Player First Games, the developers of MultiVersus, has been acquired by Warner Bros. “We have worked with Player First Games over several years to create and launch MultiVersus, and we are very pleased to welcome this talented team to Warner Bros Games,” said David Haddad, president of Warner Bros Games, in a statement to IGN.
The development and release of MultiVersus, the free-to-play Smash Bros if Smash Bros. was Warner Bros, has been a real rollercoaster. MultiVersus released in July 2022 in open beta, eventually attracting millions of players with platform fighter brawls and the raw magnificence of Ultra Instinct Shaggy. But in March 2023, after MultiVersus had been playable for almost a year, Player First Games announced that—unbeknownst to most players—it had actually been in a prolonged public test and closed the servers.
MultiVersus disappeared for nine months, forcing fans to speculate about its continued existence based solely off of Belgian McDonald’s cross-promotions. After a long silence, Player First finally confirmed its return in March, and the game relaunched in May 2024 with new netcode, characters, and PvE missions, earning our stamp of approval. It’s far from the most popular game on Steam, but holds onto a healthy average of over 4,000 concurrent players on the platform. It’s also seen a bit of controversy: players were displeased to find the game offering them an option to purchase more lives with real cash, an option that Player First said was a bug.
To put it bluntly, even if its relaunch has been received pretty positively, the lingering weirdness surrounding MultiVersus’ vanishing acts and the general precarity of multiplayer-focused live-service games means I have a hard time seeing its name in headlines without assuming the worst. While acquisitions are by no means a guarantee of studio safety, it’s certainly a better news story than another sudden disappearance.
Back in March, Warner Bros executive JB Perrette said the company would shift its focus to the “free-to-play space” following disappointing sales from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Acquiring Player First slots neatly into those plans. According to IGN, Player First co-founders Tony Huynh and Chris White will continue leading studio development. “Our team is excited to join the Warner Bros Games family, and we feel that this will be great for MultiVersus overall,” Huynh said.
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1721683690_Warner-Bros-acquires-MultiVersus-devs-as-it-shifts-focus-to.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-07-22 22:02:192024-07-22 22:02:19Warner Bros acquires MultiVersus devs as it shifts focus to free-to-play
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/vem-descobrir-que-os-ocultos-deixaram-em-Paris-amanha-pelas.jpg7201280DecayeD20https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngDecayeD202024-07-22 14:20:072024-07-22 14:20:07vem descobrir que os ocultos deixaram em Paris amanha pelas 15h! #acvalhalla #assassinscredvalhalla
Windows updates often feel like a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. Who among us hasn’t been waylaid by a huge update package download—or chosen the “update and shutdown” option at the end of a long day only to sit watching a painfully slow percentage indicator lurch forward? Now Microsoft has announced it’s changing things up, with “checkpoint cumulative updates” that promise to speed up the process considerably.
Windows 11 version 24H2 has been available in the Windows Insider program for a while now but is scheduled for a main release at some point towards the end of this year. Microsoft says that as part of the update, it’s introducing update features and security enhancements through smaller, incremental download packages that only contain the changes since the previous update.
Essentially, up until now Windows updates have tended to grow in size, with a download package that contains files you may not necessarily need (via Windows Latest). Provided you’ve been incremental updating your system (as you really should, to maintain a safe OS), from 24H2’s release you’ll only need to download and install updates with exactly what’s needed, rather than the whole kitchen sink.
Microsoft also says that it might release cumulative updates as checkpoints, not just feature updates and security fixes. Repeating this process multiple times would generate multiple checkpoints that can then be merged in the servicing stack to only download and install missing content on a specific device.
Users handling updates via Windows Update, Windows Update for Business, Windows Autopatch or Windows Server Update Services won’t need to take any action to receive the benefits. If your system is set to update regularly and has been upgraded to 24H2, updates from that point forward should be significantly smaller in size and faster to install.
That’s not just better for Windows users, but Microsoft itself. WhileWindows 11 hasn’t exactly been the roaring success that Microsoft may have hoped it to be, leaked documentation showed that as of October last year, it was in use on more than 400 million monthly active devices. That’s a lot of machines downloading sizable update packages, so anything that could trim those file sizes down should take some of the strain off of Microsoft’s update servers, too.
