AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition Review: Ultimate No-Compromise CPU
| AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition - MSRP $899 The new Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition has higher power limits and packs a pair of 3D V-Cache equipped CCDs with a whopping 192MB of total L3 cache, making it AMD’s fastest desktop processor to date.
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Although it had been rumored for months, AMD didn’t officially unveil the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition until just a few weeks ago. If you missed the original announcement, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition features 3D V-Cache on both of its Core Complex Dies (CCDs), bringing the total amount of L3 cache on the chip to a massive 192MB. AMD’s desktop Ryzen processors with more than eight cores are built using dual CCDs, with a maximum of eight cores per die. To date, those processors featured 3D V-Cache on only one CCD. The 3D V-Cache boosts gaming performance of the chips, but the asymmetric nature of those processors necessitates some driver magic and creative scheduling to ensure workloads are assigned to the proper core(s) and CCD. That, however, won’t be the case with the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition. AMD has also tweaked a few other things to juice up the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition even further, but we’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We’ll cover all of the particulars shortly, but first let’s take a look at the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, check out its main features and specifications, and then we’ll get to some benchmarks.
On the surface, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition looks just like any other socket AM5 processors. It’s got the same heat spreader design and pad layout and drops into the same socket and motherboards as existing Ryzen 9000 series processors, assuming the motherboard’s UEFI / BIOS has been updated to support the chip and the motherboard’s power circuitry is up to snuff.
The only thing that differentiates the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition is the branding on the heat spreader; other than that, there’s no telling it apart from its predecessors. There are a few different things going on under the hood, though.
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition Specifications And Features
This list of specifications compares and contrasts the existing Ryzen 9 9950X3D to the new 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, and it tells much of the story. The new Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition has a 100MHz lower max boost clock, but 64 more megabytes of L3, thanks to an additional slab of 3D V-Cache bonded to the second CCD on the processor, which brings the total amount of L3 to 192MB. Along with that massive allotment of L3, AMD also cranked up the TDP and various power limits for the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition. While this doesn’t allow the chip to boost to higher frequencies than the original Ryzen 9 9950X3D, it does allow the 9950X3D2 Dual Edition to maintain high boost clocks for longer periods of time. That ability to maintain higher typical clocks for longer periods, in addition to holding much more data closer to the processor cores, which increases cache hits and minimizes transactions across the main memory interface, should offer a nice performance lift in many workloads.
Since the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition has a symmetrical design, with 3D V-Cache on both of its CCDs, it no longer needs to rely on the same driver optimizations as its predecessors. To ensure games and other workloads that benefit from the 3D-Vache actually run on their correct CCD, some driver wizardry was required with the original Ryzen 9 9950X3D and its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. With AMD's chipset drivers and those processors installed, an ‘AMD 3D V-Cache Performance Optimizer’ entry will be visible in Windows Device Manager and Task Manager. This service monitors workloads on the system and ensures games are run on the CCD with 3D V-Cache, while the other CCD is dynamically parked. Workloads that benefit most from higher frequencies prioritize the standard CCD but still have access to all CPU resources. With the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition, that additional software layer is no longer necessary—both CCDs on the processor behave similarly.
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition CPU-Z Details
AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D Dual Edition CPU-Z Details
If we look closely at the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition's CPU details, there’s 16 total processor cores (32 threads), with 80K of L1 cache per core (48K D-Cache [12-way] + 32K I-Cache [8-way]) and 1MB of L2 cache per core, which is 16-way set associative. Standard Ryzen 9000 series processors also feature 32MB of L3 cache per compute die, but with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, both of its compute dies are outfitted with an additional 64MB of 3D V-Cache, bringing the total L3 up to 192MB (208MB total L2 + L3 cache).
That massive L3 cache allows the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition to keep lots of data close to the CPU cores and boost game performance. But the additional tweaks to the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition can help general performance as well. How much does it help? Let's find out on the pages ahead...
