New Amd Ryzen 5 7500x3d Review 2025
While $269 is enough cash to throw some doubt towards the title of "budget gaming CPU", the gaming performance the 7500X3D provides is meaty enough to make it a serious value proposition nonetheless. It's darn close to the more expensive (and now difficult to find) 7600X3D in the gaming benchmarks, and gives many non-X3D CPUs a real thrashing in the process.
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When it comes to budget versions of the best gaming CPUs, we've been particularly big fans of the old AMD Ryzen 5 7600X. Those looking to save some money on a gaming processor are usually well-served by a fast-clocked six-core chip, and AMD's reasonably-priced contender has, until now at least, fit the bill perfectly.
What it's missing, however, is a good dose of 3D V-Cache. This has been AMD's ace up its sleeve for a while now, a stacked layer of extra L3 cache that many games love to take advantage of. We've seen its effectiveness when implemented on some of our favourite AM4 gaming processors of old, and it's also turned up in a more recent Zen 4 chip, the Ryzen 5 7600X3D, and the Zen 5-based Ryzen 7 9800X3D, our pick as the best gaming CPU overall.
The trouble is, 3D V-Cache-equipped AM5 chips are usually quite pricey. Those looking for a properly sub-$300 beastie with AMD's game-crunching cache tech (the 7600X3D has an MSRP of $299, and usually retails for a lot higher than that) have traditionally had to make do with chips built for the previous-gen AM4 socket, like the Ryzen 5 5700X3D.
No longer, it seems. Enter, the Ryzen 5 7500X3D—a $269/£245 six-core, 12-thread AM5 chip that adds an extra 64 MB dose of 3D V-cache to its budget CPU formula. It's already a smart move on paper, smearing a hefty dollop of AMD's special sauce on an otherwise fairly low-clocked chip in the hopes that it will provide a serious chunk of gaming performance—while still being affordable enough to tempt gamers on a budget looking to make the leap to AM5.
✅ You want excellent gaming performance for reasonable cash: The 7500X3D proves once more that 3D V-Cache is the secret sauce for great CPU performance in many games, and this is as cheap as you'll find it for on an AM5 chip.
❌ You're on a tight budget: While this little chip is very attractively priced for such a good performer, it's still not mega cheap. You could m
Source: PC Gamer
