At the beginning of the month, AMD released the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which became the fastest gaming processor and was received much better than the regular Zen 5 architecture models that premiered in August. In addition to the 9800X3D model, AMD is also preparing a twelve-core and a sixteen-core model for those who also need high multithreaded performance for activities outside of games. For those, it was speculated whether they would not have V-Cache on all CPU cores. Now we have the answer to that.
9900X3D and 9950X3D in January
And the answer is unfortunately no (or, unfortunately, at least for those who expected this solution). While there was a report on the techPowerUp website some time ago, according to which the 12-core and 16-core models were supposed to have V-Cache under both CPU chiplets, this was apparently less than speculation. It was a misunderstanding of the Chinese information that appeared on the Benchlife website, which itself did not claim such a thing.
That it was a mistake is now claimed by the relatively proven leaker Hoang Anh Phu. Accordingly, AMD already has the Ryzen 9 9900X3D (12-core) and Ryzen 9 9950X3D (16-core) scheduled for release in late January. It is possible that these processors will be revealed or announced already during CES 2025 at the beginning of the month, but the actual release with availability in stores will probably not be until the end of the month. So these processors are roughly two months away.
3D V-Cache still only has half cores
When asked if the processors will have additional 3D V-Cache on both CPU chiplets with cores, Hoang Anh Phu said no and the concept will remain the same as in the Ryzen 7000X3D generation. This means that one of the chiplets with half the cores (eight or six depending on the model) will have a 96MB L3 cache and its frequency will probably have a maximum similar to that of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D (officially 5.2 GHz, unofficially maybe 50-100 MHz more ).
The second chiplet with the other half of the cores will be ordinary, equipped only with a standard 32MB block of L3 cache. However, the cores in this chiplet will be able to go to a higher voltage and reach similar maximum clocks (5.6-5.7 GHz as non-X3D models).
As in the previous generation, a software solution will be used to ensure that cache-friendly games are placed on the X3D half of the cores, while application software benefiting from a higher frequency will be able to run on standard cores – the goal is that you ideally have in terms of performance, the best of both worlds, which was not the case with X3D processors without this hybrid solution.
However, in order to function correctly, you need to have AMD chipset drivers installed, Windows 11 and the Xbox Game Bar, which is in charge of detecting games (and you can use it to manually switch the preference for a given program or game). We described it here:
Although this solution does not look elegant and symmetrical, in practice it is probably still more suitable than if the CPU were homogeneous with 3D V-Cache under all cores. Such Processors would inevitably have lower performance in common single-threaded programs. Some tasks, such as technical calculations (which would have a total of 192 MB of L3 cache) would probably suit them anyway, but there are probably not that many of them and they will probably be in the minority for ordinary desktop PC users. An option for clocked applications could be the Threadrippers 9000, which are said to also have models with 3D V-Cache. However, it will be quite an expensive alternative.
Even Ryzen processors with 3D V-Cache would probably be a bit more expensive if they carried 192 MB (96 + 96 MB) of L3 Cache. Equipping two chiplets with V-Cache would logically increase production costs. Thus, such a variant would be slightly less attractive in the gaming market, which is the primary target of the Ryzen “X3D”.
Source: VideoCardz
Source: www.cnews.cz
