A hopeless question about 9800X3D and Zbrush

[JonS77]

I called this a hopeless question since I don't expect anyone to actually have personal experience with this and could help me see the difference. I can't really find any relevant info anywhere and don't know any community of artist who are also tech savvy and could give reliable responses. I would need someone who's seen Zbrush run on regular CPUs and then X3D CPUs to tell me how it measures up.

 

I currently have a 13900KF, and I have access to a 9800X3D for no extra costs. I play games and would love to just drop in the X3D CPU, eventho it's not a huge upgrade over the 13900Kf but it's still better for the 5090 and considering it's at no extra cost I would like to do it. There is also the matter of warranty and better resale value later down the road I think.

 

However, I also have to use Zbrush professionally, and there is barely any data out there in regards to CPU performance in Zbrush specifically. I have some personal experimental knowledge where I can confirm that at least the viewport performance in Zbrush is heavily affected by core count as disabling e cores with Process Lasso makes a huge difference. I also just know that single core speed is important as I've seen it 100% during certain operations.

 

I doubt the synthetic benchmarks would be very helpful here, neither would a Blender or Cinebench render. But if you know for a fact that it does then please let me know.

 

My main question is, how much performance would I lose in Zbrush if I go with the 9800X3D. Would it be so sluggish that I would feel the difference? Zbrush is incredibly CPU dependent. I literally can't find anything that would help me figure this out.

 

I don't want to just break the X3D and its motherboard out of the box as then I would have to sell it for much less.

 

 

[jaslion]

So zbrush doesnt use x3d cache at all. That I know having used a 5800x3d and 5800xt system with it before. Performance was basically the same.

 

Zbrush is multi threaded but well mostly just wants single core performance at most times. More cores CAN be very nice for certain interactions which you've found already.

 

Single core there wont be a big jump but multi cores is where youd lose out a good bit.

 

So id say stay on the 13900kf. Sure jt benches lower but what are you playing that a 13900k doesnt give you good fps in? Cept well games that dont run well no matter what.

 

This may be a case of dont look at the numbers and all is fine for gaming. You dont HAVE to max a 5090 and its not wasted potential. All that means is that in 3 years when new games are even harder to run youll just be running them at the same performance as when you got the gpu so to say.

[Millios]

Seems like it really depends according to this thread I found

And Some other Zbrushcentral threads somewhat agree that a CPU is more often than not a better upgrade than a GPU unless you do specific stuff

https://www.zbrushcentral.com/t/why-does-the-computer-s-cpu-usage-become-very-high-when-running-zbrush/453868/2

https://www.zbrushcentral.com/t/zbrush-cpu-performance-is-higher-cpu-frequency-or-more-cores-better-and-for-what-tasks/381714/3

 

And from my understanding of this article

https://www.cgdirector.com/best-workstation-pc-for-zbrush

Better single core performance is what you should be after as more cores leads to less thermal headroom and diminishing results (talking about stuff like threadrippers tho that are WAY over budget for most either way)

 

If you have access to other Option like a 9950x or 9950x3D or their respective 7000 series CPUs aka 7900, 7900x and 7950x for also next to no cost then there would be a clearer answer since they have the extra cores so you'd be clear in that aspect as well but with the 9800x3D I cant find a conclusive answer cause ppl more often than not also mention that 12 cores 24 threads are what they use and were happy with over their 8 core 16 thread CPUs

 

So I'll go with other CPU stress tests or 3D rendering heavy tasks and use Puget however biased against AMD they may be at times (CEO is also on the intel board of directors and has a say in the company)

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/amd-ryzen-7-9800x3d-content-creation-review/#CPU_Rendering_Cinebench_Blender_V-Ray

 

Quote:

"Finally, in CPU rendering with Cinebench, the 98000X3D posts somewhat disappointing results, with performance much closer to the 9700X (10% ahead) than the 9900X (31% behind). The additional V-cache doesn’t appear to be helping in this benchmark while the CPU suffers from the lower maximum boost due to the cache. We see this again in the single-threaded test, where the 9800X3D is among the slowest CPU tested, though one point in Cinebench means it is still functionally equivalent to most of the other Ryzen 9000 processors.

Blender and V-Ray both show similar behaviors, as both applications scale well with core count and do not utilize the additional cache. This is largely academic, though, as an 8-core part is not relevant for CPU-based rendering in the first place; it will work in a pinch, but at this price point, GPU-based rendering is best

 

Overall, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D manages impressive gains as compared to the 9700X through the combination of the additional L3 cache and the increased TDP. In many applications, it scores very close to the 12-core 9900X. However, the 9800X3D only ever manages to beat the 9900X in Photoshop, and is nearly the same cost as the Ryzen 9 part. This combination of pricing and performance, in some ways, makes the 9800X3D a hard sell for purely content creation usage.

