With German retailer Mindfactory.de listing the Ryzen 5 7600X3D, European hardware reviewers are beginning to put the chip through its paces on their Socket AM5 test beds still warm from last month's Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" launch coverage. PCGH is among the first such reviewers, and has an interesting set of findings. The biggest question everyone is looking to be answered is "how does it game?" and here PCGH has some good news. The processor is very fast at gaming, and in fact beats the 8-core Ryzen 7 9700X "Zen 5" chip in gaming benchmarks, ending up 6% faster than when averaged across the games in PCGH's test suite. It's also about 9% slower than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which remains the reigning champion.

Being faster than the 9700X also means that the Ryzen 5 7600X3D is faster than every other Ryzen 9000 series processor launched till date, including the flagship Ryzen 9 9950X. The 7600X3D is a whopping 11% faster than the 9950X at gaming. When compared to Intel contemporaries, the 7600X3D ends up about 1% slower than the Core i5-13600K, and 2% slower than the newer i5-14600K. These were the two chips the 7600X3D was sent to beat at gaming, so crowds are drawn to the Ryzen 5 series, and the chip ends up falling a touch short. A lot will depend on whether AMD gives the 7600X3D a wider launch, and what its street price ends up being. Find the complete PCGH review of the Ryzen 5 7600X3D in the source link below.

AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D Socket AM5 desktop processor isn't a MicroCenter USA-exclusive anymore, with the chip now being available across the pond in Germany. Major German retailer Mindfactory.de has the processor listed at €329 (including taxes). This puts its pricing €60 less than that of the popular Ryzen 7 7800X3D (going for €390 on the site). Unlike the MicroCenter deal, the Mindfactory listing is standalone—you get the processor in a retail PIB package, and not part of a bundle. To sweeten things, you also get an AMD-branded T-shirt.

The 6-core/12-thead processor is based on the older "Zen 4" microarchitecture, but supercharged with 3D V-cache technology, which gives it 96 MB of last-level cache that is known to have a significant impact on gaming performance. The 7600X3D comes with a 4.10 GHz base frequency, and 4.70 GHz maximum turbo frequency. The retail PIB box resembles that of the 7800X3D, but with the Ryzen 5 brand extension. There's no cooling solution included in the box, but the cooling requirements of this processor aren't steep, with its TDP being rated at just 65 W.

We've known for the past couple of weeks that AMD is working on the Ryzen 5 7600X3D—a 6-core/12-thread processor based on the older "Zen 4" microarchitecture, but featuring 3D V-cache that enables significant gaming performance uplifts. The company finally launched the chip, but here's the bummer—it's only available in the US, and is a MicroCenter exclusive, where's it's going for $299.99. Here's the second bummer—you can't buy the processor on its own, but in a 3-part bundle that includes it, an ASUS TUF Gaming B650-Plus Wi-Fi motherboard, and an unspecified brand of 32 GB (2x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 memory kit. When you add up the prices of the three parts when purchased separately, you arrive at $630, but MicroCenter is selling the bundle for an impressive $450—a $180 discount.

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D comes with a maximum boost frequency of 4.70 GHz, which is a steep 600 MHz fall from that of the regular Ryzen 5 7600X, and 400 MHz less than that of the 65 W Ryzen 5 7600 (non-X). Much like the 7600, the 7600X3D comes with a 65 W TDP. Where it loses on clock speeds, it makes up for with its large cache—1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 96 MB of L3 cache (or 102 MB of L2+L3 "total cache."). The bundle could offer good value for those building PCs from scratch, or coming in from the older Socket AM4 platform. The TUF Gaming B650-Plus Wi-Fi is a fairly feature-packed mid-range ATX motherboard.

AMD is reportedly giving finishing touches to the Ryzen 5 7600X3D 6-core/12-thread processor featuring 3D V-cache. The company plans to launch this chip in early September 2024. The timing of this launch is particularly interesting, given that the company just got its Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors powered by the latest "Zen 5" microarchitecture into the shelves. The 7600X3D is probably designed to be the company's fastest gaming processor in the Ryzen 5 series, the Ryzen 5 9600X is already 5.2% faster in games than the Intel Core i5-14600K, however, the 14600K makes up for this with 7.8% better multithreaded application performance. The 7600X3D with its 3D V-cache could offer a sufficiently higher gaming performance than the i5-14600K to woo the sub-$300 crowd to the AMD camp.

Why "Zen 4" now? AMD is definitely developing a Ryzen 9000X3D series powered by "Zen 5," but those processors probably won't arrive until the very end of 2024 or Q1-2025. It's easier for the company to come up with the 7600X3D by simply disabling two cores from the 8-core "Zen 4" 3D V-cache CCD used in the popular 7800X3D. Not much else is known about the 7600X3D other than its existence, its likely core-count of 6-core/12-thread, and of course its cache sizes of 1 MB per core L2, with 96 MB of L3 cache (32 MB on-die + 64 MB 3D V-cache).