I'm trying not to be too down on the new(ish) AMD Ryzen 7 7700X3D. After all, we are living in a time when the regular narrative is that all hardware is brutally overpriced and every tech company out there is trying to make a quick buck off the back of an AI bubble that is ever more certain to wipe out the global economy in one big pop. But here's AMD trying to give us an even more affordable AM5 gaming processor with a lovely dollop of the 3D V-Cache good-stuff. And yet I'm still not happy.
I guess, fundamentally, I don't get it. You see, what we have here is a slightly slower Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU with slightly lower MSRP. On the surface, that sounds great. The 7800X3D was the best gaming CPU of its generation, and only dropped off our recommended list when its Zen 5 replacement, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, dropped in price.
The issue is that the 7800X3D is old now. I reviewed it—very favourably I might add—back in April 2023. That in itself is not an issue; the underlying silicon is still excellent and still performs fantastically well up against the latest from either AMD or rivals Intel. The issue is that it's been out in the market a long while, most enthusiasts have their eyes on that 9800X3D (or even its slight upgrade, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D), and the ol' 7800X3D still has plenty of numbers out in retail, too. For essentially the same price as this 'new' 7700X3D. Sometimes cheaper.
And therein lies the friction. Why isn't AMD just making more 7800X3D chips and giving them a permanent price cut? Does it really have so many 3D V-Cache'd Zen 4 CCDs lying around—that couldn't quite get to the right clock speeds—that the only way to ship them would be to have them clocked lower out of the gate under a different chip name? And if so, wouldn't you rather spend the same money on the older, slightly faster, theoretically more reliable, CPU?
I kinda feel like I would.
