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.

MSI OCLab made some groundbreaking disclosures about the gaming performance of upcoming AMD Ryzen 9000X3D processors. It looks like AMD is set to dominate the Intel Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processors in gaming performance, if these numbers hold up. In the games that MSI tested, namely "Far Cry 6," "Shadow of the Tomb Raider," and "Black Myth: Wukong," the "8-core 9000X3D" processor, or the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, is found to be 11% faster on average than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The "16-core 9000X3D" processor, which is expected to be the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, is an impressive 13% faster than its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

Normally we'd expect bigger gen-on-gen gains for the 8-core part than the 16-core part, but the 16-core 9000X3D pulling ahead by that much over its predecessor hints at the possibility of AMD either giving it significantly higher clock speeds, or the rumor about AMD deploying both 3D V-cache on both its CCDs could be true after all. The 9950X3D could end up roughly on-par with the 9800X3D if this turns out to be true, given that the gaming performance delta between the 7800X3D and 7950X3D is roughly that much—2-3 percentage points. Intel earlier this week officially announced the Core Ultra 2-series desktop processors. As part of the announcement, the company put out some first-party gaming performance numbers, which put the top Core Ultra 9 285K either on-par with the Core i9-14900K, or faster by 2-3%, which means it should land behind even the 7950X3D in gaming performance, and AMD is set to dominate Intel in gaming performance with the 9000X3D series.

The Chinese tech press is abuzz with slides allegedly from Intel's pre-launch press-deck for the Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S." The most sensational of these are Intel's first-party performance claims for the top Core Ultra 9 285K model. There's good news and bad news. Good news first—Intel claims to have made a big leap in energy efficiency with "Arrow Lake," and the 285K should offer gaming performance comparable to the current Core i9-14900K at around 80 W lower power draw for the processor. But then there in lies the bad news—despite claimed IPC gains for the "Lion Cove" P-core, and rumored clock speeds being on par with the "Raptor Cove" P-cores on the i9-14900K, the 285K is barely any faster than its predecessor in absolute terms.

In its first party testing, when averaged across 12 game tests, which we used Google optical translation to make out the titles of, Intel used performance numbers of the i9-14900K as the mean. The 285K beats the i9-14900K in only four games—Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, Age of Mythology Retold, Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, and F1 23. It's on-par with the i9-14900K in Red Dead Redemption 2, Total War: Pharaoh, Metro Exodus, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Rainbow Six Siege. It's slower than the i9-14900K in Far Cry 6, FF XIV, F1 24, Red Dead Redemption 2. Averaged across this bench, the Core Ultra 9 285K ends up roughly on par with the Core i9-14900K in gaming. Intel also compared the 285K to AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X, and interestingly, even the Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

Prices of AMD's current generation flagship desktop processor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, dropped earlier this week, to a record low $464.99 on Amazon and Newegg. The 16-core/32-thread Socket AM5 processor features 3D V-cache technology, and roughly matches the gaming performance of Intel Core i9-14900K, in our testing. It also offers a much stronger productivity and content creation performance than the Ryzen 7 7800X3D owing to its 16-core compute muscle. The $465 new price is exactly two-thirds the processor's launch price of $700. The chip was designed to topple the Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake." The price cuts are triggered by the impending launch of the Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" processors based on the newer "Zen 5" microarchitecture.

Prices of AMD's flagship desktop processor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, dropped to under $500 for the first time, with Amazon listing it at $492. This 16-core/32-thread processor features 3D V-cache on one of its two 8-core CCDs, which gives it the gaming performance boost that the technology provides, while leaving its second CCD to sustain higher boost clocks, benefiting multithreaded productivity workloads. Is the 7950X3D a good buy at $492? In a recent interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD confided that the first wave of Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" desktop processors, codenamed "Granite Ridge," don't quite beat the gaming performance of the company's 7000X3D processors, but are significantly faster at productivity workloads, which makes the 7950X3D a tempting buy at $492. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the fastest desktop processor for gaming, is priced at $339.

