What is Ryzen X3D?

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AMD Ryzen X3D technology first debuted on the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which was released on April 20th, 2022. Technically, Ryzen X3D is a technology, but that technology leads to physical chip changes. So it’s kind of a grey area between technology and a physical thing.

Now Read: What is Ryzen AI?

X3D is an abbreviation of the Extended 3D Technology (EXT), a feature found on some Ryzen CPUs. Ryzen X3D is the name given to AMD Ryzen CPUs that carry the new 3D V-Cache technology.

Update: AMD revealed the release date of the 7000 X3D CPUs on YouTube. The release date for the Ryzen 7000 X3D series is the 28th of February 2023. All apart from the 7800X3D, which will release on the 6th of April.

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How does 3D V-cache improve performance?

3D V-cache technology in AMD processors allows us to further increase the performance in games over none X3D processors – such as Intel’s lineup and plain X Ryzen CPUs.

Processing of any kind, not just in games favors a massive cache to dip into rather than having to access the system’s memory. System memory is much slower than a CPU cache, as a CPU cache is constructed physically close to CPU cores on the CCD, making access almost instantaneous.

The more CPU cache, the more information can be loaded and stored there. saving the CPU precious nanoseconds of access time. In CPU terms, a nanosecond is a long time. It seems like there’s no downside to adding 3D V-cache to CPUs, why doesn’t every CPU have it?

There is a big downside to 3D V-cache as we will explain below.

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What is 3D V-cache?

V-Cache is a feature that utilizes a dedicated high-speed memory buffer to cache vertex data, which is used to improve the performance of 3D graphics applications.

The 3D V-Cache technology is built into the AMD Ryzen processors and can help to reduce the amount of data that needs to be transferred between the main memory and the graphics processing unit (GPU), resulting in faster rendering times and increased overall performance for 3D graphics-intensive applications such as video games, animation, and video rendering.

The 3D part originates from the stacked cache portion of the technology. Cache in “X3D CPUs is stacked vertically on top of the CCD, not laterally. This allows AMD to utilize much more cache, within the same footprint. Imperative as these method does not sacrifice access speeds as laterally stacked cache does.

The 5800X3D managed to clock in with 96MB total L3 cache, 64MB of which being the new 3D V-cache.

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The downside to 3D V-cache

The unfortunate downside to 3D V-cache is that it’s an incredibly sensitive technology. It’s both sensitive to high temperatures and high CPU core speeds (high voltages), the two are directly related.

These sensitivities make the 3D V-cache unstable at higher voltages, because of the extra accumulated heat a fast CPU core causes. This is why the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is locked to overclocking in the traditional sense. And is locked at a lower clock speed than its brother, the 5800X.

The 5800X3D has a base and boot clock speed of 3.5GHz and 4.5GHz respectively. Whereas the 5800X has core speeds of 3.8Ghz and 4.7GHz. And is unlocked to overclock manually.

This unfortunate downside makes X3D CPUs worse at workstation workloads such as rendering, content creation, or simulations. However, the CPUs are much more proficient in gaming. The 5800X3D managed to beat the 12900Ks in gaming workloads.

It is unknown yet whether or not the Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs will be unlocked for overclocking.

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What is Ryzen X3D?: Final word

So, Ryzen X3D is here to stay, this new technology brings massive gains in gaming workloads, however, it’s not without disadvantages. The 3D V-cache means the CPU is limited on how fast the CPU cores can spin up to because of the V-cache temperature sensitivity.

If you’re after a pure gaming CPU, then one of the upcoming Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs might be to your liking. If you want an AMD workhorse that’s a good all-rounder, just stick to the X CPUs.