Facing poor sales of its Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors, and with the spectre of Intel's Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" looming, AMD is rumored to have given its desktop processor roadmap a shakedown. The company is working to rush in at least one of the three upcoming Ryzen 9000X3D series processor SKUs. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a successor to the popular Ryzen 7 7800X3D. It pairs the new "Zen 5" microarchitecture with 3D V-cache technology to boost gaming performance. AMD is allegedly rushing the 9800X3D for a late-October launch. If this chip meets its performance targets (of around 15-20% over the 9700X), then AMD hopes it could take the edge off Intel's Core Ultra 200-series.

Launch of a Ryzen 9000X3D series product-stack became inevitable when AMD confirmed that the "Zen 5" CCD has silicon-level preparation for 3D V-cache (such as TSVs over the region with the on-die L3 cache that interface with the stacked L3D silicon), however, it was expected that the non-X3D Ryzen 9000 series, such as the 9700X, would perform close to the 7800X3D in games, giving AMD room to launch the 9800X3D in Q1-2025. Prior to the 7800X3D and Intel's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake," the Ryzen 7 7700X nearly matched the gaming performance of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and so something similar was expected of the 9700X. Of course things didn't go to plan, the 9700X fell significantly short of the 7800X3D in gaming, resulting in mixed reviews and low sales.

A PC enthusiast in Romania bagged a good deal on a used AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor they found on OLX, an P2P and B2B online marketplace. Only, this wasn't a 7800X3D. In fact, it wasn't even a processor—a complete paperweight. While you can't return stuff you found on OLX, for deals executed through the platform, there are fraud protection measures that can withhold funds to the seller. Unfortunately, as most P2P deals on platforms such as OLX or even eBay, the buyer and seller tend to negotiate a lower price to cut out the platform costs, and transact privately. This is how the enthusiast ended up with the dud. Der8auer discovered this, and offered to buy the processor from him.

Der8auer installed the processor and turned on the machine, and of course it wouldn't POST. So this isn't a case of a cheaper (but functional) processor being mislabeled and sold at a higher price. Der8auer then proceeded to de-lid the processor (remove its integrated heat spreader) to discover that it's a complete fake. There's not a shred of silicon under it. The IHS is designed to mimic the shape of the cIOD and CCD. Der8auer provided some quick tips on how to spot a fake: start with the substrate's solder-mask color—it should be green. The SMDs should have a thin sealant, which protect them in machines with extreme cooling solutions that can have condensation. The substrate itself is thin (under 1 mm), whereas the real chip has about 1.3 mm in substrate thickness. Lastly, look for font and alignment errors on the chip label, on the IHS itself. Be careful when looking for 7800X3D processors in the P2P market, ensure you either have a platform that can refund you, or use a mode of payment that can (such as Paypal). Find Der8auer's video in the source link below.

Prices of AMD's flagship desktop processor, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, dropped to under $500 for the first time, with Amazon listing it at $492. This 16-core/32-thread processor features 3D V-cache on one of its two 8-core CCDs, which gives it the gaming performance boost that the technology provides, while leaving its second CCD to sustain higher boost clocks, benefiting multithreaded productivity workloads. Is the 7950X3D a good buy at $492? In a recent interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD confided that the first wave of Ryzen 9000 "Zen 5" desktop processors, codenamed "Granite Ridge," don't quite beat the gaming performance of the company's 7000X3D processors, but are significantly faster at productivity workloads, which makes the 7950X3D a tempting buy at $492. Meanwhile, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the fastest desktop processor for gaming, is priced at $339.

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture won't beat the Ryzen 7000X3D series at gaming workloads, said Donny Woligroski, the company's senior technical marketing manager, in an interview with Tom's Hardware. The new "Zen 5" chips, such as the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X, will come close to the gaming performance of the 7800X3D and 7950X3D, but won't quite beat it. The new processors, however, will offer significant generational performance uplifts in productivity workloads, particularly multithreaded workloads that use vector extensions such as VNNI and AVX512. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains the fastest gaming desktop processor you can buy, it edges out even Intel's Core i9-14900KS, in our testing.

Given this, we expect the gaming performance of processors like the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X to end up closer to those of the Intel Core i9-13900K or i9-14900K. Gamers with a 7000X3D series chip or even a 14th Gen Core i7 or Core i9 chip don't have much to look forward to. AMD confirmed that it's already working on a Ryzen 9000X3D series—that's "Zen 5" with 3D V-cache technology, and is sounds confident of holding on to the title of having the fastest gaming processors. This doesn't seem implausible.

