The release of AMD Ryzen 7 3800X is just around the corner, and on paper, this octa-core processor with 16 threads is set to impress and perform. Up to now, we have yet to see actual real-world performance benchmarks of the Ryzen 7 3800X, but recently Twitter user ‘TUM_APISAK‘ has spotted Geekbench numbers for this upcoming Ryzen 3000 series processor.
With these released Geekbench results (displayed above), we can compare the Ryzen 7 3800X to its (on paper) likely rival, the Core i9-9900K – Intel’s flagship Core i9 9th generation processor for 2019.
i9-9900K vs 3800X – Spec & Geekbench 4 Comparison
Both the Core i9-9900K and Ryzen 7 3800X processors have 8 cores and 16 threads, making them obvious competitors for those choosing AMD or Intel. Looking past the core and thread count, the i9-9900K has a 0.5 GHz higher boost clock at 5.0 GHz, compared to the Ryzen 7 3800X boost clock of 4.5 GHz – meaning on paper the i9-9900K should expect to outperform on this front. What the Ryzen 7 3800X has that the i9-9900K doesn’t have is 36MB of cache (compared to 16MB), memory support of up to DDR4 at 3200 MHz, and the support for the newly released PCIe 4.0 (x24) – which is really exciting for many reasons.
| Intel Core i9-9900K | AMD Ryzen 7 3800X | |
| Image |  |  |
| Price | $488 | $399 |
| Cores / Threads | 8 / 16 | 8 / 16 |
| Base Clock / Boost Clock | 3.6 GHz / 5.0 GHz | 3.9 GHz / 4.5 GHz |
| Cache | 16MB | 36MB |
| Memory Support | DDR4 2666 | DDR4 3200 |
| PCIe | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 4.0 x24 |
| Geekbench 4 Single-core Sore | 6189 | 5406 |
| Geekbench 4 Multi-core Score | 34249 | 34059 |
| Geekbench 4 Memory Used | DDR4 2666 | DDR4 2166 |
| SiSoftware Processor Multi-Media Score | 792Mpix/s | 1480Mpix/s |
| Retailer | Amazon.com | Amazon.com |
In the Geekbench results above, we can see the i9-9900K narrowly outperforms the Ryzen 7 3800X in single core and multi-core tests (14.48% and 0.58% respectively), but the important thing to note here is that the i9-9900K was operating using DDR4 2666 MHz (the maximum memory support) whereas the Ryzen 7 3800X Geekbench setup was only operating on DDR4-2166 MHz, way below its maximum support of DDR4-3200 MHz. Therefore, given the sensitivity of Geekbench 4 to memory speeds, we expect if both i9-9900K and R7 3800X Geekbench setups used the same memory speed, we would expect the Ryzen 7 3800X to outperform the i9-9900K.
We’re excited to get our hands on this processor in the near future and do our own tests to directly compare the performance of the Ryzen 7 3800X to the i9-9900K. In our test we would use the latest chipset motherboards such as the Z390 motherboard for the i9-9900K, and a X570 motherboard since the Geekbench result was performed on the X470 chipset.
Right now, we see the Ryzen 7 3800X being the more sensible option than opting for the i9-9900K, with it offering (we predict) superior performance at a far, far cheaper price – making it more attainable for many PC builders out there in 2019.