If you’re in the process of building out a new gaming PC and you’re looking for the best gaming processor, this is it. Right now, the recently released AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D AM5 desktop processor is back in stock at Amazon at its retail price of $479 shipped. This is the official launch price with zero markup, and it’s not bundled with anything you don’t want or need.
The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the best gaming processor currently on the market and a much better option than the new Intel Core Ultra 9 285K. If you’re waiting for a discount on this processor for Black Friday, though, don’t hold your breath. There is the slimmest of slim chances that anyone will drop the price of this hot commodity before 2025.
Back in Stock: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Desktop Processor
In our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review, Jackie Thomas wrote that “the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is extremely powerful in games, which makes it easier to recommend than other recent processors like the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K or Ryzen 9 9900X. Especially if you’re building a rig with a powerful graphics card, the 9800X3D is going to be the best way to get the most performance out of whichever GPU you pair it with.”
AMD’s X3D series processors are optimized for gaming. In that respect, they bench better than even the most expensive of AMD’s standard lineup of CPUs thanks to AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. Although perfectly capable of handing multitasking, rendering, and creation, the limited number of cores means they aren’t the ideal processors for those tasks. At its retail price of $479, the 9800X3D $110 cheaper than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K ($589) and $170 cheaper than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, even though it outperforms both of them in gaming. Unless you’re a staunch Intel fan, or you’re still on AM4 and don’t want to upgrade all of your components, the 9800X3D is the obvious choice for your next gaming rig.
Black Friday Deal: RTX 4070 for $499
If you’re looking for a good graphics card that pairs well with the 9800X3D, there’s one that happens to be on sale for Black Friday. As part of its Black Friday Sale, Walmart has the PNY GeForce RTX 4070 video card for just $499, making it the least expensive RTX 4070 we’ve seen. The 4070 is an excellent card for gaming at up to 1440p at high framerates, although it’s certainly good enough to run many games in 4K as well. In our GeForce RTX 4070 Founder’s Edition review, Jacqueline Thomas wrote that “the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 is the first RTX 40-series graphics card that actually delivers solid value for most people. It doesn’t blow away the competition, but at this price it doesn’t really need to.”
When Is Black Friday 2024?
The actual date of Black Friday in 2024 falls on November 29 this year, but the deals season will begin a lot sooner than that. Leading up to the big event, retailers will begin to open deals online. This usually starts in the last week of October, just before Halloween. Each week leading up to the event will slowly roll out more deals, which ultimately leads to massive discounts on Black Friday. Retailers will not reveal their biggest Black Friday deals until the big day, but most general deals will be available well in advance.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn’t hunting for deals for other people at work, he’s hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