AMD's flagship desktop processor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, saw an impressive retailer-level price-cut, sending its street-price down to $565 on Newegg, or nearly $135 (19%) below its launch price of $700. The processor is listed at $595, but a $30 discount coupon sends the price down to $565. It's not just Newegg, even Amazon US has the chip listed at $591, with a $26 discount coupon sending it down to $565. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is about 1% slower than the 7800X3D at gaming, but is still about as fast as the Core i9-14900K at gaming; and its 8 additional "Zen 4" cores helps shore up productivity performance over the 7800X3D.

Price-cuts to the Ryzen 9 7950X3D can be seen as a move to greet last week's launch of the Intel Core i9-14900KS, an enthusiast-magnet for its up to 6.20 GHz clock-speeds, and overclocking headroom; but in our testing, the new chip barely beats the Ryzen 7 7800X3D in gaming; although is 2% faster than the regular i9-14900K at both gaming- and productivity.

EK, the premium water cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to announce the availability of high-end, fully liquid-cooled gaming PCs for the European market. These EK-Fluid Gaming PCs are a work of art, hand-made by the master of custom loop liquid cooling. Aside from being visual masterpieces, their integrated custom cooling enables the user to exploit the maximum of what the latest hardware can offer. By liquid cooling both the CPU and GPU, the PC can easily hit and maintain its highest possible boost frequencies without breaking a sweat.

Plug And Play
Fluid Gaming PCs are the ultimate plug-and-play solution for competitive gamers and enthusiasts to whom gaming isn't just a hobby but a lifestyle. But these PCs are not just geared towards gamers, as there are practically no limits to their utilization. They pack the latest and greatest hardware, including the recently launched Intel Core i9 14th generation CPUs. Besides gaming, they can handle streaming, video editing, and 3D modeling, or can just be a visual showpiece in your office or home. With this new availability in Europe, EK's European customers are just a click away from their next-level custom water-cooled gaming experience with ZERO hassle. The starting EK Fluid Gaming PC lineup for Europe consists of three carefully selected PCs inspired by our Shop The Loop series that include: Zen Lotus, Side Task, and Digital Reef.

Newegg is currently running a time limited offer on AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU—the base price sits at $662, but a promotional voucher can be applied at checkout that removes $105. Amazon USA price matched the competition earlier today—via their own voucher system—but stock allocation of the powerful desktop processor appears to be sold out. North American customers eager to acquire an attractively priced Ryzen 9 7950X3D soon-ish will have to do business with Newegg.

The latest $557 deal is certainly more generous when compared to a campaign run by the American online retailer back in May, albeit via their Ebay store—several Ryzen 7000X3D-series CPUs were discounted at the time, perhaps in reaction to bad publicity swirling around the product lineup (referring to accounts of hardware burnouts). The Ryzen 9 7950X3D was reduced to a previous all-time low of $629.99. Perhaps public perception of AMD's top flight models has not improved all that much since then (plus other economical factors), and very deep discounts are necessary to attract customers. A Newegg mini-store page recently revealed a forthcoming "Starfield Game Bundle Promotion," that will apply to all Ryzen 7000-series CPUs. The AMD + Bethesda initiative will probably kick in closer to the game's September 6 launch date.

Newegg is selling AMD's top-of-the-range Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU for $629.99 - so $70 below the usual asking price in the USA - although buyers will have to venture onto the e-tailer's Ebay store in order to pick up some fancy 16-core silicon action, Newegg's main site lists the CPU for the regular sum of $699.99. This weekend's sudden discount represents the lowest ever price for Ryzen 9 7950X3D only two months into its product lifespan. According to Ebay's tracking stats (for this particular product page) only four units have sold in the past 24 hours, and that a "limited quantity" of AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPUs are available to purchase.

TPU's February review of this processor was filled with praise (plus awards: Editor's Choice & Innovation), but the high asking price was a point of contention. This weekend's (likely temporary) discount now gives the potential buyer a little bit of extra value - with the CPU's per core price dropping just under $40, and per thread cost being slightly south of $20. AMD's Ryzen 7000X3D series has been through a bumpy batch since late April - some owners have reported hardware burnouts and AMD is currently working on fixes. Buyer perception could have been affected by recent publicity, so it is possible that Newegg is attempting to get some surplus stock out of the door.

