The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming processor currently on the market and a much better option than the new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. If you're waiting for a discount on this processor for Black Friday, though, don't hold your breath. There is the slimmest of slim chances that anyone will drop the price of this hot commodity before 2025.

AMD has dominated PC gaming CPU performance for more than two years. Its X3D chips have provided a boost that Intel has been unable to match, and its new $479 Ryzen 7 9800X3D goes a step further to not only improve gaming performance but also day-to-day tasks and creative workloads.

AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D is devastatingly fast and not just in games. But should you buy it or the Ryzen 7 7800X3D?

AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the first X3D CPU in the latest Ryzen 9000 series to break cover and will go on sale starting November 7.

According to tech leaker Kepler_L2 on X, AMD won't be launching its next-gen Zen 6 Ryzen gaming processors until late 2026 or early 2027.

The 9800X3D is really focused on gaming, though. AMD is calling it “the world’s best gaming processor,” and promising an 8 percent uplift in average FPS over the 7800X3D. Those gains are thanks to the Zen 5 architecture and a second generation of 3D V-Cache technology.

In fact, some observers reckon the chip, which Dave describes as the "new king of gaming CPUs", sold out in minutes. Meanwhile, other sources reckon Intel's new Arrow Lake CPUs have been catastrophically slow sellers, with German etailer Mindfactory claimed to have not shifted a single chip in the first week of sales.

AMD may already have won this generation of desktop processors. But the company is convinced that you should also be turning to Ryzen processors for mobile gaming, as a series of AMD’s own benchmarks show the Ryzen AI 300 absolutely dominating.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D launched on April 6, 2023, at a $449 MSRP, $30 lower than the 9800X3D. The 7800X3D remains very popular, and it too can be hard to find at the major online ret