AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Useful For More Than Gaming?

When AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D (Affiliate), the self proclaimed “World’s Fastest Gaming Processor”, launched on April 20th with its additional 64MB of 3D stacked “V-Cache” – as compared to the standard AMD Ryzen 7 5800X (Affiliate) – the general consensus among reviewers was that the 8 core 16 thread CPU traded blows with Intel’s Core i9 12900K (Affiliate) in games – and at a lower price point and with more efficient power use. However, in productivity benchmarks like Cinebench R23 or Adobe Photoshop, the Intel CPU with its superior number of cores was the better performer.

Now with the benefit of time for additional testing, use cases outside of gaming are being identified that take advantage of the AMD CPU’s additional cache and power efficiency.

Slide From AMD Ryzen 7 3800X3D Product Annoucement
Image Credit: AMD

Michael Larabel over at Phoronix has continually tested his 5800X3D since obtaining it to find which scenarios benefit most from its additional cache. In his first round of benchmark results, Michael found in his comparisons between only the 5800X that the 5800X3D excelled in a number of areas including neural network related tests – such as LeelaChessZero, fluid dynamics – like OpenFOAM 8, certain video encoding and decoding algorithms, and some code compilation tests.

In his latest round of benchmark results, Michael identified some additional areas outside of games in which the CPU has dethroned not only its sibling the 5800X but both Intel’s i9 and AMD’s top consumer CPU the Ryzen 9 5950X.

I’ve only highlighted a portion of the results of Michael’s testing here. Please be sure you check out his findings from both part 1 and part 2 of his testing for a more complete picture of his findings so far.

Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Ryzen 7 5800X

Starting with a quick look at relative performance between just the 5800X3D and the standard 5800X – in the various tests Michael has run, we can see there are some big gains to be had from the additional cache in certain workloads – with some tests showing gains of more than 100% in the CloverLeaf fluid dynamics benchmark and the Zstd Compression benchmark. Other benchmarks such as Xmrig, which tests CPU performance for mining Monero crypto currency showed considerable gains of 56%, along with the Pennant fluid dynamics benchmark showing gains of nearly 50%.

Benchmark Results Comparing AMD Ryzen 5800X3D vs AMD Ryzen 5800X In Non-Gaming Workloads
Image Credit: Phoronix

While it should be obvious that the 5800X3D is going to outperform its sibling CPU in tasks that benefit from additional cache, it isn’t at all obvious that it should outperform CPUs with a core count advantage.

Compared With Additional CPUs

This is where things start to get particularly interesting. When adding in the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, and Intel Core i9 12900K, we find the 5800X3D outperforms them all in some machine learning / neural network related tests.

Looking at the benchmark results for the oneDNN open source deep learning / neural networks library, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D outperforms every other chip in the comparison which feature in some cases (like the Intel chip) 2x the cores and 2.5x the threads. The Ryzen 7 CPU’s core count disadvantage gives the chip a significant power efficiency advantage compared to the competition.

Continuing a pattern you might have noticed when looking at the comparison between only the 5800X3D and 5800X, another area where the additional cache shows tremendous gains over the other CPUs compared is in fluid dynamics benchmarks. In addition to the CloverLeaf and Pennant benchmarks mentioned earlier, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D put up impressive scores in the Open Porous Media tests.

A Portent Of Gains To Come?

While not every scenario Michael tested showed any kind of meaningful benefit from the additional stacked cache on this new Zen 3 CPU, the machine learning related performance benefits of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D could definitely be of interest to researchers and tinkerers alike, it’s hard to imagine a consumer CPU being considered by the oil and gas industries who typically run large server deployments for their research and discovery operations.

However, with Zen 4 CPUs on the horizon that are expected to feature the new 3D V-Cache technology found on the 5800X3D, you could think of these results as a kind of tech demo for the kinds of gains you can expect to see in AMD’s upcoming “Genoa” server chips.AMD’s already seen significant growth in the data center market – recently boasting a “historic-best” 16% share of the server CPU space. It’s not unreasonable to think that market segments with the most to gain won’t be beating down AMDs door for these CPUs once they’re available.

Tell me what you think about the Ryzen 7 5800X3D (Affiliate) and AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology in the comments below. Also, if you enjoyed this article or found it interesting, please consider sharing it with your friends / colleagues on social media. If you would like to support our efforts to create additional resources like this, please consider making a donation. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Privacy Policy


Scroll to Top