Earlier this month, AMD wrapped up the launch of its incredible Ryzen 7000X3D processor series, which storms the company's gaming performance competitiveness against Intel back to the top, setting it up for the crucial Spring-Summer season, when PC gamers tend to upgrade and play the latest games. The 3D Vertical Cache memory deployed on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 7900X3D, and Ryzen 7 7800X3D, supercharges the gaming performance of these processors, and our testing has shown that the 7800X3D is all that an elite gaming PC build needs if all you're doing is playing games with some domestic productivity on the side; whereas the 7950X3D is for those into heavy content creation and application workloads besides gaming, which means AMD levels up to Intel on both fronts.

We have extensively covered the technical aspects of what 3D Vertical Cache is, and how it works, in our reviews of the 7950X3D and 7800X3D. It is a fast 64 MB slice of SRAM cache stacked on top of the 32 MB on-die L3 cache of "Zen 4" chiplets, which extends the L3 cache size to 96 MB. This has a profound impact on gaming workloads, as the CPU cores have more amount of game data at much lower latency than DRAM. As part of our coverage of the Ryzen 7000X3D processor series, we had the opportunity to interview AMD on some of the technical aspects of Ryzen 7000X3D processor series. We also took the opportunity to ask a few general questions about the Ryzen 7000 desktop processor series itself. You can also catch our interview with Robert Hallock, the former technical marketing head, for some additional questions that you may find relevant.

Those that are waiting for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D are in luck as the April 6th launch is just around the corner, and although we knew that the US launch price is set at $449, AMD did not give out any details about the price in Europe. Thankfully, first listings have started to appear, showing it in some stores at €530. Earlier, Computerbase gave an estimated price of around €509, considering that other two SKUs, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, both are 13 percent more expensive in Europe.

As spotted earlier by Videocardz, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D has appeared in Slovenia, listed at €530, which is pretty close to the estimated price. Another listing from Germany shows it listed at €607, which is a bit more expensive. This comes as a surprise considering that the tax in Slovenia is 22 percent, while in Germany it is set at 19 percent. Of course, some stores will try to add the early adopters tax as well, raising the price well above the MSRP, as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D could be quite popular.

AMD has finally released some of the official gaming benchmark for its 8-core Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor that should be coming in April, and, now that AMD has released some of the first gaming benchmarks, it appears that it outperforms the Intel Core i9-13900K by up to 24 percent. Officially, AMD is putting the Ryzen 7 7800X3D against the Intel Core i7-13700K, leaving the Core i9-13900K and the Core i9-13900KS to its 16- and 12-core Ryzen 7000X3D SKUs.

Although some of its Ryzen 7000X3D series chips are available as of February 28th, namely the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D, AMD has pushed back the launch of its 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 7800X3D. This was quite a surprise and a big letdown, especially due to its tempting $449 price tag. One of the reasons might be the fact that the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is simply too good and might put a lot of pressure on even AMD's own SKUs, let alone Intel's lineup.

ASUS today announced availability of a BIOS update for its X670 and X670E motherboards that enables full compatibility with the latest AMD Ryzen 7000 Series X3D CPUs featuring AMD 3D V-Cache technology.

The proven gaming performance of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU made it a long-standing favorite for PC builders. ASUS motherboards gave those builders high-performance, feature-rich options for assembling a potent gaming machine built around one of these chips. Now, AMD is upping its game with two new Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs with AMD 3D V-Cache technology: the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D. Combining a 3D vertical cache and all the advantages of the cutting-edge X670 platform, these chips are poised to seize the gaming performance crown.

MSI announced today a new lineup of AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology that will be compatible with all MSI's X670 and B650 motherboards. The new AMD Ryzen processors include the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D which will have a TDP of 120 W while increasing its L3 Cache by 50% compared to the regular Ryzen 7000 processors. Even with a slightly lower TDP of 120 W, these AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology processors have up to 16 cores and 32 threads while still being able to hit their theoretical max boost clock of up to 5.70 GHz.

