Picking a processor is a tough decision, but for all the right reasons. It’s a mega-competitive market out there with Intel and AMD delivering new, innovative and affordable processors. Intel’s 14th-gen Core chips have been less innovative and more iterative, but it’s still managing to hold up to AMD’s 3D V-Cache in gaming performance, and that’s keeping both companies a little more honest.
The most exciting development in CPUs lately has been on AMD’s side, where you have the breakthrough 3D V-Cache technology. This allows AMD to stick heaps more cache onto its processors, and you know what sort of application adores cache? Games.
1 Ryzen 7 7800X3D
AMD £439
Cache, cache baby
This is the best gaming processor AMD has ever produced. We don’t say that lightly, as lately AMD has been on a roll with excellent CPUs. However, this chip is different in one very important way. The key to its, the 7800X3D is 33% faster than the 7700X – both CPUs have the same Zen 4 cores, eight of them apiece, and the 7700X is able to boost quite a bit higher. But it still loses that fight. Not every game will respond quite so well to 3D V-Cache, but generally the 7800X3D is faster than the 7700X. However, the real miracle of V-Cache is in how little power this chip needs. The 7800X3D peaks at just 81W whereas the 7700X gobbles up 143W. This chip is diabolically good.
