cheaper
than the blue team’s flagship mainstream CPU, the Core
i9-9900K. The latter will set you back another £60 or so
over the price of the 3800X, but it too has seen a price fall,
so it now leaves you with plenty of change from £500.Performance
It’s clear from the limited availability of the Ryzen 9 3900X,
and the delay to the Ryzen 9 3950X, that there’s a high
degree of speed-binning going on with AMD’s 3rd-gen
Ryzen CPUs and we were hopeful that our Ryzen 7
3800X, being in the upper echelons, might reach a higher
overclock than the 3900X, especially as it has fewer cores.Reviews
REVIEWS / PROCESSOR
SUPPLIER overclockers.co.ukAMD RYZEN 7
3800X/£390incVAT
SOCKET AM4 PROCESSORSPEC
Base frequency 3.9GHz
Max boost frequency4.5GHz
Core Zen 2
Manufacturing process7nm
Number of cores 8 x physical(16threads)
IGP None
Simultaneous Multithreading(SMT)Ye s
Cache 32MB L3, 4MBL
Memory controllerDual-channelDDR4,
up to 3200MHz
Packaging AMD SocketAM
Thermal design power(TDP)105W
Features PrecisionBoost2,Precision
Boost Overdrive, FMA3,F16C, SHA,BMI/
BMI1 + BMI2, AVX2,AVX,AES,SSE4a,
SSE4, SSE3, SSE2,SSE
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tommPP
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here are currently two options if
you want an 8-core CPU based on
AMD’s 7nm Zen 2 architecture. The Ryzen 7
3700X (see Issue 192, p16) is a beast, especially once
overclocked, while the Ryzen 7 3800X we’re reviewing here
has higher all-core boost and peak boost clocks at stock
speed, as well as a higher TDP. Whether it’s worth the extra
cash is another matter, though, as the Ryzen 7 3700X is £
cheaper, but sports a largely identical set of features.
As both CPUs have eight cores and 16 threads courtesy
of Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT), let’s start with the
frequencies, which are the main areas to consider. The
Ryzen 7 3800X has a base frequency of 3.9GHz, which
is 300MHz higher than that of the
Ryzen 7 3700X. It also has a 100MHz
boost advantage at 4.5GHz. While
the Ryzen 7 3700X’s all-core boost
isn’t officially listed by AMD, it sat
at 4GHz in our water-cooled test
system, and the Ryzen 7 3800X has
a sizeable advantage here too, with
our sample hitting 4.2GHz under load.
Those higher frequencies have
an impact on thermals and power
though. The Ryzen 7 3700X has a
TDP of just 65W, but the 3800X
sits at 105W. Both CPUs include
the same Wraith Prism RGB cooler
despite that TDP difference, however.
The cache sizes are also identical,
with both chips having 512KB of L
cache per core (for a total of 4MB).