How much time this saves on an average update install remains to be seen, although the effect should hopefully be significant—and those of you maintaining small SSDs or nursing slow internet connections will hopefully be able to breathe a sigh of relief. Now, if someone could just inform the myriad of third-party game launcher apps that you don’t need to install massive updates on the regular—just what the end user actually needs—well, that’d be grand.
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1721647609_Smaller-and-faster-Windows-11-updates-are-on-the-way.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-07-22 11:54:292024-07-22 11:54:29Smaller and faster Windows 11 updates are on the way as Microsoft switches to downloading just what you need and none of what you don’t
An upcoming indie puzzler takes on the complexity of circuits by reducing them to familiar puzzle pieces and simple math. In Electrogical, set to release this year and with a demo out now, you’ll place pieces on the board to form a chain that adds, subtracts, divides, and multiplies to reach a set output—but the pieces you have are fixed in shape and rotation, the boards are weird sizes, and you might not need every part you have to succeed.
It’s pretty approachable for both a puzzle game and a math game, without time or attempt limits or anything like that, and it aims to reward creative approaches by the player. The cool part is when it starts messing with the formula: Challenge levels have simple solutions, but let you chase high scores by using more pieces, or fewer pieces, depending on the goal—or give a bonus for forming a shape with your pieces, or even for balancing your math like an equation.
Electrogical is an award winner even though it’s not out yet. It was a winner of the GYAAR Studio Indie Game Contest hosted by Bandai Namco last year.
“Electricity, hardware, and technology can be very complicated topics, but when broken down into their simplest form, anyone can understand the basics. Electrogical gamifies the basics of electrical engineering,” said Yutuka Kinjo, the solo developer behind Electrogical, in a press release.
The demo that’s on Steam now is pretty long and shows off some cute puzzles to play around with. It takes its time to get going with complex stuff, but the upside there is that it eases you into the style of game Electrogical is going for. There are even some clever, cute bits where it makes you solve a circuit to turn off the music you’re on and swap to the next song on the soundtrack. Diegetic! I love it.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1721611543_Heres-a-game-that-combines-jigsaw-puzzles-with-arithmetic-problems.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-07-22 01:34:362024-07-22 01:34:36Here’s a game that combines jigsaw puzzles with arithmetic problems to great success
Citadel of Madness is mod for The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion that’s over a decade old. (It was first uploaded to TESAll in 2013, and significantly updated in 2022 with a 2.0 release.) It adds a new landmass above the Shivering Isles, a floating archipelago where hundreds of new NPCs live and where you’ll find a new questline the mod’s description calls “comparable in duration to any Cyrodiil guild.”
Citadel of Madness was created by modder Lariatius and translated into English by Vorians, who has adapted a bunch of other Russian mods as well. It contains 38 quests, 15 of which are sidequests, and promises more than 25 hours of playtime. There are over 3,000 lines of dialogue (no English voice-acting, however), and a variety of new alchemical ingredients and concoctions, new dungeons, and new enemies—including bosses.
Given the connection to the Shivering Isles, you can expect Citadel of Madness to be quirky, to say the least—several of the new NPCs look like they stepped right out of the Monster Factory. You should be at least level 18 to play the Citadel of Madness questline, which is begun by traveling to a watch tower you’ll find north of New Sheoth in the Isles.
To install this mod, you’ll need to download the files from Nexus Mods. They add up to almost 900 MB, which is less than some Skyrim mods but definitely on the chonky side for Oblivion. You’ll need to own the Shivering Isles expansion as well, but you probably already do since it’s packaged with all digital versions of the game today because of how amazing it is.
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https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1721575482_More-than-10-years-after-its-creation-massive-Russian-Oblivion.jpg6751200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-07-21 07:19:552024-07-21 07:19:55More than 10 years after its creation, massive Russian Oblivion mod Citadel of Madness has been translated into English
Wizards of the Coast has said the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons rules revisions will be compatible with 5th edition rather than a replacement for it, and is calling the revised core rulebooks the “2024” editions. If you’re a veteran of the edition wars, they seem more like 4th edition’s “Essentials” line than 3rd edition’s complete replacement by 3.5.
