I'm of two minds here, as I mentioned earlier in the thread. The indication is there may have been some changes in the product over earlier information and guides [potentially due to the nm process they were designed for vs released on], hence the underwhelming release, but looking at the Linux/Server/Web orientated benchmarks, there are areas where Zen 5 is CLEARLY stronger in compute than Zen 4, we're just not seeing that in gaming. MAYBE due to the IO die bottleneck.
If that IS the case, the 3DVCache gaming parts may still be rather good, due to the VCache allowing far more data to be store close to the processing cores, to mitigate the latency, and potentially over improvements elsewhere too; plus the 3DVcache parts so far have seemed noticeably less memory bandwidth concerned than other Zen parts anyway, plus potentially of other improvements elsewhere, maybe even a refined IO Die given they're arriving a bit later.
Whatever they do, it'd be nice if the x3D variants allow the Zen 5 core to show its strengths more in gaming and general day to day tasks, it clearly DOES have improvements, just in areas we either currently don't need, or aren't seeing the benefit from for XYZ reason. I have to wonder if the two stage branch prediction is perhaps adding too much latency for gaming tasks, at least without the benefit of the VCache to hold low level engine code etc? Either way, until those parts arrive, we don't know how the new architecture will benefit from the 3D VCache, and whether for us it'll basically be more of the same as the 7800X3D, maybe the same but cheaper, or alternatively noticeably faster as the additional cache allows the Zen 5 changes to stretch thier legs in gaming also.