The launch of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D seems very close

We may not talk much about feelings when we talk about the best processors, but there are tons of leaks and rumors floating around about AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 7 9800X3D – and they’re getting too big to ignore. The latest development is a post on the Chiphell forum (via Wccftech) that claims the processor will be announced on October 25th and released in the first week of November.

On its own, this isn’t anything too exciting. We see claims about new hardware launches all the time, but over the last two weeks there have been plenty of rumors about what is undoubtedly AMD’s most anticipated CPU of this generation. Just a few days ago, a leaked slide from an internal MSI presentation compared the Ryzen 7 9800X3D to the last-gen Ryzen 7 7800X3D and found an improvement of between 2% and 13%. The slides were originally shared by HardwareLuxx, but the post was removed, suggesting the images were likely real (VideoCardz has archived the images).

As if that wasn’t enough, a few weeks ago the YouTube channel Moore’s Law is Dead shared a slide from an AMD presentation showing the Ryzen 7 9800X3D case design. The design mirrors an official AMD promotional item gifted to retailers around the launch of the Ryzen 9 9950X, giving it some legitimacy. None of this is confirmed, but to someone who has been to many AMD presentations, the slide at least looks authentic.

All signs point to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D launching soon, be it in the next two weeks or the next two months – and we’re even ignoring the dwindling inventory of the hugely popular Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Although the release date rumors are rosy, the performance and price expectations are anything but positive. The MSI slide mentioned above shows only a marginal gain over the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in games, which is a hard sell given the CPU’s rumored price.

MSRP is $499.

— Sebastian Castellanos (@Sebasti66855537) October 15, 2024

Hardware leaker and tipster Sebastian Castellanos says the Ryzen 7 9800X3D will cost $499, which is $50 more than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D’s list price. Additionally, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D was widely available for just over $300 a month ago – before strangely selling out at retailers. If the Ryzen 7 9800X3D comes with a price increase and only a slight increase in performance, it may not be well received.

However, we don’t have anything official from AMD yet. If the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is about to launch – and it certainly seems to be – we should know all the details soon. It’s worth noting that the rumored launch date comes just a day after Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs went on sale, suggesting AMD could be trying to steal the spotlight away from Intel.