With the latest AGESA COMBO PI-1.0.0.5c BIOS from MSI will be ready and have the most performance-optimized patch for the new AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors with AMD 3D V-Cache Technology. However, previous BIOS versions are still compatible with any MSI's X670 and B650 motherboards as well. With the latest launch of AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D processors, MSI is proud to announce the MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI to our AMD Series lineup of the motherboard and will support all AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors at launch. Inspired by military concept, the design MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI is shown as a symbol of robust and durability that allow the users to have the optimal experience.

BIOSTAR, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices today, is excited to announce a list of compatible motherboards for AMD's newly announced AMD Ryzen 7000X3D processors. AMD Ryzen 7000X3D processors, which include the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and Ryzen 7 7800X3D, promise unparalleled gaming and compute performance thanks to their groundbreaking 3D V-Cache technology. Expected to provide top-of-the-line performance for demanding users, BIOSTAR announces that their AMD-AM5 motherboards are ready to support these new processors.

Flagship tier X670E VALKYRIE, RACING series B650EGTQ, and B650M-SILVER motherboards are the first batch of compatible BIOSTAR motherboards, ready to take on the shiny new AMD Ryzen 7000X3D processors. They are engineered with cutting-edge technology to ensure smooth and efficient performance for high-end gaming and professional applications.

AMD's top two new desktop processors, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16-core/32-thread; and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D 12-core/24-thread, go on sale later today (starting 3 PM Central European time, 9 AM EST). The two "Zen 4" processors feature the company's 3D Vertical Cache technology, which significantly improves gaming performance. The 7950X3D in particular attains parity with the Intel Core i9-13900K in both gaming and multi-threaded productivity performance.

3D Vertical Cache is a 64 MB SRAM die that augments the 32 MB on-die L3 cache of one of the two CCDs in these processors. The combined 96 MB cache has a profound impact on compute latencies for gaming. In our testing, the 7950X3D matches the gaming performance of the i9-13900K "Raptor Lake," which means AMD now has a truly competitive processor with Intel's latest. It also matches or exceeds the I/O feature-set, including DDR5 memory, PCIe Gen 5 (including for the CPU-attached NVMe slot); and an iGPU, although it loses out on DDR4 memory support. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D commands an MSRP of USD $700, and the 7900X3D $600.

Catch the TechPowerUp Review of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

AMD's Ryzen 7000-series CPUs with 3D V-Cache are set to launch next week and alongside the launch, there will obviously be reviews of the upcoming CPUs. As with many other companies, AMD prepared a reviewers guide for the media, to give them some guidance, as well as expected benchmark numbers based on the test hardware AMD used in-house. Parts of that reviewers guide has now appeared online, courtesy of a site called HD Tecnologia. For those that can't wait until next week's reviews, this gives a glimpse of what to expect, at least based on the games tested by AMD.

AMD put the Ryzen 9 7950X3D up against Intel's Core i9 13900K, both systems were equipped with 32 GB of DDR5-6000 memory and liquid cooling. Tests were done with both AMD's own Radeon RX 7900 XTX and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. We won't go into details of the various benchmarks here, as you can find those below, but according to AMD's figures, AMD came out on top with a 5.6 percent win over the Intel CPU, at 1080p using the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and by 6 percent using the GeForce RTX 4090. This was across 22 different games, with Horizon Zero Dawn and F1 2021 being the games favouring the AMD CPU the most and Far Cry 6 and the CPU test in Ashes of the Singularity being the games favouring the AMD CPU the least. TechPowerUp will of course have a review ready for your perusing by the time the new CPUs launches next week, so you'll have to wait until then to see if AMD's own figures hold true or not.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, graphics cards, and hardware solutions, announced today that GIGABYTE X670, B650 motherboard lineup with advanced configuration provides a perfect match for the latest AMD Raphael X3D processors with 3D V-Cache technology. This match delivers remarkable improvements on gaming performance for building ultimate gaming systems.