The latest update on D&D Beyond covers the 10 species players will be able to choose from in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. While mostly familiar, there are a few options that weren’t in the 2014 rulebook. Aasimar and goliaths are both core choices now, and half-orcs have been replaced by just plain orcs.
Aasimar are mortals of celestial descent, and though never as popular as their counterpart tieflings—mortals of fiendish descent—it makes sense to have both in the same book. And the upgrade from half-orcs to orcs fits with the removal of half-elves as a mechanically distinct choice. In the playtest, players who wanted to play characters of mixed descent were advised to “determine which of those Race options provides your game traits: Size, Speed, and special traits. You can then mix and match visual characteristics—color, ear shape, and the like—of the two options.” That may change in the final version, of course.
Goliaths, who are related to giants, get to choose an ancestry. “For example,” says the blog, “a descendant of Fire Giants can add an additional d10 of Fire damage to an attack roll. A Goliath with Stone Giant ancestry can use a Reaction when you take damage to roll a d12, add your Constitution modifier, and reduce your damage by that amount. Each of these types of traits can be used a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus.”
The more familiar options have also been tweaked, with an emphasis on removing weaknesses. It was always a bit of an oddity, and presumably a leftover from editions with a different design philosophy, that some species had glaring restrictions while others did not. The dark elf’s sunlight sensitivity, which sure was a hassle when I played one, is simply gone like it was for drow player-characters in Baldur’s Gate 3. The reduced speeds of gnomes and halflings is gone too—both now have a speed of 30 feet per round, like most species.
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)
There’s also a shift towards usefulness, with rarely used options replaced by ones more likely to be used. The dwarf’s stonecunning, which only came up when making a History check “related to the origin of stonework,” now gives dwarves the ability to use tremorsense when standing on stone surfaces, meaning they can detect invisible creatures and don’t have to worry about being blinded. The dragonborn’s breath weapon can be shaped rather than being a dangerously indiscriminate cone, and doesn’t use up your entire action if you have multiple attacks. Instead of being slightly better at hiding, wood elves now get the Druidcraft cantrip. And so on.
“When working on the revisions for each of the species for the 2024 Player’s Handbook,” the blog says, “a decision was made to focus on what the fantasy of each species is. Dwarves were given enhanced Stonecunning and Darkvision to emphasize their legacy of toiling away in mountain mines and kingdoms. Goliaths lean much more heavily into their specific lineages to reflect being the descendants of Giants as we understand them in D&D. Dragonborn were given the ability to access wings because flight is absolutely one of the coolest things about dragons.”
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Don’t worry, the wings aren’t permanent. Dragonborn can only use them to fly for 10 minutes, and get them at level 5, which is when wizards get access to the Fly spell. So it’s not going to break your game—or at least it won’t break your game any more than having a wizard in the party will.
As previously announced, the 2024 rules won’t tie ability scores to species. Instead, they’ll be modified based on your chosen background—a function of nurture rather than nature. “This makes backgrounds more important to character creation as the part of your character’s history where they honed their skills and abilities. The way ability score adjustments work for 2024 backgrounds is that each background has three ability scores tied to it. You can choose to add +2 to one of those ability scores and +1 to another, or add +1 to all three. For example, the Farmer background gives you Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom to choose from. The Wayfarer background gives you Dexterity, Wisdom, and Charisma.”
(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)
Finally, good old humans work more like the more popular “variant human” rule, getting a free feat and skill proficiency. “By emphasizing human resourcefulness and versatility in their traits,” the blog explains, “the 2024 core rules portray humans as they’re seen in stories like The Lord of the Rings or The Witcher, or even in sci-fi tales like Star Trek, never content to stay in one place, always eager to learn, grow, and explore.”
The 2024 Player’s Handbook is due out on September 17, with the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide to follow on November 12, and the 2024 Monster Manual on February 18. Yes, that is actually in 2025.
