AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D will be available from March 12 for $699 and $599 respectively.
AMD
AMD announced today that its final two Zen 5 Ryzen 9000 3D V-Cache processors, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D, will be available starting March 12th and confirmed pricing.
The two new CPUs follow in the footsteps of the highly successful Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which launched in November and outsold nearly every other desktop processor combined thanks to lacklustre launches of other models from AMD itself and Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200 series.
Ryzen 9 9950X3D And 9900X3D Specs And Pricing
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D will cost $699, have a peak boost frequency of 5.7GHz and has 16 cores and 32 threads, which is the same as the current Ryzen 9 9950X. However, it will feature 64MB of 3D V-Cache, which like it’s predecessors, can offer improved performance in games.
However, this does mean that’s likely to perform similarly outside of games unlike the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which offered better performance here than its non X3D equivalent, the Ryzen 7 9700X, thanks to higher frequencies.
The Ryzen 9 9900X3D will feature 12 cores and 24 threads, which is the same as the Ryzen 9 9900X, but here, it only has a boost frequency of 5.5GHz compared to 5.6GHz so may perform slightly worse in some situations.
AMD’s 3D V-Cache processors have provided PC enthusiasts with some exciting products over the last few years with the first model, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D still being a popular choice amongst PC gamers. However, the fact it was configured to have the 3D V-Cache on top of its processor cores meant that it was often significantly slower than non 3D V-Cache models as AMD had to reign in its frequencies thanks to the 3D V-Cache acting as a thermal barrier to cooling the hot cores underneath.
The same was true but to a lesser extent with the Ryzen 7000 3D V-Cache models, but with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, it flipped the core module, otherwise known as a CCD, and the V-Cache so the latter now sits underneath, allowing the cores above to be cooled more effectively and operate at higher frequencies. This meant the Ryzen 7 9800X3D was far more potent outside of games.
AMD's new 3D V-Cache for its Ryzen 7 9800X3D
AMD
The hope is that rather than being gaming-focused processors, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D will actually be just as fast outside of games as their non 3D V-Cache counterparts, perhaps making them a good choice for those that create content or do other demanding tasks as well as play games. In fact, both models have a higher peak boost frequency than the Rzyen 7 9800X3D so they could perform even faster in games.
Reviews are expected to go live for the new models around the same time as their March.12 launch.