There are numerous price reductions available for AMD’s Ryzen 9 7900X3D processor, which has 12 cores and 24 threads and 3D Vertical Cache technology. The SKU seems to be stuck between AMD’s flagship 16-core 7950X3D and the 8-core 7800X3D, which is still the fastest desktop processor for gaming. With a $20 discount coupon, the $408 Newegg listing’s effective retail price dropped to $389, just $20 more than the 7800X3D.

For $20, would you buy four extra cores? Making the decision is not easy. Despite having twelve cores, the 7900X3D has a dual-CCD architecture with a 6+6 core split between the two CCDs. Similar to the 7950X3D, only one of the two CCDs—the normal “Zen 4” CCD with 32 MB of on-die L3 cache—has the 64 MB 3D Vertical Cache, or 96 MB of L3 cache. UEFI CPPC preferred-core flagging is used by AMD chipset drives to direct gaming workloads to the CCD with the 3D V-cache. Although we haven’t had an opportunity to test the 7900X3D, Tom’s Hardware has found that it is still faster for gaming than the Core i9-13900K.