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1721539426_DDs-new-2024-Players-Handbook-will-have-10-species-to.jpg7761200Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-07-21 05:38:202024-07-21 05:38:20D&D’s new 2024 Player’s Handbook will have 10 species to choose from including goliaths, and drow will be closer to their Baldur’s Gate 3 version
At its TennoCon 2024 fan event earlier today, Digital Extremes brought us a new look at Soulframe, its upcoming medieval fantasy “sister game” to Warframe. Like Warframe, it’s an “action-RPG, MMO-lite” free-to-play game, albeit with a slower, more deliberate pace to its melee-heavy combat compared to Warframe’s space ninja acrobatics. Oh, and you can make your mom in it.
In an advanced press preview of this year’s TennoCon demo, DE showed off the introductory section of the game’s opening story quest, during which you’ll create your character. A cutscene follows a bird flying in a rainstorm over a sprawling fantasy battle at night, where an army is besieging a castle with catapults and battle magic. A narrator recites the tale of the battle in skaldic verse, and as the bird flits in through the castle window to show a woman cradling a baby in her arms, the game enters the first phase of character customization: momcrafting.
It seems that, in Soulframe, you’ll determine your character’s appearance by first choosing what your parents looked like. In today’s TennoCon demo, we only see the mom portion: as you choose her features, the narrator’s poetry reacts to reflect your choices, choosing appropriate metaphors for her hair and eye color. Theoretically, those decisions will inform how your character ends up looking, but we don’t see the full process. Once your mom’s locked in, she passes the baby—you, presumably—to a handmaid to be carried away from the battle.
Beyond the customizable moms, this TennoCon’s look at Soulframe does more expanding on what we’ve seen in earlier previews than providing new details. After the mom creation, the demo jumps ahead past the rest of the intro quest and character creation to give us a taste of questing and combat, but it’s a shorter sampling than the 30-minute gameplay overview from TennoCon 2023.
Soulframe will feature a large, open overworld, which you’ll move through to access procedurally-generated dungeons, similar to how Warframe’s mission layouts are randomly stitched together from tilesets. Whenever you’re away from enemies, you can warp at will into a pocket dimension called the Nightfold, a personal hub area equivalent to Warframe’s Orbiter.
As you play Soulframe, you’ll gather spirits of your ancestors, who’ll hang out in the Nightfold to handle your progression, equipment, and—most importantly—fashion options. During the preview demo, revealed a new ancestor: Verminia, the Rat Witch, an alchemist who’ll help craft elixir consumables while offering her own set of cosmetic unlocks. Also in the Nightfold? A giant, friendly wolf who’ll serve as your mount.
In addition to weighty sword-swinging, combat in Soulframe will make use of your Pact—your cursed arm, and Soulframe’s version of a character class. Instead of swapping between Warframes, you’ll swap out your horrible nightmare limb, which will provide you with different sets of core magical abilities. In the demo, the character could fling their halberd and recall it at will, Thor-style, providing some ranged versatility to Soulframe’s meaty melee battles.
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Soulframe Preludes, which DE calls its “pre-pre-pre-alpha,” started invite-only testing in December 2023. During the press preview session, DE said it hopes to “get Soulframe in more public hands” this fall.
You’ll find today’s Wordle hint just below, ready to nudge you towards Saturday’s winning word while still leaving all that fun thinking business up to you. And if that’s not doing much for you, click your way through to the answer to the July 20 (1127) game instead—a win’s a win, after all.
What are Saturday mornings for if not nice, quick, Wordles? My opening guesses didn’t look like much—one yellow and one green letter at best—but they happened to be exactly the right things in exactly the right places today. More of the same tomorrow? Yes please.
Today’s Wordle hint
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)
Wordle today: A hint for Saturday, July 20
Lots of long, narrow, and not necessarily solid things can be called today’s answer. Think of sunlight piercing the gloom, deep vertical opening in a mine, or even the middle part of a feather. Four of today’s five letters are consonants.
Is there a double letter in Wordle today?
No, there is no double letter in today’s puzzle.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there’s one thing better than playing Wordle, it’s playing Wordle well, which is why I’m going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
The solution may contain repeat letters.
There’s no time pressure beyond making sure it’s done by midnight. So there’s no reason not to treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you’re coming up blank.