In many cases, the 9900X will be a better value, and the 9800X3D fails to replace the price point of the 9700X. However, if your workflow is cache-sensitive and doesn’t rely on a high number of cores, the 9800X3D can be a great option. In particular, we think the 9800X3D may be the best overall CPU for photography, between its great Photoshop and Lightroom performance. Perhaps more interestingly, for some mixed workflows or for a PC that sees use for both content creation and gaming, the 9800X3D manages to be a standout processor, offering fantastic gaming performance without sacrificing productivity."

 

TL DR seems like the 9800x3D aint gonna do you much so stick with a 13900KF which still is plenty for gaming as well

[WereCat]

Not sure if my experience will help you but I've seen a massive performance increase in Blender sculpting when I switched from 3900X to 5800X3D.

 

I'm taking about high res dyntopo models with close to 1M polygons.

 

Unfortunately I have no experience with Z-brush

[JonS77]

On 5/14/2025 at 5:01 PM, jaslion said:

So zbrush doesnt use x3d cache at all. That I know having used a 5800x3d and 5800xt system with it before. Performance was basically the same.

 

Zbrush is multi threaded but well mostly just wants single core performance at most times. More cores CAN be very nice for certain interactions which you've found already.

 

Single core there wont be a big jump but multi cores is where youd lose out a good bit.

 

So id say stay on the 13900kf. Sure jt benches lower but what are you playing that a 13900k doesnt give you good fps in? Cept well games that dont run well no matter what.

 

This may be a case of dont look at the numbers and all is fine for gaming. You dont HAVE to max a 5090 and its not wasted potential. All that means is that in 3 years when new games are even harder to run youll just be running them at the same performance as when you got the gpu so to say.

Right, thanks for mentioning your experience with the X3D CPU. I am sticking with the 13900KF, but it's not just the small FPS difference that I was thinking about, but also the resale value and just being on a newer platform but also the gaming increase would come at no cost. I'm just so tempted to just break it out of the box and just create a benchmark scenario in Zbrush to see what happens. I had this fantasy that what if the larger cach somehow suddenly causes massive performance gains haha.

***

On 5/14/2025 at 5:21 PM, WereCat said:

Not sure if my experience will help you but I've seen a massive performance increase in Blender sculpting when I switched from 3900X to 5800X3D.

 

I'm taking about high res dyntopo models with close to 1M polygons.

 

Unfortunately I have no experience with Z-brush

That's useful information but unfortunately I have no experience with Blender so I also don't really know the performance difference they would have and how they approach performance in sculpting specifically. But I know that the two software are very different and Blender isn't really up to task for the amount of polys you might have on a model in Zbrush where 1m polys is considered super tiny. I'm just really frustrated that with Zbrush being as big a software as it is, and X3D CPUs being as popular as they are, I can't really find any actual reliable data or experience on this. Maybe somewhere some community of artists would be willing to give me money to cover my costs to compare the 9800X3D against my 13900KF and see the difference haha. If I do that I'll have to sell it back for used prices.

 

***

 

@Millios Thanks for the write up. I find reddit and Zbrushcentral to be very inadequate and unreliable when it comes to this unfortunately for a number of reasons. Even that article comes with a lot of inaccuracies and irrelevant stuff. But aside from that neither of these help me see directly if anyone there has had an experience directly with X3D CPUs to compare and contrast.

Like there are logical things that you could assume, like a higher multi-threaded render score could ***theoretically*** mean higher frame rates while rotating around the model in viewport. but then there are so many other small intricacies like what would the difference be in lazy mouse performance, or when the brush data is too heavy,... and most importantly how does the X3D measure up in terms of stability in Zbrush exclusively. Like I have benchmark files made for myself to test for stability and I can tell you that I could not figure this out with any other benchmark tool or software. 

 

I could go on about this for hours but that's why I need direct experience with the X3D CPUs from someone, and that's why I called a hopeless question =))

 

[WereCat]

2 hours ago, Jon-Slow said:

Right, thanks for mentioning your experience with the X3D CPU. I am sticking with the 13900KF, but it's not just the small FPS difference that I was thinking about, but also the resale value and just being on a newer platform but also the gaming increase would come at no cost. I'm just so tempted to just break it out of the box and just create a benchmark scenario in Zbrush to see what happens. I had this fantasy that what if the larger cach somehow suddenly causes massive performance gains haha.

***

That's useful information but unfortunately I have no experience with Blender so I also don't really know the performance difference they would have and how they approach performance in sculpting specifically. But I know that the two software are very different and Blender isn't really up to task for the amount of polys you might have on a model in Zbrush where 1m polys is considered super tiny. I'm just really frustrated that with Zbrush being as big a software as it is, and X3D CPUs being as popular as they are, I can't really find any actual reliable data or experience on this. Maybe somewhere some community of artists would be willing to give me money to cover my costs to compare the 9800X3D against my 13900KF and see the difference haha. If I do that I'll have to sell it back for used prices.

 

***

 

@Millios Thanks for the write up. I find reddit and Zbrushcentral to be very inadequate and unreliable when it comes to this unfortunately for a number of reasons. Even that article comes with a lot of inaccuracies and irrelevant stuff. But aside from that neither of these help me see directly if anyone there has had an experience directly with X3D CPUs to compare and contrast.

