Tested: The Ryzen 7 5800X3D bookends an incredible era of AMD upgrades

AMD’s AM4 socket has been around five years now, and what a run it’s had. Since its launch alongside first-generation Ryzen CPUs, this socket has been a mainstay, with unprecedented support from Team Red that enables use of first-gen motherboards with current processors. AM4 will soon cede center stage to AM5 later this year, but not everyone will need PCIe 5.0 or want to shell out for expensive DDR5 memory. That means Ryzen 5000 chips—the final batch of AM4 processors—could prove to be a much more cost-effective upgrade for people who want better performance.

That makes the recent launch of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD’s first CPU to boast its impressive new , a particularly tantalizing prospect. So when our sample crossed our desks, we decided to answer the question that many people would have. We cracked open our old Ryzen 7 1800X build, pulled the newer 3800X and 5800X off the shelf, and put them head to head with the 5800X3D, all to see just how much this new chip improves upon its predecessors—and to see how far AMD’s venerable AM4 has come since Ryzen’s early