Today’s Wordle answer
(Image credit: Future)
What is today’s Wordle answer?
One win, just for you. The answer to the July 20 (1127) Wordle is SHAFT.
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Previous answers
The last 10 Wordle answers
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today’s Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that’s already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
July 19: REFER
July 18: NERDY
July 17: QUITE
July 16: DECOY
July 15: SWOON
July 14: VIDEO
July 13: ENACT
July 12: JIFFY
July 11: CAMEO
July 10: GAUNT
Learn more about Wordle
(Image credit: Nurphoto via Getty)
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it’s up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You’ll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you’ve got right or wrong. If a box turns ⬛️, it means that letter isn’t in the secret word at all. 🟨 means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 🟩 means you’ve got the right letter in the right spot.
You’ll want your second go to compliment the first, using another “good” word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn’t present in today’s answer.
After that it’s just a case of using what you’ve learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there’s an E). Don’t forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you’d like to find out which words have already been used you can scroll to the relevant section above.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn’t long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it’s only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
I was startled awake this morning when the first email I opened confronted me with the image above: a smooth-faced, blue-eyed Bigfoot gazing contemplatively, or maybe pensively, at the press release that followed, the announcement of upcoming sasquatch sim Bigfoot Life.
Something about that rubber-mask face stupefied me—I also like Bigfoot’s marching gait, seen in the trailer embedded below—but after seeing criticism of his Bigfoot’s appearance online, the game’s creator is considering reworking the cryptid’s face.
Bigfoot Life is a solo project by developer Wesley Abrams, who’s previously made games about hunting mushrooms, as well as an action adventure game called Spider Fox that he built for his son. He announced Bigfoot Life today and posted about it on the Bigfoot subreddit, where he’s received some interesting replies.
One person, for instance, insisted that Abrams consult with Bigfoot scientists, because “it would be very important for you to have some accuracy in this or it will likely fail.” Abrams politely declined. He tells PC Gamer that he’s researched Bigfoot encounters and watched many documentaries—on the day his son was born, he’d been sick with the flu and was “binge watching the Survivorman Bigfoot season”—but says that Bigfoot Life is “not an educational game about Bigfoot.”
Based on the trailer, it’s about foraging for food, building shelter, stealing from campsites, avoiding being photographed by humans, and finding a Bigfoot mate—exactly what a Bigfoot scientist would tell you Bigfoot does, I bet.
The feedback Abrams is considering acting on are the comments about Bigfoot’s appearance. “That might be the worst looking Bigfoot I have ever seen!” one commenter on Reddit said.
“I have gotten some feedback from Bigfoot fans that the face of Bigfoot doesn’t look quite right and is maybe too human looking,” Abrams told me. “I always take feedback seriously, good or bad, so at the moment I am working on updating Bigfoot’s face to make it look better.”
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I mentioned in response that I kind of like Bigfoot’s uncanny face, which led Abrams to reassess the volume of criticism—it’s really just a few comments here and there.
“Nothing is set in stone,” he said. “I could always leave it as is … Now you have me thinking maybe I should leave poor Bigfoot alone and not mess with his face.”
Uh oh. I’m supposed to report the Bigfoot news, not alter it. What if Abrams should give Bigfoot a new face and I’ve just convinced him otherwise? The least I can do now is help him get more feedback, so if you have an opinion on Bigfoot’s appearance, say so in the comments.
The last thing I wanted to know: Is Abrams himself a Bigfoot believer?
“I’ve never had an actual Bigfoot encounter myself, but I would love for Bigfoot to be real,” he said. “The people I know that have had encounters are trustworthy and are very convincing. I do believe there are too many sightings and encounters for them all to be hoaxes, bears, or other animals. I just want to believe that Bigfoot is out there just living his best life like the ‘Bigfoot Life’ game says. I think ‘live your best Bigfoot life’ is a good hook for the game and that is why I added it to the short description of the game.”
https://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/1721431241_The-creator-of-this-Bigfoot-game-is-considering-changing-Bigfoots.jpg537955Carlos Pachecohttps://gamingarmyunited.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Website-Logo-300x74.pngCarlos Pacheco2024-07-19 23:26:432024-07-19 23:26:43The creator of this Bigfoot game is considering changing Bigfoot’s face after commenters said it’s too human-like, but I’m entranced by it
If you have an AMD AM4 machine, there’s pretty much only one CPU that’s worth considering if you want the best for gaming—the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Except when AMD launched the Ryzen 7 5700X3D back in January of this year, you were suddenly given a tricky choice: do you go all out and get the brilliant but pricey 5800X3D or do you save yourself a fair bit of cash and get the slower 5700X3D. Well, that’s precisely the conundrum we’re going to solve in this review.
