We hit the usual 4.3GHz easily with just a voltage bump up to 1.425V, which we'd suggest you work back from, as most will need far less than that; we use it as a safe maximum for finding the limits of AMD CPUs we test. Even 4.35GHz has been out of reach on every other CPU we tested, but the Ryzen 7 3800X continued to sit happy in Prime95 and churn out Cinebench scores. Finally, we upped the ante to 4.4GHz, and this proved to be the stable limit - an impressive 100MHz higher than we've managed so far, 200MHz higher than the stock-speed all-core boost, and only 100MHz shy of the maximum out-of-box boost speed, equalling the maximum boost of the Ryzen 7 3700X and Ryzen 5 3600X across all cores.

The higher all-core boost yielded modest gains in Premiere Pro versus the Ryzen 7 3700X, dropping the project export time by six percent at stock speed while the 100MHz advantage when overclocked shaved a second off the time. Amazingly, the Ryzen 7 3800X matched the Threadripper 2920X, which has four more cores and eight more threads, which really does hammer home the point that raw performance is just as important as extra PCIe lanes and quad-channel memory in many applications. That didn't quite hold true in HandBrake, though, which does scale well with cores and threads up to a point, with the Ryzen 9 3900X and Threadripper 2920X offering far more performance here. The Ryzen 7 3800X also had the measure of the Core i9-9900K, but the two were evenly matched in the Premiere Pro test.

AMD reigns supreme in PCMark 10's photo editing test, and the higher clock speeds on offer allowed for noticeably higher scores than the Ryzen 7 3700X, with only the Ryzen 9 3900X able to offer significantly better performance and the Core i9-9900K being a long way down the graph.

Cinebench's multi-threaded test once again showed the Ryzen 7 3800X offering better performance than the Core i9-9900K, and ultimately in all the heavily multi-threaded tests, the Core i7-9700K is a long way down the graphs with disappointing performance given its similar price tag.

The single-threaded Cinebench test was also quite revealing, with a decent score of 516 for the Ryzen 7 3800X - something only the Core i9-9900K and Ryzen 9 3900X could better at stock speed (by 1 and 5 points only). The lower overclocked frequency compared to the peak boost frequency at stock saw that fall to 511 points, though, which is the same as the Ryzen 7 3700X at stock. The only CPU to offer stiff competition here was the overclocked Core i7-9700K (532 points), which we managed to get to 5.1GHz, but the AMD CPU was still quicker at stock speed.

Something else that was hugely impressive was the difference compared to the Ryzen 7 2700X. The new CPU added 1,000 points to the Cinebench multi-threaded scores and over 70 points to the single-threaded score, and those gains were mirrored in other tests too, highlighting just how much better the new CPU is for content creation than the previous generation.

Games saw some reasonable gains over the Ryzen 7 3700X, but Dota 2 only saw the average frame rate increase by 3fps. When both CPUs are overclocked, the differences extends to 180fps versus 174fps. By comparison, the Core i7-9700K managed 196fps here at stock (204fps overclocked) and added 11fps to the 99th percentile at stock.

Far Cry 5 saw the the Ryzen 7 3800X clime to fourth in the chart once overclocked, but again with the Core i7-9700K still offering better performance here, although it's worth noting that Far Cry 5 seemed to prefer CPUs without Hyper-Threading/Simultaneous Multi-Threading, which also meant the Core i9-9900K was slower than the AMD CPU on the 99th percentile. There wasn't much difference between the two 3rd Gen Ryzen 7 CPUs, though, with most results being with the margin of error, but once again, the new CPU was a huge amount faster than the Ryzen 7 2700X.

If you obsess over your Civ VI turn times, then the overclocked Ryzen 7 3800X was the best-performing AMD CPU on test with only the Core i7-9700K and Core i9-9900K better at stock speed and a similar story once you factor in overclocking.

Power consumption was again as expected, with a reasonable amount more juice required at stock speed under load than when using the Ryzen 7 3700X. The Ryzen 7 3800X draws about the same as the Core i9-9900K at stock, but the latter is more demanding when overclocked, and the new AMD CPU also scores 38W less here than the Ryzen 7 2700X.

Compared to Intel, the Ryzen 7 3800X is a monster for the money, outstripping the Core i7-9700K often by huge margins in content creation and usually bettering the Core i9-9900K too. In games, the Ryzen 7 3800X is one of the more rapid 3rd Gen Ryzen CPUs, but Intel does still have a lead here, although things are game-dependant. It's often quirks such as Far Cry 5's love of non Hyper-Threaded CPUs that sees Intel perform better. Still, the difference is often small enough that only those who wish only to game or who want maximum performance in their esports titles using a high refresh rate monitor should really see Intel's superiority here as meaningful.

Speed binning is always a lottery, though, and it seems we lucked out here, with our Ryzen 7 3800X sitting happily at a 4.4GHz all-core overclock - 100MHz higher than any other 3rd Gen Ryzen CPU we've tested. As ever, we obviously cannot offer this as a blanket statement; your mileage may vary. As a result, the Ryzen 7 3800X, which an excellent performer, is maybe a tad tricky in its recommendation depending on where you live in the world. In the UK, the price difference between it and the Ryzen 7 3700X is only £40, which seems to be a reasonable amount of cash to spend for the possibility of a higher overclock, a higher peak boost, and a 200MHz higher all-core boost, with most of those points clearly working in the favour of those that have a need for multi-threaded performance. At around $70 difference the other side of the pond, the Ryzen 7 3700X maybe makes more sense whether you plan to overclock or not, but we can't imagine you'd be disappointed if you did spend the extra, and it justifies its stateside price premium over the Core i7-9700K as well.