The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D launched this November remains the fastest processor for PC gaming, but with just an 8-core/16-thread configuration, its performance in multithreaded productivity pales in comparison to the alternatives, including from AMD's own camp, such as the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. The company is planning to expand the Zen 5 X3D line of desktop processors in Q1-2025, with the introduction of its high core-count Ryzen 9 series SKUs, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, and the Ryzen 9 9900X3D. HXL, a reliable source with hardware leaks, says that the Ryzen 9 X3D SKUs will lack the kind of "frequency debuff" we've seen with the older generation Ryzen 9 X3D chips such as the 7950X3D and 7900X3D.

On the 7950X3D, only one of the two 8-core CCDs comes with 3D V-Cache, the other is a regular CCD with 32 MB on-die L3 cache. The CCD with the 3D V-Cache has its frequency "debuffed" compared to the other CCD, mainly to deal with the thermal limitations of the way the 3D V-Cache is stacked on top of the CCD. With the Ryzen 9000 X3D generation, AMD has redesigned this CCD + L3D stacking such that the CCD is now above, directly interfacing with the STIM and IHS; with no conductive structural silicon along the way. This means that the CCD now thermally behaves like a regular Zen 5 CCD; and for this reason, not only will the CCD with 3D V-Cache on the 9950X3D/9900X3D have the same clock speeds and boosting behavior as the one without 3D V-Cache; but also the 9950X3D and 9900X3D are expected to ship with similar, if not identical clock speeds to the 9950X and 9900X.It is highly likely that AMD will retain the software-based OS scheduler management it's been using on the 9950X and 9900X, which ensures that gaming workloads are allocated to the CCD with 3D V-Cache. On multithreaded productivity workloads that can scale up to 32 threads, this scheduling could be more relaxed compared to the one on the 7950X3D, since both CCDs will boost up to similar frequencies. HXL also dropped a hint about possible performance of the 9950X3D in Cinebench R23, a benchmark that scales well across 16 cores, but doesn't quite benefit from 3D V-Cache (frequency matters). HXL says that the 9950X3D ends up with nearly identical 1T and nT scores to the 9950X. If you recall, the 7950X3D falls slightly behind the 7950X due to frequency debuffing on its CCD with 3D V-Cache.