Review: Ryzen 7 7800X3D Processor and GIGABYTE B650E AORUS MASTER Motherboard

After the recent mini-review of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, today we look at its successor in the form of the new Ryzen 7 7800X3D. Like its predecessor, this processor has eight cores, a large 96MB L3 cache and surprisingly low power consumption.

The illustration below shows a dual-chip processor and thus does not correspond to the tested Ryzen 7 7800X3D, but it is enough to change the second CPU chiplet without V-Cache and we have the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

Similar to other Zen4 processors, this model is also designed for the new AM5 socket with support for DDR5 memory and fifth generation PCIe.

Like its predecessor, the new Ryzen 7 7800X3D does not reach such high frequencies as regular models. The maximum boost reaches a frequency of up to 5GHz, while with sufficient cooling the processor is willing to reach up to 5050 MHz.

The maximum power limit is set by AMD to 120 Watts. However, this value is strangely high, you will practically never see a consumption higher than about 86-88 Watts. The exception may be when you use an iGPU, which will take a few extra Watts, but I don’t expect that much with this model. In the graphs, I indicate 88W as the power limit, because in the case of using an additional graphics card, this is the maximum consumption. In game load, consumption is often around fifty Watts, which is a surprisingly low value.

The processor is currently sold for around 11,000 – 11,999 CZK including VAT, which puts the processor on the same level as the twelve-core Ryzen 9 7900. It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that the Ryzen 9 7900 will typically be slightly faster in multi-threaded workloads.

I tested the processor on the GIGABYTE B650E AORUS MASTER motherboard, which we will also look at in a little more detail in this article. You may have seen the board several times already, I use it together with the sixteen-core Ryzen 9 7950X for testing graphics cards. This time, the new Ryzen 7 7800X3D lived in it for a short while.

The motherboard itself is also quite high-end, it is typically sold for around 10,000 CZK including VAT. Boards with the AMD B650E chipset offer fifth-generation PCIe even in PCIe slots, compared to the B650, which only supports it in M.2 slots.

The equipment of the GIGABYTE B650E AORUS MASTER is more reminiscent of a higher class with X670 or X670E chipsets. The board has a FullATX format and surprises with the presence of a total of four M.2 slots and there is no shortage of goodies such as diagnostic POST display.

Unfortunately, there are only three main PCIe slots. They are all designed as long x16 slots, but what they provide electrically varies greatly. The slot closest to the processor is of course the main one and provides a total of sixteen fifth-generation PCIe lines directly from the processor. The other two x16 slots offer only x4 Gen4 and x2 Gen4 PCIe lines from the AMD B650E chipset.

The main PCIe x16 slot also has an extended release lever to make it easier to install and remove large graphics cards.

The board also has a total of four M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs, the first slot has a massive passive cooler and provides four PCIe Gen5 lines from the processor.

The other three slots are surprisingly also connected to the processor and all provide four PCIe lanes of the fifth generation.

The first two M.2 slots can work in full x4 mode, the other two are shared with the main PCIe x16 slot. The board has a PCIe MUX that switches the main x16 slot to x8 mode when all M.2 slots are used. So if you plan to install all M.2 slots, you only need to count on eight PCIe lines in the main one. You can see a more detailed connection on the board diagram.

In the upper right corner of the board we find a total of three pin locations for RGB LED devices, three four-pins for fans, a power button and a diagnostic POST display.

The board also has a very solid power supply cascade with massive coolers, while two eighths are used for additional power, so the board is also ready for very demanding processors.

On the longer side of the board we also find a 24-pin additional power supply, two more four-pins for the fan and diagnostic LEDs.

A little lower there is a connector for USB-C for the front panel of the case, a five-pin for connecting a ThunderBolt PCIe card, four SATA 6Gb/s ports and a 19-pin with two USB 5Gb/s ports.

In the very bottom part of the board we can find the main pile of pins, there are pins for connecting LEDs and cabinet buttons, a Reset button, a total of five 4-pin PWM connectors for fans and a pump, there are also two two-port USB 2.0 pin points.

A pair of RGB LED pins, a connector for an external TPM and pins for connecting the front audio panel of the cabinet complete the lower pin area.

I must also mention the port equipment of the back panel of the board, it has an integrated I/O shield, as has been the custom for many years with better boards. The board has backlit buttons for the Q-Flash and CMOS erase functions, which is again standard for the hi-end. Furthermore, here we can see two RSMA connectors connected to the AMD RZ616 WiFi 6E chipset.

The board also has a decent amount of USB ports, we can find four USB 2.0 ports, four USB-A 5Gb/s ports, four USB-A 10Gb/s ports and one USB-C 10Gb/s. The board also has HDMI 2.1 available, but the large DisplayPort is missing here. There is also an RJ45 connected to the Intel 2.5 GbE chipset, two 3.5 mm audio jacks and a TOSLink optical audio output. It should be mentioned here that we can forget about 7.1 audio via 3.5mm jacks, so if you want 7.1 audio, you need to use optical output. Unfortunately, we cannot find a 20Gb/s USB port or even USB4 on the board.

Of course, each board also includes some software. GIGABYTE, like ASUS, offers a tool for downloading drivers, utilities, controlling RGB LEDs and tuning for its boards. I find the GIGABYTE CONTROL CENTER tool less annoying than some other utilities, but it still offers paid third-party programs, such as Norton Internet Security. So if you install everything at once. You can see how the program looks in the screenshots below.

As for the test setup, I cooled the processor with an older AIO Cooler Master 240ML, which is perhaps a bit overkill, but ensures temperatures of up to 80°C under maximum load. Processors with layered third-level buffer memory reach relatively high temperatures despite a smaller amount of waste heat. I assume it’s just that extra layer of cache. A slightly cooler processor will give us a little more boost, but only by about 50 MHz compared to what AMD states.

The old well-known HyperX Fury RGB LED 2x16GB DDR5-6000 CL36 served as a memory kit, there were no problems with the EXPO profile and the system was completely stable the whole time. Kingston KC3000 1TB served as SSD. I also used the Windows 10 Pro version 22H2 operating system for testing.

I could of course also test on Windows 11, but that would mean deciding whether or not to test with VBS and Core Isolation. Plus, it would mean using Windows 11, so I preferred to stick with tens. AMD processors do not require any super special modification of the CPU scheduler, so it is possible to use W10 and W11 according to taste. Or you can install Linux to get extra performance over Windows in some situations.

The MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X 24G was used as the graphics card this time, similarly to several previous tests. Everything was powered by the Gigabyte 1000 UD power supply, which also has a native 16-pin, which is suitable considering the graphics card used.

And now hooray for the tests!