The Ryzen 7 5700X3D is almost exactly the same processor as the 5800X3D, the only difference being that it has lower base and boost clocks. You’re still getting eight Zen 3 cores, 16 threads, a TDP of 105 W, and a massive 96 MB of L3 cache. Where the 5800X3D has a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a boost of 4.5 GHz, the 5700X3D knocks those down to 3.0 and 4.1 GHz respectively.
That basically means the 5700X3D is somewhere between 9% and 12% slower than the 5800X3D, and pretty much any CPU-focused benchmark will show this.
However, I was far more interested in examining whether the 5700X3D is a nice upgrade for any PC gamer with a four or six-core AM4 Ryzen PC, after chatting to AMD about the longevity of that socket a few months ago. Depending on what retailer you head over to, there can be as much as a $200 difference between the 5700X3D and 5800X3D, and that’s a lot of money which can be spent on getting a better GPU, for example.
Swipe to scroll horizontally
CPU specifications
Processor
Ryzen 7 5700X3D
Ryzen 7 5800X3D
Ryzen 5 5600X
Ryzen 3 4100
Architecture
Zen 3
Zen 3
Zen 3
Zen 2
Cores / Threads
8 / 16
8 / 16
6 / 12
4 / 8
Base / Boost clock
3.0 / 4.1 GHz
3.4 / 4.5 GHz
3.7 / 4.6 GHz
3.8 / 4.0
L3 cache
96 MB
96 MB
32 MB
8 MB
TDP
105 W
105 W
65 W
65 W
So to that end, I’ve taken a four-core Zen 2-powered Ryzen 3 4100, a six-core Ryzen 5 5600X, and a Ryzen 7 5700X3D, and put them all through a veritable mountain of tests and benchmarks to see how suitable the 5700X3D is as an upgrade. You might think the results are a foregone conclusion but, as it turns out, it’s not quite as clear cut as you might think.
(Image credit: Future)
Enough jibber-jabber, let’s see the test results! First up is the usual gamut of CPU-focused benchmarks that will typically run for any new processor. I’m only showing figures for the three Ryzens, as CPU testing is normally done by Jacob and his AM4 test rig is different to mine—for example, I used an RTX 4070, whereas Jacob uses an RTX 3080. Similar but not exactly the same.
In all of the performance benchmarks, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is between two and three times faster than the Ryzen 3 4100, thanks to having double the number of cores and threads, a more capable architecture, and a shed load more L3 cache. Against the Ryzen 5 5600X, though, the lead wasn’t always quite as substantial.
That’s because six cores are plenty enough for many games and the 5600X also sports higher clocks—the 4.6 GHz boost is only 12% higher than the 5700X3D’s but the base clock is 23% higher, so depending on the CPU load, the 5600X can be running much faster than the 5700X3D.
There are more downsides to the 5700X3D’s core and cache gains over the other chips, too. It consumes more power and along with the thermal barrier presented by the 3D V-Cache layer, its peak temperature is also higher.
But for gaming, the real benefit of the 5700X3D’s extra L3 cache can be seen in the minimum frame rates of the games used for the CPU testing. AMD uses a victim cache for L3 in all its processors and its job is to store data that gets ejected from L2, when room for incoming data is required.
When a thread reaches an instruction that requires a specific piece of data, the L1 cache is checked for it first, then the L2, and finally L3. But where L1 and L2 are private to each core, all of them can access the L3 cache. So the bigger this is, the greater the chance that any thread on a core won’t require the system RAM to be tapped for the data.
