AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT & Ryzen 9 3900XT Processor Review

We recently saw the launch of the AMD Ryzen XT CPUs, their new and improved models that have been giving Intel some of their strongest competition yet. While we've already put a one of their new CPUs through its paces, we now have the AMD Ryzen 7 3900XT, the flagship of the new range on our test bench. However, we now also have the 3800XT in our hands too and can finally put that to the test too. It really is a throwdown of cores and threads, with the 3800XT featuring a 8C16T design and the 3900XT featuring an impressive 12C24T design; not too shabby for an AM4 socket chip! Check out our review of the more affordable Ryzen 5 3600 XT here. Both of these CPUs are basically re-tooled version of the existing product line. Changing them from X parts to XT parts, basically means these are the best of the bunch. They're designed to run cooler, harder, faster, overclock more, etc. That's no bad thing of course, and if the performance improvements are as good on the 3800XT and the 3900XT as we saw in our 3600XT review, then this should be a very good review indeed. Overall though, AMD are ever more firmly expanding into the enthusiast PC and gaming markets with this launch. AMD Ryzen 9 3800XT 8 Cores16 Threads3.9 GHz Base Clock4.7GHz Boost ClockUnlockedPCIe Gen 4.0 AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT 12 Cores24 Threads3.8 GHz Base Clock4.7GHz Boost ClockUnlockedPCIe Gen 4.0 What AMD Had to Say "Higher speeds, more memory, and wider bandwidth than the previous generation. 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ processors with the 7nm “Zen 2” core2 sets the standard for high performance: exclusive manufacturing technology, historic on-chip throughput, and revolutionary overall performance for gaming. From the beginning AMD’s 3rd Gen Ryzen™ processors were designed with this philosophy, to break expectations and set a new standard for high-performance gaming processors. That’s exactly what it does.Get ground-breaking gameplay from the world’s most advanced desktop processor, with impressive performance that lets you move faster, aim better and bring your best to every battle. Watch games come to life with immersive visuals and responsiveness. Elevate your game with PCs powered by 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™.Move from vision to perfection with 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ processors performance. The world’s most advanced desktop processor1 enables professional-class workloads with the incredible speed and precision you need to unleash your inner creative genius. When it’s time to master the art and science of creativity, you deserve the power to move from brainstorm to deadline without compromise." How We Test Here at eTeknix, we endeavour to disclose vital information regarding the benchmarking process so that readers can quantify the results and attempt to replicate them using their hardware. When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of motherboard, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Therefore, your experience may vary. Testing Your Own System We typically focus on commonly available benchmarks so that you too can run the same benchmarks on your own system. We hope this makes it easy for our readers to gauge the performance improvement available to them when they upgrade their own systems. Gaming Tests All games are run at their specified resolutions using the "high" settings or equivalent. We avoid using the Ultra settings as these often offer diminishing returns for performance vs visuals. Test Benches Zen 2 ProcessorAll AMD Ryzen 3000 SeriesMotherboardASUS Crosshair VIII HeroMemory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Zen ProcessorAll AMD Ryzen 2000 & 1000 SeriesMotherboardASUS B450-F GamingMemory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Coffee Lake ProcessorAll Intel 8th & 9th GenerationMotherboardASUS Maximus XI Hero (WiFi)Memory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Kaby Lake ProcessorAll Intel 7th GenerationMotherboardGigabyte Z270X-Gaming 9Memory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL LGA 2066 ProcessorAll Intel 8th, 9th & 10th GenerationMotherboardGigabyte Z270X-Gaming 9Memory2 x 8GB TEAMGroup NightHawk RGB DDR4-3000GraphicsNVIDIA RTX 2080 SUPER FEStorageSeagate Firecuda 510 1TBPower SupplyPhanteks Revolt Pro 850WSoftwareWindows 10 Professional 1909DriversNVDIA GeForce 445.87 WHQL Synthetic Benchmarks Well there's no need to sugar coat anything here is there? The 3800XT and the 3900XT scored a whopping 24203 and 23859 points respectively in 3DMark FireStrike. That's a fantastic result, putting it right along side