Really good for gaming at 1440p.

Not so good at productivity due to lower clocks, and only 8 cores.

Get it if you're primarily a Gamer. Using it on a gaming focused build, I like it. I have another system for productivity, because this CPU is not great for that.

1. Top notch for gaming. 2. Not a lot of heat. 3. Easily air cooled. 4. 85W with OC Expo ram. 55w with ram not OC. This was on a mini-ITX board.

1. Intel beats this chip when it comes to well rounded use. If you game and do other things, I'd be looking at a 13700k or a 13900k. 2. Intel just works, AMD is a bit more fuss. I had some Indy game less optimized, which give it trouble with OC software - just on, not even overclocked. 3. Bios needs to be updated so 1.3Vdc and under is maintained. Early boards had issue with chips melting.

As a Gaming CPU, this is 5/5. It has some fuss but its worth it. For multipurpose I'd say 3.5/5. I got this to upgrade my CPU to use with an RTX 3080. With my old 8700k and a 3080 I would hit around 530 - 540 watts on demanding triple A games ( with a single SSD / mini itx board build). With my new board, this CPU and the 3080 I can't go above 480 watts - if I don't OC ram it's around 450 watts. The low power needed is mind blowingly good. BF2042: I improved my 1% lows by about 10-15% and overall fps by about 10-15 at 3440x1440 resolution. Not a lot but it runs much nicer. Hell Let Loose (indie game, CPU processing not well optimized) I improved my 1% lows by about 125% and my average fps by about 55%. Bottom line, a lot of smaller titles and indie games are poorly optimized. This chip will really help those rough 1% lows and make your GPU feel like it's getting full value. Triple A games will see an improvement from a few gens back but the older 5800X3D or 11700 / 12700 Intels aren't worth it for systems unless you have 4090 or 7900 xtx money. I think enough of the bios issues and driver compatibility issues have been sorted. If you are a gamer, I would recommend this product. If you work or edit, I'd probably stick with Intel.

For the price point when it comes to gaming there’s not better processor.

After the initial release and its problems it needed a bios update.

Great processor that really has no competition when it comes to gaming at the price point it has.

The only criticism of this CPU seems to be that it's *too good* relative to the 7900X3D and 7950X3D, at least for gaming.

On top of it's incredible performance, it's also amazingly power-efficient.