The price of AMD's next flagship gaming CPU just leaked, and it's not pretty

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D will bring a boost in clock speed over the 9800X3D and, unsurprisingly, will come with a higher price, too.

It was inevitable, but it's still a little sad to see that some new leaks of the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D price show it being even more expensive than the already quite pricey 9800X3D. Thankfully, the difference isn't huge, but if you were hoping the 9850X3D would slot in at the same price as the 9800X3D, and that the latter would see a drop as a result, you're seemingly out of luck.

As AMD's current chart-topper, the 9800X3D is plain and simply the best gaming CPU on the market, thanks to its combination of the company's speedy Zen 5 CPU architecture, the use of eight cores, and, of course, its extra 3D V-Cache chip that's hugely beneficial for gaming performance. The 9850X3D is set to offer the same core features but come with a slight boost in clock speed, which should translate to small gains in gaming performance, too, but according to these new price leaks, you'll be paying over $70 more to get that cutting-edge speed.

There are two sources for these AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D price leaks, both of which come via regular tech leaker @momo_us on X. One source is an IT infrastructure company based in the US, called SHI, and the other is a Swiss retailer called Orderflow. That latter indicates the price in USD will be $553.09, putting it $74.09 higher than the $479 launch MSRP of the 9800X3D. The other source puts the price at 473.55 Swiss francs, which translates to an even higher $596.34 USD.

As a percentage increase, these figures put the uplift in price at around 15%, based on MSRP, which is quite a lot higher than the expected 5% improvement in clock speed with the new chip. Previous AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D specs leaks show the new chip delivering a peak clock speed of 5.6GHz, up from the 5.2GHz of the 9800X3D.

To put that price into perspective, AMD's 9950X has a higher peak clock speed of 5.7GHz, and has literally double the number of cores, at 16 compared to just eight. However, without the extra 3D V-Cache chip that defines its X3D models, the 9950X is noticeably slower in games than the 9800X3D, and AMD knows that a certain subset of gamers will be willing to shell out for that peak frame rate.

Ultimately, though, with no official word yet from AMD, this all remains speculation. Notably, it's quite possible that the prices shown in these leaks are just placeholders and not reflective of any pricing information the companies have actually seen or been charged for stock, so take the pricing information with a grain of salt. Just, maybe don't get your hopes up for a sub $500 price.

To end on a positive note, though, pricing for the 9800X3D is actually decent right now: it's available for $455 in the US and just £398.90 in the UK. It's still a premium chip, but is at least one upgrade not currently being affected by the DRAM price chaos that's affecting other parts of the industry.