AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU hits 5.7Ghz, has 144MB of 3D V-Cache

With last year's Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD turned its long-awaited 3D V-Cache technology into a reality. That innovation allowed the company to stack more cache onto its CPUs, something that's particularly helpful for demanding tasks like games. Unfortunately, AMD wasn't able to reach the same clock speeds as the original 5800X, which made the chip tough for some reviewers to recommend. Now, it appears that AMD has (mostly) solved that problem.

Today at CES, AMD unveiled its first Ryzen 7000 CPUs with 3D V-Cache, the 8-core Ryzen 7 7800X3D with 104MB of combined L2 and L3 cache, the 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X3D with 140MB of cache, and the king of them all, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D with a whopping 144MB of cache. What's truly impressive about the 7950X3D and 7900X3D, though, is that they can also reach the full 5.7GHz and 5.6GHz boost speeds of their 2D counterparts. Their base speeds are a bit slower, to be clear, but they shouldn't feel like the step down the 5800X3D was.

It remains to be seen how much of an upgrade these chips will be, but cache-hungry gamers will likely be intrigued. AMD says the new V-Cache CPUs will be available in February, but there aren't any pricing details just yet.

AMD also rounded out its Ryzen 7000 desktop family, which initially launched last year, with a slew of 65-watt chips coming on January 10th. Those include the 12-core Ryzen 9 7900 ($429), the 8-core Ryzen 7 7700 ($329) and the 6-core Ryzen 5 7600 ($229). Not everyone needs 3D V-Cache, after all.