AMD is reportedly planning to release its new lineup of Ryzen 9000 X3D CPUs in September 2024, a few months after the first Zen 5 chips are unleashed, and this time the chip maker says its 3D V-cache is going to be “even better” than on its current lineup of X3D processors. The news comes after AMD officially lifted the lid on its forthcoming lineup of Zen 5 AMD Ryzen CPUs at Computex, which it says are going to be released in July 2024.
AMD’s 3D V-cache is used in the company’s best gaming CPUs, which have the ‘X3D’ suffix at the end of their model names, and include a big helping of extra cache on top of the CPU cores. In our Ryzen 7 7800X3D review, we found that this tech substantially increased frame rates in some games, and it’s hoped that the next generation of AMD X3D CPUs will be even better for gaming.
Let’s start with the scheduling – the AMD Ryzen 9000 X3D release date is September 2024, according to the latest reports, coming two months after the non-X3D Zen 5 lineup in July. AMD hasn’t officially confirmed this news, but UK tech site Club386 claims it’s spoken to a “trustworthy” source on the show floor at Computex who revealed the release month.
Of course, this release month hasn’t been officially announced by AMD, so take this with a pinch of salt at the moment, but AMD has confirmed that it will definitely be releasing X3D CPUs based on the Zen 5 architecture. We’re expecting the 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 12-core Ryzen 9 9900X3D to come first, followed by the eight-core Ryzen 7 9800X3D later, based on the previous Zen 4 X3D release schedule.
Meanwhile, AMD has also dropped some hints about what to expect from its new Zen 5 X3D CPUs. The company’s senior technical marketing manager, Donny Woligroski recently enthused about the forthcoming CPUs in a chat with PC Gamer, saying that the company is working to make 3D V-cache “even better” in these new chips than in previous iterations.
According to Woligroski, AMD is “working actively on really cool differentiators” with the latest implementations of 3D V-cache, adding that “we’re working on X3D, we’re improving it,” and noting the company is “not just resting on laurels.” While there are no specifics mentioned about what these changes will bring, Woligroski describes them as “really exciting.”
One change that I’d welcome would be implementing 3D V-cache on multiple core chiplet dies in the same CPU, so that all the cores in the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D could access a big stack of extra cache. Currently, CPUs such as the Ryzen 9 7900X3D only have 3D V-cache on six of its 12 cores, as it’s only stacked on top of one of the two chiplets under the hood. Is it possible that AMD has also speeded up the cache, with plans to add even more of it than previously? We’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, you can read all about the latest news straight from the Computex show floor in our Computex news hub, including all the official details on AMD Zen 5 that were announced in the keynote.