X3D remains king of gaming despite Ryzen 9000 series launch – AMD confirms
The Ryzen 7 7800 X3D will beat the new 9700X in games, but its closer than expected
When AMD revealed their Ryzen 9000 series, they promised to deliver the “fastest consumer desktop performance in the world” with their Ryzen 9 9950X. Notably, AMD never mentioned that their new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs were the fastest gaming processors, and Tom’s Hardware managed to question AMD’s senior technical marketing manager, Donny Woligroski about this topic. In short, at least for now, AMD’s Ryzen 7 7800 X3D remains as AMD’s top gaming CPU.
Donny Woligroski has confirmed that AMD’s X3D technology is enough to give their V-Cache enhanced Zen 4 CPUs a gaming edge over their Ryzen 9000 non-X3D counterparts. That said, Woligroski has confirmed that their AMD’s new CPUs perform closer to last-gen X3D models than many gamers would expect.
What is X3D? AMD’s 3D chiplet technology has allowed AMD to stack an extra silicon die on top of their Ryzen processors to add new features. So far, AMD has used this tech to add extra L3 cache (V-Cache) to their CPUs. With Zen 3 and Zen 4, this V-Cache has upgraded Ryzen CCDs from having 32MB of L3 cache to 96MB. This upgrade can deliver huge performance gains in gaming workloads.
AMD has always marketed their X3D technology as a gaming-focused upgrade. As such, AMD’s X3D CPUs have always been popular amongst gamers. In fact, AMD have confirmed that their Ryzen 9000 series CPUs will get a V-Cache upgrade. Yes, even better Zen 5 gaming CPUs are coming!
Is it the fastest in gaming? It’s faster than the competition in our tests. X3D is still the king of the hill, but by a much smaller margin than typically between X3D and non-X3D.
So a 7800X3D would, yes, be faster than 9700X, but maybe not by as much as you would expect.
They Ryzen 9000 series will get next-generation X3D upgrade
With Zen 5, AMD aren’t giving their CPUs the same X3D upgrade as before. AMD’s Donny Woligroski has confirmed that they have some “really cool updates” coming to their next-gen X3D chips. While they have not confirmed what changes their next-gen X3D tech will deliver, we should expect Zen 5’s V-Cache upgrade to be the biggest one yet. AMD are not resting on their laurels with Zen 5 X3D.
And then when it comes to X3D, and I’ll just get around that now, we’re super committed to X3D. In fact, we have some really, really cool updates to X3D coming. So we’re working on iterating and not just rehashing it,
The Ryzen 7 7800X3D won’t remain the king for long
Rumour has it that AMD could be giving their Ryzen 9000 series CPUs a 3D chiplet upgrade as early as September. This would place give AMD a stronger gaming offering ahead of Intel’s likely Arrow Lake launch at Intel Innovation 2024. This will finally de-throne the Ryzen 7800X3D as AMD’s top gaming CPU. This will be thanks to AMD’s added L3 cache, and whatever other upgrade AMD can deliver with their 3D-stacked chiplet tech.
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