Ever since 2019 when Ryzen 3000 launched, AMD has struggled with Intel for the gaming crown, which has traded hands multiple times in recent years. But today, it's back in AMD's hands once again with the launch of the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D, the first Ryzen 7000 CPUs with 3D V-Cache technology. The 16-core and 12-core CPUs are primarily focused on gaming but can also be used for core-intensive workloads, though the regular 7950X and 7900X are slightly more suitable and are cheaper.
The consensus with AMD's new chips is generally positive. Some reviewers found that the 7950X3D was on average sometimes as much as 30% faster than the standard 7950X. However, it's not so clear that Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs have a clear advantage in every game, as other games yield much smaller performance benefits with these new processors.
The 7950X3D and 7900X3D bring a weird combination to the table: much larger cache but lower clock speeds. Games generally benefit from higher clock speeds, but they like cache even more, and although the tradeoff is usually worth it, sometimes the performance gains aren't very large. In some rare cases, there are actually performance losses.
Perhaps the more midrange Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which launches on April 6 for $450, will be a more appealing product and even better than the 7950X3D outright. The reasoning is simple: the 7800X3D has one chip with CPU cores while the 7950X3D has two, but both CPUs only have one V-Cache chip, meaning only half of the 7950X3D's cores have immediate access to the extra cache. Still, if you'd like the top-tier models or you don't want to wait, you can buy the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and 7900X3D below.
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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU is a 16-core chip equipped with 3D V-Cache technology, allowing it to be one of the best CPUs for both gaming and productivity. With its massive 128MB L3 cache and extremely high turbo clock speed of 5.7GHz, this premium processor can tackle all graphically taxing games with ease.
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AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D
AMD's Ryzen 9 7900X3D is a high-end gaming and productivity CPU with 12 cores and 3D V-Cache. It's primarily for gaming but can also perform well in core-intensive workloads.