(Image credit: AMD)
Normally, just making a cache larger adds latency to any read/write operations, but AMD pulled some magic tricks out of its engineers’ hats to ensure that the extra 3D V-Cache only adds a few extra nanoseconds compared to the normal L3 cache. Long story short, it makes a big difference to minimum frame rates, where data accesses are the bottleneck.
But I wanted to explore this in more detail, as our standard CPU benchmarks are…well…very focused on the CPU, for obvious reasons. I wanted to see if the 5700X3D was significantly better in a variety of other games and at different resolutions. So I spent many long hours going through numerous test runs in eight games, at 1080p and 1440p.
I also tested the 5700X3D with two cores disabled, to see how much of its performance lead over the 5600X comes down to the extra 64 MB of 3D V-cache.
In Ghost of Tsushima, the 5700X3D and 5600X are pretty similar, though it’s clear that the additional cache does help at 1080p. Switch to 1440p, though, and that performance gap disappears. It’s the same story for Satisfactory, even though there’s a lot more CPU processing going on in the background.
One game that I expected to favour the 5700X3D was Hearts of Iron 4, using a late-game scenario, with thousands of divisions and dozens of battles raging away. But as you can see, extra cache doesn’t really help—it’s about core count and clock speeds.
But those are the exceptions. All of the other games I tested gained a notable boost to the average frame rate with 3D V-Cache, even at 1440p. In some cases, the minimum frame rates are the same, between the 5700X3D and 5600X, but that’s probably down to the performance not being bottlenecked by data accesses.
Just take a look at the figures for Dragon’s Dogma 2, Counter-Strike 2, and Spider-Man Remastered, and you can easily see why PC gamers and reviewers rated AMD’s X3D chips so highly for gaming. And if AMD ever wanted a poster child for the benefits of 3D V-Cache, then Factorio is the obvious choice.
Taking the geometric mean of the tested games, bar Hearts of Iron 4 and Factorio (as frame rates weren’t recorded), we get a clearer picture of how much of an upgrade the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is, compared to the Ryzen 5 5600X and Ryzen 3 4100.
At 1080p, the X3D model has an average performance that’s 24% better than the 5600X and 100% better than the 4100. The six-core results show that this is down to the inclusion of 3D V-Cache. Even at 1440p, the 5700X3D is by far the better CPU for gaming, with an average frame rate that’s 21% better than the 5600X’s and 88% higher than the 4100.
Buy if…
✅ You want a great gaming CPU: The architecture might be a few years old now but it’s still relevant today. With the 3D V-Cache boost, it’s mighty quick in games.
✅ You don’t want to spend a lot of money: The 5800X3D is faster but it’s around $150 more expensive. This one is a bargain in comparison.
Don’t buy if…
❌ You already have a fast AM4 CPU: It’s quick in games, no doubt about it, but so is the 5600X. And the 5800X. And the 5950X. 3D V-Cache can’t double your speeds.
Now, before you all run off and buy a Ryzen 7 5700X3D, let’s take a moment to pause and consider value. At the time of writing this review, one can pick up a 5700X3D for $183 at Amazon, though you do need to be a Prime member. At other retailers, the CPU sells for anywhere between $188 and $212.
The Ryzen 5 5600X, on the other hand, can be picked up for as little as $114 (Amazon, Newegg)—roughly 38% cheaper than the 5700X3D. The 5600X isn’t 38% slower on average, more like 20%, so you’re paying a bit of a premium to have that 3D V-Cache magic.
Is it worth it? I think it all comes down to what games you like to play and what graphics card you have. If I was a Factorio, CS2, or Spider-Man fan, I’d be getting a 5700X3D without question, but if I had a broader taste in games and a much slower GPU than an RTX 4070, I’d plumb for the 5600X and save my money for a full system upgrade, later on.
But for me, the best thing about the 5700X3D is that the 5800X3D still grabs all the headlines as being the best AM4 gaming CPU. That makes it in demand, keeping its price high, to the tune of $150 over its slower sibling. That makes the Ryzen 7 5700X3D a bargain in comparison and arguably the sensible choice as a gaming CPU. Sometimes, just sometimes, slower really is better.
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