Last week, the Professional Gamers League (PGL) announced an interesting overhaul of tournament hardware—new systems will be fitted with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 graphics cards, then hooked up to BenQ ZOWIE XL2566K 24.5" 360 Hz gaming monitors. Their previous generation machines were (initially) designed around AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X processor, but the organization is leaving AM4 platforms behind: "PGL is excited to announce that our team has fully optimized upgraded gaming PCs in partnership with Afromnazareth, and we are ready to deliver an unparalleled esports experience at the PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024. At the heart of this cutting-edge setup is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor, explicitly chosen for its exceptional performance capabilities and ability to handle the demands of CS2. This processor is renowned for its superior gaming performance, offering players the speed, power, and efficiency required to perform at the highest levels of competition."

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a more straightforward upgrade—as an easy drop-in for the PGL's older AM4 platform machines, but a leap into new ecosystems will grant a bit of future-proofing. Team Red is expected to support AM5 across a couple of processor generations. PGL did upgrade systems with 5800X3D CPUs, due to player feedback—according to Tom's Hardware: "there was some discontent among players with the previous configuration with the Ryzen 9 5950X because, while the chip sports 16 Zen 3 execution cores, Counter-Strike 2 doesn't exploit the processor's prowess. Some players criticized PGL's poor processor choice for previous events, claiming lousy frame rates." Performance connoisseurs will be pleased to hear about the tournament organizer's new push into modern platforms—Silviu Stroie, PGL CEO, stated: "we have meticulously optimized this bespoke gaming setup to ensure that every participant experiences CS2 in the highest fidelity without compromise. The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU stands out as a game-changer in the esports arena, promising to elevate the competitive play of CS2 to new heights."

AMD's 12-core/24-thread Ryzen 9 7900X3D processor that comes with 3D Vertical Cache technology, is seeing a slew of price-cuts. The SKU appears to be trapped between the 8-core 7800X3D, which remains the fastest desktop processor for gaming; and the 16-core 7950X3D, which is AMD's flagship. A Newegg listing at $408 with a $20 discount coupon see its effective retail price drop to as low as $389, which is just $20 more than the 7800X3D.

Would you pay $20 for four more cores? The choice is not so simple. While the 7900X3D is a 12-core processor, it features a dual-CCD design, with a 6+6 core arrangement between the two CCDs. Just like with the 7950X3D, only one of the two CCDs has the 64 MB 3D Vertical Cache, or 96 MB of L3 cache; while the other is a regular "Zen 4" CCD with 32 MB of on-die L3 cache. AMD's chipset drives use UEFI CPPC preferred-core flagging to guide gaming workloads to the CCD with the 3D V-cache. While we haven't had a chance to test the 7900X3D, this chip is tested by Tom's Hardware to still be faster than the Core i9-13900K at gaming.

Bethesda on February 20 released the 1.9.67 path update for Starfield, which adds support for AMD FSR 3.0 performance enhancement, including frame generation. To celebrate this update, the game's developers are giving away an ultra-rare Collector's Edition bundle of Starfield-themed flagship AMD hardware. The bundle includes an AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX with a special paint-job; and an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which remains the fastest desktop processor for gaming. The RX 7900 XTX Starfield Collector's Edition card features a special cooler shroud and backplate design with design elements from the game; including some anodized aluminium fins in its heatsink in the game's colors. The Giveaway is open to residents of the US, Canada (excluding Quebec), Mexico, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. You don't need to purchase the game or any AMD hardware to be eligible. Simply follow the Starfield Twitter account, and reply to the Giveaway announcement tweet. One winner will be randomly chosen. Find all Giveaway rules here.

iBUYPOWER, a leading manufacturer of high-performance custom gaming PCs, today announced it has become the official PC of VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT) Americas, VCT Game Changers North America, and VCT Game Changers Brazil. As iBUYPOWER celebrates its 25th anniversary, the partnership amplifies and highlights iBUYPOWER's dedication and integral role in supporting esports players with quality and reliable tools to succeed in their craft.

The 'iBUYPOWER ACE' moment will bring added excitement and value to both professional players and their communities of fans throughout the 2024 VCT Americas schedule. To celebrate the iBUYPOWER ACE, a triumphant, high-skill, moment where a single player eliminates all five of the opposing team's players to achieve victory, iBUYPOWER will be unlocking PC giveaways for VCT Americas fans (currently available to residents of the United States and Canada).

