Article Written by Christopher Moine, Senior Editor SFFN
The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is rising from its grave to battle against high DDR5 prices by offering AM4 owners one last chance to avoid upgrading their DDR4 powered rigs. For those that don’t know, the Zen3 architecture Ryzen 7 5800X3D took the gaming world by storm when it launched in 2022. It packed 8 Zen 3 cores combined with a massive 96MB of Level 3 cache. The cache memory was AMD’s first implementation of their 3D V-Cache technology that allowed for vertical stacking of the memory layer saving space in the process. This allowed the 5800X3D to go toe-to-toe with Intel’s then top-of-the-line I9-12900K in games while using substantially less power. While most review sites showed similar performance overall, games that could take advantage of the L3 Cache of the 5800X3D could be substantially faster than Intel’s flagship. Even to this day, the 5800X3D still offers great gaming performance as shown by Hardware Unboxed’s recent re-review that placed the 4-year-old 5800X3D on par with the I5-14600K, Ultra 9 285K, and Ryzen 5 9600X.
What’s even better for the SFF crowd is that the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is one of the few high performance gaming chips that you can relatively easily air cool. Several SFFN members built systems as small as 4L in volume with the 5800X3D and cooling it with the Noctua L9A. Personally, I built a Thorzone Mjolnir with a 120mm AIO that can run games all day long without issue. I also upgraded my wife’s NZXT H210 system from Ryzen 3900X to the Ryzen 5800X3D; giving her a substantial boost in her gaming performance. However, there is a good chance that this new version may run even cooler.
AMD could not just order another run of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. The machines that made those CPUs have been altered and upgraded preventing that. AMD re-engineered the 5800X3D to take advantage of 4 years of process development that has come since the original launch. This includes upgrading the 3D V-Cache to a more modern standard.
So far all sounds great. However, there are a few caveats. First, the 5800X3D is old. It’s been around for four years as of writing, and the AM4 platform won’t be getting the 7000 or 9000 series Ryzen CPUs back-ported to it. Second, it’s not as fast as it once was. While gaming performance is still quite strong, performance everywhere else suffers. If you intend to creative work as well, you would be better suited with upgrading to a 5950X on your AM4 platform, or by moving to a more modern architecture. If that’s not an option, and you still want to drop a 5800X3D into your creative rig, you’ll likely need to ensure your GPU can help pick up the slack with modern encode and decode engines. Finally, there is the price. AMD is listing the price of the new 5800X3D at $349. That’s a tall ask for an old CPU. This is especially true if you have access to a Micro Center in the US, which is currently selling an Intel 270K, Gigabyte Z890 ATX Motherboard, and 32GB of DDR5-6000 for $549.
Microcenter 270K bundle as of 6-11-2026.
ATX motherboard support in SFF isn’t exactly new, and there are quite a few options from companies such as SFF Time and SSUPD that I can think of off the top of my head. Of course the 270K would require substantially more cooling, but would also offer substantially more performance beyond games. Alternatively, you can choose one of their AMD combos.
Microcenter AMD 7800X3D bundle as of 6-11-2026.
Still, if you have an existing AM4 system that is thermally limited, and is in a case you don’t want to change, then the 5800X3D might be a viable solution for you. Older cases such as the Ghost S1, CCD MI6, Densium 4, Dan A4-SFX, Thorzone Mjolnir, and RAW S1 could certainly take advantage of the performance. I am personally tempted to move my CCD MI6 Ryzen 5600X build to a 5800X3D.
You can check out Hardware Unboxed’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D performance re-review below.
AI was not used to write this article. I wrote it mostly while falling asleep thanks to taking Melatonin, and then the rest next day while battling a migraine headache thanks to said Melatonin.
