It’s almost impossible to praise the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D highly enough, with the excellent performance of the company’s latest gaming CPU. However, technically it’s still a chip that trails the Intel Core i9 14900K when it comes to raw clock speed, at least that was the case until Asus China’s general manager, Tony Yu, got his hands on one and achieved an incredible AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D overclock.
With help from liquid nitrogen (LN2), Tony Yu managed to cool the best gaming CPU you can buy down to around -190°C (-321°F), showing gthat the new AMD chip can be overclocked to a massive 6.9GHz and still run Counter-Strike 2 stably. Not that you need to run the chip at these speeds to get amazing performance, as our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review shows.
What’s more, at that incredible clock speed, the CPU allowed CS2 to run at in excess of 1,500fps, demonstrated in this video on Chinese site Bilibili. Even when it’s not overclocked, the chip can still get over 900fps, but 1,500fps is a slightly mindboggling number. At least when 1,000Hz displays take over from 540Hz gaming monitors, we’ll have chips that can deliver the goods to them.
What’s more, the 9800X3D did this while consuming just 104W of power, and despite being supplied with an incredibly high voltage of 2.25V – the normal operating voltage of the chip is around 1.2V. It achieves this partly because running CPUs at these incredibly low temperatures makes them inherently more efficient (which is why super-conducting products tend to need cryogenic cooling), but also because this is an inherently efficient chip anyway. Under normal load it only consumes around 80W playing CS2, which compares to 140W for the Intel Core i9 14900K.
Of course, running a gaming CPU at cryogenic temperatures isn’t practical for any sort of longer-term use, let alone if you’re trying to house your CPU in one of the best PC case options around. However, if you’re at all into experimenting, it shows the 9800X3D has some potential for fun.
Also, the chip can be overclocked to some degree without exotic cooling. We’re still experimenting with our own overclocking results, but sites such as Club386 report easily achieving 5.4GHz when running the chip at just 1.22V.
If you’re looking to grab a cooler that’s going to be a great match for your new CPU, check out our best CPU cooler guide, which has a range of choices that will easily keep the 9800X3D in check.