MAINGEAR, the leader in premium-quality, high-performance gaming PCs, announces its 2024 preconfigured MG-1 gaming PCs, featuring the latest NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-Series SUPER GPUs. Designed to redefine the gaming experience, these newly announced pre-configured systems, starting at $1,199, offer enhanced performance, diverse options, more memory, larger SSD capacities, and can be had with Windows 11 Pro.

"Refreshing the MG-1 Series to feature the latest gaming hardware and components represents our ongoing commitment to delivering cutting-edge gaming experiences. With the latest Intel & AMD processors, NVIDIA GPUs, including the new SUPERs, and a broader range of options in the MG-1, MAINGEAR continues to set the standard for gaming excellence." - Wallace Santos, CEO of MAINGEAR.

AMD's 3D V-Cache technology utilizes blocks of SRAM stacked on top of the CPU logic die, where CPU cores reside, and allows the processor to access massive pools of cache for applications. However, using this extra level 3 (L3) cache as a RAM disk appears possible, where the L3 SRAM behaves similarly to a storage drive. A big disclaimer here is that this is only possible by exposing the L3 to the CrystalDiskMark benchmark, and no real-world applications can do it in a way that CrystalDiskMark. According to X/Twitter user Nemez (@GPUsAreMagic), the steps to replicate this procedure are: Obtaining an AMD Ryzen CPU with 3D V-Cache, installing OSFMount and creating a FAT32 formatted RAM disk, and running CrystalDiskMark, with values set to values to SEQ 256 KB, Queue Depth 1, Threads 16, and data fill to 0s instead of random.

The results of this experiment? Well, they appear to be rather stunning as the nature of L3 SRAM is that the memory is tiny but very fast and accessible to the CPU, so it can help load data locally before going to the system RAM. With AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the speeds of this RAM disk are over 182 GB/s for reading and over 175 GB/s for writing. In another test, shared by Albert Thomas (@ultrawide219), we managed to see RAM disk based on AMD Ryzen 7800X3D V-Cache, which scores a little less with over 178 GB/s read and over 163 GB/s write speeds. Again, CrystalDiskMark only performed these tests on small allocations varying between 16 MiB and 32 MiB, so no real-world workloads are yet able to utilize this.

AMD Ryzen processors with 3D Vertical Cache technology, denoted with the "X3D" brand extension on processor model numbers, are showing unexpected popularity numbers with close to a quarter of respondents to a TechPowerUp Frontpage Poll question saying that they use one. In August, we asked our readers if they use a Ryzen X3D processor. The question was "Are you using an AMD Ryzen X3D CPU with 3D V-Cache?" This was a few months into the launch of the Ryzen 7000X3D processor series that restored the gaming performance leadership for AMD against Intel's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors.

Since the poll went live in August, we've seen 31,862 responses. From these, 14,732, or 46% say that they use a classic Ryzen processor (one without 3D V-cache). followed by 9,780 or 31% saying they use an Intel processor; an impressive 4,316 or 14% saying they use a Socket AM4 Ryzen 5000X3D series processor (5800X3D or 5600X3D); followed by 3,034 or 10% saying they use the latest 7000X3D series "Zen 4" processors. The X3D series together make 7,350 votes, or 23%.

As a part of its promotional deal with Bethesda for the upcoming Starfield game, AMD has announced a limited edition release of both its Radeon RX 7900 XTX graphics card and its Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU. The latter is in all fairness a bit dull as far as limited editions go, as the only thing really limited is the packaging the CPU comes in. Despite being a limited production run of only 500 units, AMD didn't bother adding any extra marking on the CPU itself, making it less of a collectors edition than it could've been.

On the other hand, the Radeon RX 7900 XTX Starfield Special Edition gets a custom white shroud with a lot of little quirky bits of text on the card and an overall different feel to it compared to AMD's reference design cards. Again, we're looking at a limited run of 500 cards here too and it's not clear if these will be numbered or not. Neither product will be available to buy though, so the only way to get your hands on one or the other, is to enter one of multiple giveaways that either AMD or its partners will host in the near future. There's a video after the break with more details.

iBUYPOWER (iBP), a leading manufacturer of high-performance custom gaming PCs, today, announced its partnership and expanded product offering with Fractal Design, a world renowned, award-winning Scandinavian company known for innovative and clean aesthetic design philosophy within the premium PC case and accessory category.