AMD first launched 3D V-Cache technology on Ryzen 7 5800X3D processors in 2022 and made it one of the best gaming CPUs. Now AMD brings 3D V-Cache technology to Zen4 and introduces AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and upcoming Ryzen 7 7800X3D processors with superior gaming performance. This new generation 3D V-Cache CPUs with more cores also raise L3 cache up to 128 MB, and boost gaming performance up to 50% thanks to the extra 64 MB cache of 3D V-Cache.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor will bring 16 cores and 32 threads along with 16 MB of L2 cache and 128 MB of L3 cache for 144 MB of 3D V-cache present on the package. Today, we get to see it in action for the first time in benchmarks like Blender for 3D content creation and Geekbench 5 for synthetic benchmarks, where we get to compare the scores to the already existing models. In Blender, the new AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D scores 558.59 points, while the regular Ryzen 9 7950X scores 590.28 points. This represents a 5.4% regression from the original model; however, we are yet to see how other content creation benchmarks suit the new CPU.

For Geekbench 5 synthetics, the upcoming Ryzen 9 7950X3D scores 2,157 points in the single-core score and 21,841 points in the multi-core score. The regular Ryzen 9 7950X can reach around 2246 points for single-core and 25,275 points for multi-core score, which is relatively faster than the new cache-enhanced Ryzen 9 7950X3D design. Of course, some of these benchmark results show that the 4.2 GHz base frequency of Ryzen 9 7950X3D plays a significant role in the overall performance comparison, given that the regular Ryzen 9 7950X is set to a 4.5 GHz base clock. Both designs share the same 5.7 GHz boost speed, so we have yet to see more benchmarks showing other differences induced by larger cache sizes.

AMD today announced the retail channel pricing of its upcoming Ryzen 7000X3D "Zen 4" line of high-performance Socket AM5 desktop processors. These processors introduce the 3D Vertical Cache (3DV cache) technology, which the company claims has a significant impact on gaming performance, making them perform competitively with 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors, including the fastest i9-13900K, and possibly even the i9-13900KS. AMD announced retail availability from February 28, 2023 for the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and 7900X3D. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D launches on April 6, 2023.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-core/16-thread processor is priced at USD $449. The 12-core/24-thread Ryzen 9 7900X3D is priced at $599. The flagship 16-core/32-thread Ryzen 9 7950X3D is priced at $699. The 7800X3D launches at a $50 higher price than the $399 price that the Ryzen 7 7700X launched at, before settling down at $349. The 7900X3D launches at $599, which again is a $50 premium over the launch price of the Ryzen 9 7900X—currently going for $475. The top-dog 7950X3D launches at the same $699 price that the 7950X launched at, which has its price slashed all the way down to $575.A video presentation by AMD follows.

The product pages of the upcoming AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 7 7800X3D "Zen 4" processors went online, which say that the two chips are unlocked for overclocking. This normally implies that the processor has an unlocked base-clock multiplier, which makes it easy to overclock. The previous-generation Ryzen 7 5800X3D processors came with locked base-clock multipliers, making them complicated to overclock. Both the 16-core/32-thread 7950X3D and the 8-core/16-thread 7800X3D come with a TDP rating of 120 W, which for the 7950X3D is significantly lower than the 170 W that the 7950X is rated at. It's also worth noting that the T-junction max (TJmax) value is lower, at just 89°C, compared to 95°C of the 7950X and 7700X.

Slated for a February 2023 market release, the two chips introduce stacked 3D vertical cache technology (3DV cache). The 7800X3D comes with 64 MB of 3DV cache stacked on top of the 32 MB of on-die L3 cache, taking its L3 cache size to 96 MB, and total cache (L2+L3) to 104 MB. On the other hand, the 7950X3D and the 12-core/24-thread 7900X3D only come with the 3DV cache memory on one of the two "Zen 4" CCDs. The first CCD has 96 MB of L3 cache (including the 3DV cache), while the second CCD is a standard "Zen 4" CCD with just 32 MB of on-die L3 cache. For these chips, the L3 cache adds up to 128 MB, and total cache to 140 MB for the 7900X3D, and 144 MB for the 7950X3D.Update Jan 24th: AMD updated their product pages to remove this field altogether. It looks like we'll have to wait a bit for AMD to finalize its specs.

