Cache-Rich: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Workstation Performance Review

Well… where do we begin?

When we first plopped AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D into our test PC with the intent to test a wide variety of workstation workloads, we truly expected more interesting results across-the-board. After all, we’re talking about triple the amount of cache, and many creative workloads would seem cache-heavy. The reality, though, is that you will need specific workloads to actually show a benefit over any other Zen 3-based chip with a normal amount of cache.

When the 5800X3D first launched, much of the focus for reviewers revolved around gaming, and it’s for a good reason: that’s a workload that can actually show improvements often. Similarly, there are many server-based workloads that can also enjoy a notable performance uplift – so, just because we haven’t seen tremendous differences in our creator workloads, it doesn’t mean that the added cache has been for naught. This article just proves that if you’re a workstation user, you should probably be looking at faster-clocked options.

Across all of our real-world tests, it was only with Adobe Lightroom’s JPEG export that an obvious improvement over the 5800X could be seen. Oddly, the DNG export behaves differently enough that it’s the higher-clocked chips that reign supreme. We’d expect that there are other processes in Lightroom (Photoshop, and other image editing tools) that might benefit from all of the extra cache, but unless the primary use of your workstation is for such tasks, you’re safer to stick with the normal 5800X.

Because AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X is clocked higher than the 5800X3D, both with regards to the base and its turbo, it will always place ahead in performance charts if that extra cache isn’t taken advantage of. The end differences are not great, mind you, but if you’re not actually using that extra cache, then sticking with the 5800X is a no-brainer.

AMD slaps an SRP of $449 to both its 5800X and 5800X3D, but the reality at etail is sometimes different. Currently, the 5800X3D is out of stock at Newegg, but is priced at $449 USD. Days ago, when there was stock, the price was $488. Meanwhile, the 5800X was $310 (affiliate link) at Amazon the other day, and currently sits under $400. Clearly, it’s worth being patient to find the best price. Considering the fact that the 5800X was so dominant against the 5800X3D across almost all of our tests, $310 sounds like a seriously good deal – that’s $140 off of its SRP.

Ultimately, it’s unfortunate we didn’t see 3D V-Cache strut its stuff well in this particular article, but it’s nice to see so many great options available for prices much lower than what we saw following Zen 3’s launch.

As mentioned before, we’re not finished testing with the 5800X3D. We’ll soon be diving into a look at the gaming aspect of it, compared once again to the 5800X, 5950X, and 12900K, and following that, we’ll explore server workloads to get an impression of what 3D V-Cache can pull off there. Stay tuned.