the i9-9900K and thrashing the 10900K. Only the 9980XE and the AMD 3950X scored higher. The same is true with TimeSpy, scoring either side of the 9900K, putting these CPUs firmly in the big leagues for 3DMark. Even in PCMArk and GeekBench, we see that Intel's dominance at the top end is no longer certain, and AMD are hitting extremely similar results, some marginally better or worse, but all still great results overall. WPrime results are remarkable too, with some of the lowest 32M scores we've ever seen, and 1024 results to match. Online Benchmarks Again, the 3800XT just dominates this, hitting a new record of 58275 in Octane, and a new record of 657.7 in Mozilla Kraken. I am surprised it beat the 3900XT but some applications prefer higher per core clocks vs more cores, so there's always going to be some give and take here. WebXPRT results saw a minor improvement over older models, but nothing significant there. Compression & Rendering Similar results yet again, with the new clock speeds giving AMD a more competitive run against Intel's offerings. The strange one is the Unigine result, which actually went DOWN a lot. I suspect a drive issue on this one, very odd behaviour. However, the CineBench scores are STAGGERING, just look at that single-core performance, scoring 213 single and 1678 multi-core. Only the 10900K has a higher single-core performance. Memory Again it's clear that AMD has made strong progress here, with some of our highest results for the AMD platform yet. The latency is heading in the right direction too, dropping from around 79-81ns to around 75ns on the newer platforms. Gaming Performance Gaming performance is pretty decent overall, although I was hoping for a biggest improvement. Intel still dominates the gaming section here. However, keep in mind that all of the CPUs that are ahead are more expensive, some of them significantly so. That being said, the AMD figures are very close in these tests and not what I would consider slow. Overclocking As you can see, both of the CPUs are overclockable as are all AM4 CPUs. However, it's become clear to us that it's a complete waste of time. We've seen this in other CPU reviews recently. Overclocking actually resulted in either marginally better performance or significantly worse performance throughout our testing so we're calling it. Overclocking is dead, just put a bigger cooler on your CPU and the modern chipset will give you all its got. 3800XT @ 4.5GHz @ 1.325 3900XT @ 4.3GHz @ 1.325 How Much Does it Cost? The AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT launched a couple of weeks ago at £399.99, but is already listed for just £379.98, no doubt to just make it a touch more competitive with recent Intel offerings. It works too, that makes the 3800XT one of the best price to performance CPUs out there right now. Then again, the 3900XT is also a touch cheaper, dropping from £499.99 to £489.99, not much, but it's a discount that'll afford you a case of beer. Overview AMD are on a roll, and while I thought this XT launch was going to be a bit of a wasted effort, I'm actually pretty pleased with the end results. There's nothing significantly new here though, so I doubt a 3800X owner will be swapping for a 3800XT any time soon. However, if you've still got something like the 1800X and you're looking for your next big upgrade, it's certainly the way to go and a great pairing with the new B550 or X570 motherboards too. Cores This is certainly the strong point for AMD right now. As much as I love the 3800XT, there's clearly a good market for the 3900XT. It's like a tiny Threadripper that will work on AM4. It's not like it's even an entry-level workstation chip, because it's a powerful beast in its own right. For video editing, those extra cores are going to fly through the rendering. Of course, the same goes for music creation, game development and more. Gaming & Beyond The gaming performance is about on par with what AMD were already delivering. There are some small improvements here, but overall, the more affordable 3600XT and the 3800XT are better suited to gaming. The 3900XT is a little more serious when it comes to core counts, and that's not always a benefit for gamers, but could offer options for those who need more cores for streaming their games. Should I Buy One? There's quite a lot of options from AMD right now. The non-X and X parts are still around at great prices, and the XT parts are really competitive too. They go head to head with Intel across the range and when it comes to your wallet. Honestly, I think all the new CPUs from AMD are great deals and a worth upgrade for those on the older AM4 platforms. AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT & Ryzen 9 3900XT Processors