Here's the first look at the retail PIB package of an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor with 3D Vertical Cache technology. These chips come in box design that's distinct from the rest of the Ryzen 7000 lineup. Bright orange and silver accents make up the front face of the box, with "3D Vertical Cache technology" being mentioned prominently. With the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the PIB package design was probably found to look too similar to the rest of the lineup and practically indistinguishable from those of the 5000G "Cezanne" desktop APUs, which is probably why AMD took this route.

It's very likely that we'll see Socket AM5 desktop APUs based on the "Phoenix Point" monolithic silicon later this year, with its 12 CU RDNA3 iGPU and 8-core/16-thread "Zen 4" CPU that has a 32 MB on-die L3 cache. These processors will have yet another distinguishable retail PIB packaging. AMD's then technical marketing director, Robert Hallock, assured us that the company will continue to invest in desktop APUs (processors with powerful iGPUs), despite Ryzen 7000 desktop processors coming with a low-power iGPU as standard.

AMD today announced its new Ryzen 7000X3D high-end desktop processors to much fanfare, with availability slated for February 2023, you can read all about them in our older article. In our coverage, we noticed something odd about the cache sizes of the 12-core 7900X3D and 16-core 7950X3D. Whereas the 8-core, single-CCD 7800X3D comes with 104 MB of total cache (L2+L3), which works out to 1 MB L2 cache per core and 96 MB of L3 cache (32 MB on-die + 64 MB stacked 3DV cache); the dual-CCD 7900X3D and 7950X3D was shown with total caches of 140 MB and 144 MB, while they should have been 204 MB or 208 MB, respectively.

In our older article, we explored two possibilities—one that the 3DV cache is available on both CCDs but halved in size for whatever reason; and the second more outlandish possibility that only one of the two CCDs has stacked 3DV cache, while the other is a normal planar CCD with just the on-die 32 MB L3 cache. As it turns out, the latter theory is right! AMD put out high-resolution renders of the dual-CCD 7000X3D processors, where only one of the two CCDs is shown having the L3D (L3 cache die) stacked on top. Even real-world pictures of the older "Zen 3" 3DV cache CCDs from the 5800X3D or EPYC "Milan-X" processors show CCDs with 3DV caches having a distinct appearance with dividing lines between the L3D and the structural substrates over the regions of the CCD that have the CPU cores. In these renders, we see these lines drawn on only one of the two CCDs.

AMD today announced its Ryzen 7000X3D "Zen 4" desktop processors with 3D Vertical Cache technology. With these, the company is claiming to have the world's fastest processors for gaming. The company claims to have beaten the Intel Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake" in gaming, by a margin it feels comfortable to remain competitive with against even the upcoming Core i9-13900KS. At the heart of these processors is the new "Zen 4" 3D Vertical Cache (3DV cache) CCD, which features 64 MB of L3 cache stacked on top of the region of the "Zen 4" CCD that has the on-die 32 MB L3 cache. The 3DV cache runs at the same speed as the on-die L3 cache, and is contiguous with it. The CPU cores see 96 MB of transparent addressable L3 cache.

3DV cache is proven to have a profound impact on gaming performance with the Ryzen 7 5800X3D "Zen 3" processor that helped it beat "Alder Lake" in gaming workloads despite "Zen 3" being a generationally older microarchitecture; and AMD claims to have repeated this magic with the 7000X3D "Zen 4" series, enabling it to beat Intel "Raptor Lake." Unlike with the 5800X3D, AMD don't intend to make gaming performance a trade-off for multi-threaded creator performance, and so it is introducing even 12-core and 16-core SKUs, so you get gaming performance alongside plenty of muscle for creator workloads.