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The Ryzen 7 3800X is an 8-core, 16-thread high end desktop Zen 2 processor, built on AMD’s seminal 7nm manufacturing process. It has a boost clock speed of 4.5 GHz, overtaking the previous Zen+ flagship, the Ryzen 7 2700X, by 200 MHz and around 16% in terms of effective speed. The 3800X is available at launch for $399 USD alongside four other new Zen 2 processors, including the similarly specified Ryzen 7 3700X. The main differences between the 3800X and 3700X being an extra 100 MHz of boost clock frequency on the 3800X and extra TDP headroom (105W for the 3800X versus 65W for the 3700X) for a $70 USD premium. The 21% higher release price translates to just a 2% higher effective speed over the 3700X. The 3800X is in direct competition with Intel’s i7-9700K, benchmarks show that, when overclocked, the 3800X is 10% worse for gaming but 30% faster for 64-core processing. The 3800X is also 15% ($50 USD) more expensive than the i7-9700K. Additionally, the 3800X's memory controller, although significantly improved over previous Ryzen iterations, still has limited bandwidth and high latency which can also impact gaming. Like the other third generation Ryzen processors, the 3800X is compatible with the new PCIe 4.0 enabled X570 chipset as well as the 400 and 300 series motherboards. At $380 USD, the 3800X offers reasonable value for purely workstation tasks such as film production but streamers should look elsewhere. Streaming with dedicated hardware such as NVENC or a separate stream PC will nearly always result in fewer dropped frames. [Jul '19 CPUPro]
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