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When I replaced my Ryzen 9 5900X with a 5800X3D a couple of years ago, the performance improvement was obvious almost immediately. Some games, like Valorant and Battlefield 2042, were clearly CPU-limited at 1440p when I had the 5900X, often leaving my RTX 4090 sitting at around 70–80% usage. After the upgrade, both ran significantly better, with GPU usage improving across the board. It was so good that I never felt the need to ditch AM4 unless I wanted the RTX 5090.
Regardless, I eventually made the jump to AM5 and upgraded to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D earlier this year. This time, I didn’t expect a significant FPS uplift because the 5800X3D had no trouble keeping up with my 4090, but I still wanted better numbers to get the most out of my 360Hz OLED. And as expected, the 9800X3D did help improve frame rates in CPU-intensive esports titles, but what actually stood out more this time didn’t have anything to do with the FPS counter in MSI Afterburner.
From overclocking to undervolting, MSI Afterburner is a really useful software. Here’s how you can use it to improve your GPU’s performance.
My initial 5800X3D upgrade got me the average frame rates I expected from my RTX 4090, but this time the improvement wasn’t just about how much higher that number could go. After all, I was already averaging 200+FPS in competitive shooters, so the FPS jump alone wasn’t going to make much of a noticeable difference. With the 9800X3D, I was immediately impressed by how much more consistent the performance felt, regardless of whether I was in an intense gunfight or simply rotating across the map.
At triple-digit frame rates, that consistency matters a lot, especially on a 360Hz OLED. I’m not talking about obvious stutters or massive FPS drops here, because anyone can notice those. Dropping from 300 FPS to 250 FPS doesn’t sound like a big deal if you just look at the counter, but these brief dips can make mouse flicks feel less fluid or camera movements feel jittery. That’s where 1% lows come in, and the higher they are, the more consistent the game feels. And that jitter results from inconsistent frame pacing, where some frames take slightly longer to render than others. The 9800X3D was an improvement in these areas, and that’s why games felt smoother even without a big jump in average FPS.
Again, by gains, I don’t mean much higher average FPS across the board. It’s more about how rarely I ran into situations where my CPU was the obvious bottleneck. Even though my 5800X3D has no trouble keeping up with my RTX 4090, some games can still push it to its limits, especially when a lot ishappening at once. As a competitive gamer, I usually care most about those moments because that’s when sudden performance dips can be the difference between winning and losing a gunfight.
I’m talking about situations where your team is pushing a site, and there are several players in that area, with utility being used by both sides. In Valorant, that means the CPU suddenly has a lot more work to do because player movement, utility interactions, and game logic are all ramping up at once. Likewise, in Battlefield, there are often 10–15 players fighting over the same objective, which can sometimes overwhelm the 5800X3D. That’s where the 9800X3D truly stood out, because performance still felt much closer to the best-case scenario during chaotic moments.
It’s not like I wasn’t happy with the 5800X3D’s performance at all. Looking back, I could’ve probably stayed with it until I upgraded my GPU to something like the RTX 5090, which would’ve made the 5800X3D’s limitations much more apparent at 1440p. If anything, this upgrade was a refinement, but a welcome one nonetheless. The smoother frame delivery, better 1% lows, and more consistent performance overall gave me one less thing to worry about in ranked matches.
Regardless, upgrading to AM5 wasn’t just about squeezing more performance. If that was all I cared about, I would’ve splurged on the RTX 5090 when it launched. A big part of the appeal was everything around the CPU, from PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 support to the peace of mind that comes with a platform that still has years ahead of it. Unlike AM4, which peaked years ago with the 5800X3D, AMD plans to support AM5 through 2029, which means I should get at least one drop-in upgrade out of it. That may not matter now, since the 9800X3D is one of the fastest CPUs on the market, but eventually, when I upgrade to a next-gen flagship GPU, that will make a difference.
I went into this upgrade fully expecting something like a 10% improvement in frame rates at 1440p, and that’s more or less what I got in the competitive games that were still somewhat CPU-limited. But after gaming with it for a few months, I can confidently say that’s the least interesting part. That’s not me saying you should go out and upgrade, because unless you game at 1440p with an RTX 4090 or 5090, as I do, the 5800X3D isn’t going to hold you back in any way. But having a CPU like the 9800X3D also means you won’t have to worry about CPU bottlenecks for the foreseeable future.
The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the first 9000 series CPU from AMD with its 3D V-Cache technologies, offering plenty of cache for storing data on the chip rather than slower RAM. It’s an ideal pick for a high-end gaming PC with the latest and greatest from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.