The first 3D V-Cache Zen 5 chip could arrive just in time to spoil Intel's Arrow Lake party but whenever it does appear, you can be sure it won't be cheap

With just over a week left to go before Intel's Core Ultra 200S series of processors hits desktop PCs around the world, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this will be all the big news on the CPU front until CES 2025. Rumour has it, though, that AMD is planning to gatecrash the Arrow Lake bunfight by launching the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the first 3D V-Cache equipped Zen 5 chip, to make PC gamers everywhere go wholesale Team Red.

I say rumour but what I really mean is one post on Chiphell's forums (via X user Harukaze5719). Normally I'd completely ignore such ramblings but it's not the first time I've heard such a claim being made, even though AMD is being incredibly tight-lipped about it all.

The official release date of Intel's Arrow Lake lineup is 24 October and we already know that the best of the bunch, the Core Ultra 9 285K, won't be as good in gaming as its current-gen Core i9 14900K. And that's because Intel said so, although you'll have to wait for our review to see what the truth of the matter is really like.

Given that we recommend the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is actually the best gaming CPU you can buy, even though the Core i9 14900K is sometimes better, it would seem that AMD isn't going to lose that crown. But just to make sure, it's claimed Team Red will announce the first Zen 5 processor to sport 3D V-Cache on 25 October, with retail availability coming in the first week of November.

It certainly makes sense to do this, if the chip is already ready to ship, because while AMD already rules the roost in gaming performance, any opportunity to showcase how much better it is than Intel should be grabbed with both hands.

But with no gaming competition coming from Intel, AMD is also free to stick whatever price tag it likes on the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, simply because it knows it will sell like hot cakes on a winter day. Then again, Zen 5 chips haven't been selling particularly well so far, mostly because the last-gen Zen 4 models aren't that much slower but they are an awful lot cheaper.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D launched in January 2023 but wasn't available in store until April of that year. However, it was competitively priced, with an MSRP of $450. Such is the demand for the gaming processor at the moment that stocks are low everywhere, and I've seen some retailers charging as high as $700 for one.

If you consider the fact that the Ryzen 7 9700X, on which the 9800X3D is based, retails for a lot less than that ($325 on Amazon), the new contender for the crown could be launched at $399. I suspect it will be a lot higher than that, perhaps $499 or more, especially given that the Core Ultra 9 285K has an MSRP of $589 and the Core Ultra 7 265K is $394.

Unless the 9800X3D is massively better than any of the Zen 4 3D V-Cache variants, however, I can't see many people rushing out to upgrade from a Ryzen 7000-series chip, especially if they already have one of the special cache-heavy processors from that generation. Truth be told, you're better off just sticking with whatever CPU you already have and putting the money aside for a GPU upgrade, as that's what games work the hardest.