- AMD’s Ryzen 9850X3D has been leaked again
- This time there is photographic evidence of the CPU on a BIOS screen
- With all the talk on the grapevine about this Ryzen 9800X3D refresh, it looks like it will arrive soon, possibly with a CES 2026 launch
AMD’s rumored refresh of its top gaming processor, the Ryzen 9800X3D, is the subject of yet another leak, with this chip being a fixture on the CPU of late.
This is the Ryzen 9850X3D, and Wccftech reports that HXL, a well-known hardware leaker on the X, posted a photo of an Asus BIOS screen, which shows the processor as an 8-core chip with a 5.3GHz clock speed. It runs on an Asus B850 motherboard.
In theory, we’re seeing an engineering test chip being put through its paces, but as with any leak, we should remain cautious – although the photographic evidence presented here is more substantial than earlier whispers (with the possible exception of an apparent leak when a page for the Ryzen 9850X3D was accidentally and briefly published on the official AMD website in France).
No specs were listed in that bug on Team Red’s French site, but we’ve already had several rumors that all insist on the same thing – that the Ryzen 9850X3D will be essentially the same as the existing 9800X3D, it’ll just bump up the boost clock to 5.6GHz.
Analysis: this should be good news for players, one way or another
Although we can’t see the 5.6 GHz boost speed in the leaked image, it doesn’t pay to think that the Ryzen 9850X3D will run at the highest clock speed. Keep in mind that this is a technical sample in testing, so any clock speed will likely reflect that.
If the Ryzen 9850X3D actually reaches a boost of 5.6GHz, that would make it 400MHz faster than the Ryzen 9800X3D. A recent leak showed the 9850X3D to be 5% faster than the vanilla 9800X3D in both single-core and multi-core tests in PassMark, but that’s hardly an ideal benchmark to judge a gaming CPU by.
The reality is that the extra boost speed will be nice, sure, but probably not a huge improvement – and in any case, the influence of the CPU in gaming scenarios varies considerably from game to game (and also depends on the resolution, since the GPU is much more of a factor at high resolutions like 4K).
Still, the Ryzen 9800X3D is widely regarded as the best gaming processor, so a refreshed take that’s a little faster is always going to be well received as a result. The problem is that when (well, I should say if) Ryzen 9850X3D arrives, it will likely sell for a rather large MSRP. And if inventory is thin on the ground to begin with, that price could be further inflated by demand or price spills, potentially.
That said, any initial noise will no doubt die down, and there is another positive element to this potential release – namely that a Ryzen 9850X3D would put price pressure on the Ryzen 9800X3D, allowing us to get some more tempting deals with the excellent chip next year, as we saw with the 7800X3D before it. Fingers crossed.
Of course, the Ryzen 9850X3D still needs to be confirmed, but it’s looking increasingly likely now, possibly debuting at CES 2026, which would be an obvious platform for this launch.
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