AMD Ryzen 9850X3D leak indicates CPU is just 3% faster than 9800X3D - but what did you expect?

With AMD's Ryzen 9850X3D about to be released, a fresh leak shows that this new CPU is purportedly just a few percent faster (on average) than the 9800X3D for frame rates in 1080p.

VideoCardz picked up a post from a known leaker on X, chi11eddog, who showed a comparison between these CPUs in seven games (running with an RTX 5090 at Full HD resolution).

Check out the graph above, and as you can see, in some games, the difference is, well, nothing - which is the case for Battlefield 6 and Monster Hunter Wilds, which are essentially a dead heat.

Doom: The Dark Ages is 1.6% faster with the Ryzen 9850X3D, and the other titles are in the order of 3% to 5% quicker - with Counter-Strike 2 seeing a 6.4% bump as the top-end outlier.

Of course, this illustrates that some of the more CPU-reliant games are going to fare noticeably better with the new Ryzen X3D processor, but overall, the majority of titles won't see much improvement beyond a couple of percent.

This should not be a shock, though, given that really, this is identical silicon. After all, the Ryzen 9850X3D is just a top-binned version of the 9800X3D, with a chip that's capable of being cranked to run 400MHz faster out of the box.

And that extra boost speed is not going to make a huge difference, as we see (in theory, anyway - remember this is still a leak, but it makes sense). To be fair, this is reflected in the fact that the 9850X3D isn't a great deal pricier than its lesser sibling, of course - which still makes it a sensible buy for a high-end gaming rig. Especially if you'll be playing games that really push frame rates and are CPU-bound, like Counter-Strike 2.

Perhaps one of the best things about the 9850X3D is that it'll bring down the price of the 9800X3D, and we could get some relative bargains in that respect eventually.