Discover the latest custom configurator and prebuilt PC product offerings from iBP outfitted with Fractal Design cases that aim to satisfy consumers seeking a clean, efficient, and visually captivating desktop gaming PC aesthetic. These new systems provide exciting alternative choices for gamers and discerning customers who appreciate a refined and minimalistic look while still having a powerful and capable gaming system as part of their modern lifestyle.

AMD's cheapest Zen 4 X3D processor is shaping up to be its most popular. Sales numbers from Germany's Mindfactory posted by TechEpiphany seemingly shows the recently launched Ryzen 7 7800X3D outselling last year's Ryzen 7 5800X3D nearly 2:1, with 4,720 7800X3Ds selling to the 5800X3D's 2,510 over a few week period. While these figures show sales for only a single region, evidence for this momentum is reflected in other regional retailers as well as some global outlets. On Amazon, for example, the 7800X3D has made a frequent appearance on the top 10 best selling CPUs list, with the rest of the Zen 4 lineup trailing well behind. Newegg reports the 7800X3D to be among the top 5 best selling CPUs on the site at time of writing. Microcenter also shows the 7800X3D and 5800X3D side-by-side in seventh and eighth places respectively for popularity.

Despite recent troubles with the AM5 platform and Zen 4 X3D processors, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is proving to be quite a success for AMD. The 7800X3D in our review was shown to be one of the most efficient processors we've ever tested, and offered gaming performance at or near the top of the charts across the gauntlet of games and resolutions thrown at it. The staggered release of the 7000X3D lineup, with the 7950X3D and 7900X3D launching first and the 7800X3D launching later, gave early signals that AMD knew what they had and wanted to push as many early adopters away from the better value chip as they could. Pricing for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D has been steady since it released, however we've already seen retailers offering discounts on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D, as they presumably struggle to sell as well as the more aggressively positioned 7800X3D.

Earlier this month, AMD wrapped up the launch of its incredible Ryzen 7000X3D processor series, which storms the company's gaming performance competitiveness against Intel back to the top, setting it up for the crucial Spring-Summer season, when PC gamers tend to upgrade and play the latest games. The 3D Vertical Cache memory deployed on the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 7900X3D, and Ryzen 7 7800X3D, supercharges the gaming performance of these processors, and our testing has shown that the 7800X3D is all that an elite gaming PC build needs if all you're doing is playing games with some domestic productivity on the side; whereas the 7950X3D is for those into heavy content creation and application workloads besides gaming, which means AMD levels up to Intel on both fronts.

We have extensively covered the technical aspects of what 3D Vertical Cache is, and how it works, in our reviews of the 7950X3D and 7800X3D. It is a fast 64 MB slice of SRAM cache stacked on top of the 32 MB on-die L3 cache of "Zen 4" chiplets, which extends the L3 cache size to 96 MB. This has a profound impact on gaming workloads, as the CPU cores have more amount of game data at much lower latency than DRAM. As part of our coverage of the Ryzen 7000X3D processor series, we had the opportunity to interview AMD on some of the technical aspects of Ryzen 7000X3D processor series. We also took the opportunity to ask a few general questions about the Ryzen 7000 desktop processor series itself. You can also catch our interview with Robert Hallock, the former technical marketing head, for some additional questions that you may find relevant.

A newest leak shows more game benchmarks for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU that is scheduled to launch on April 6th. This time around, the results come from, what appears to be MSI's own internal testing results, claiming that optimizations can bring anywhere between 9 and 12 percent higher game performance compared to stock settings.

The list includes a total of eight games, tested at stock, EXPO DDR5-600, EXPO DDR5-6000 + High-Efficiency Mode, and EXPO DDR5-6000 + High-Efficiency Mode + Enhanced Mode Boost 3, showing gains of anywhere between 2 and 4 percent. The two modes are MSI profiles for Precision Boost Overdrive.

AMD has revealed more Ryzen 7 7800X3D gaming benchmarks ahead of the official launch scheduled for April 6th. AMD has previously shared some results comparing this 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7000X3D series SKU with Intel's Core i9-13900K or the predecessor, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, showing up to 24 and 30 percent performance increase.

Now, a new slide has been leaked online, which is a part of AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D review guide, comparing it once again with the Intel Core i9-13900K, but going head to head in several more games. At 1080p resolution and high settings, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is anywhere from 2 to 31 percent faster, but there are several games where the Core i9-13900K is also faster, such as CS:GO.