Like there are logical things that you could assume, like a higher multi-threaded render score could ***theoretically*** mean higher frame rates while rotating around the model in viewport. but then there are so many other small intricacies like what would the difference be in lazy mouse performance, or when the brush data is too heavy,... and most importantly how does the X3D measure up in terms of stability in Zbrush exclusively. Like I have benchmark files made for myself to test for stability and I can tell you that I could not figure this out with any other benchmark tool or software. 

 

I could go on about this for hours but that's why I need direct experience with the X3D CPUs from someone, and that's why I called a hopeless question =))

 

It's very unlikely that you'll find the answer unless you test it yourself. I had the same issue trying to find out the same thing in Blender. 

People just test the rendering CPU performance and call it a day but there is so much more to it... Like physics simulation performance, viewport performance, animation performance, etc... 

[Millios]

2 hours ago, Jon-Slow said:

 

@Millios Thanks for the write up. I find reddit and Zbrushcentral to be very inadequate and unreliable when it comes to this unfortunately for a number of reasons. Even that article comes with a lot of inaccuracies and irrelevant stuff. But aside from that neither of these help me see directly if anyone there has had an experience directly with X3D CPUs to compare and contrast.

Like there are logical things that you could assume, like a higher multi-threaded render score could ***theoretically*** mean higher frame rates while rotating around the model in viewport. but then there are so many other small intricacies like what would the difference be in lazy mouse performance, or when the brush data is too heavy,... and most importantly how does the X3D measure up in terms of stability in Zbrush exclusively. Like I have benchmark files made for myself to test for stability and I can tell you that I could not figure this out with any other benchmark tool or software. 

 

I could go on about this for hours but that's why I need direct experience with the X3D CPUs from someone, and that's why I called a hopeless question =))

May I ask why you find reddit and Zbrush forums inadequate and unreliable? I dont be snarky or insult I am actually curious?

 

Also What did you find innacurate about said articles? Irrelevant is another issue because they do talk about a myriad of things that are specifically CPU related in terms of specs as well so I understand that part

 

There are also a few well known or better said well established facts like the fact 3D v-cache doenst improve or do anything for productivity and isnt really used so stability is a "It exists but doesnt do much if anything" situation as @jaslion mentioned here

On 5/14/2025 at 12:01 PM, jaslion said:

So zbrush doesnt use x3d cache at all. That I know having used a 5800x3d and 5800xt system with it before. Performance was basically the same.

 

 

You also seem to have some, I guess "issues" is the word(?) unique to you like stability tests and the such which I again am just asking why you did them or needed them and what they provided that other tools didnt?

[JonS77]

@Millios I appreciate the passion, but if you do read my post again, I'm specifically asking for people from this community with experience with the software and the hardware. Again, I appreciate you chiming in, it just so happens that I'm not trying too google or reddit this question, but are looking for people from this specific community with direct experience with what I'm referring to. Thank you.

[JonS77]

2 hours ago, WereCat said:

It's very unlikely that you'll find the answer unless you test it yourself. I had the same issue trying to find out the same thing in Blender. 

People just test the rendering CPU performance and call it a day but there is so much more to it... Like physics simulation performance, viewport performance, animation performance, etc... 

I've listed the 9800X3D to be sold, but if I don't sell it for a week, I'll first listed it as an item that's been opened and tested and I'll run some tests and report back here.

[jaslion]

6 hours ago, Jon-Slow said:

cost. I'm just so tempted to just break it out of the box and

Then do it? Resale value for cpu's and boards doesnt go down when box opened. People treat them like used the moment someone puts then online for sale. The ONLY computer parts where it has mattered before I've found is storage and collectors editions. Sometimes also gpu's. Cpus and boards lol no shot. If its an expensive board good luck but normally people treat every z790 or am5 x870 the same on the used market

[jaslion]

Fyi Sentence construction wasnt great there. Meant that for boards ans cpus opened, unopened or even box or no box matters almost not small price diff maybe or the very odd exception of a person only wanting to buy new in box stuff.

 

Boards are very odd with pricing because a z790 basic asrock board thats 170$ new vs a z790 msi godlike 1000will be like 140$ offered at most for the asrock and maybe if lucky 200$ or well the odd collector. Because z790 board = any other z790 board :p. Only difference for 99% of used shoppers would be looks and ports on it.

 

Same with psus. 1000w "gold" totally legit will absolutly not explode in your face psu from brand firestarterextreme vs a rm1000x gold from corsair will be sold for basically the same price.

 

 

[PecaCZE]

13 / 14th gen have stability issues and are defected. Mine 13900K "died" just month ago and I just got refund. Yours can die anytime, never know. But for gaming it is a beast. I´m thinking about buying 9950X3D or 9800X3D, equally good for gaming but second is not meant to be for productivity.

 

Just wanted to let you know. Don´t know about Zbrush.