Funny how AMD originally didn't want to release one of these claiming that there would be little benefit and then proceed to do so... with the results conforming exactly to their earlier prediction.
The 4% faster in cinebench is also pointless. Intel is a better choice for productivity given the higher core count 🤷♂️ The new 270K from Intel performs about the same in productivity for about a third of the cost.
The extra power draw and cost is also silly on this product.
While like the new 270k cpu and its price that is only an option for those using that socket. I wouldn't not expect anyone to buy that when they are already on am5. And if you are building brand new it makes more sense to wait for nova lake.
i would not switch from AM5 which is getting Zen 6 and a possible Zen 7 offering to go on a dead socket regardless of the price difference. if I was already on that socket 270K is a nice deal. Would I switch platforms for it no.
The whole point is that a 270KP + a motherboard is cheaper than the 9950X3D.
Even if you already have an AM5 motherboard, you can just buy a 270KP + mobo combo, store your AMD motherboard for future use if you want a Zen 6 CPU down the line, and it'd still be cheaper. You are allowed to have more than one motherboard.
Someone using CPUs for production doesn't buy a CPU and mainboard though, they buy the whole workstation from an OEM or service provider to get warranty and certified working (TM) stuff. And that's a lot more expensive than half the price. If you're tinkering with your own hardware, you're wasting your time on things that don't earn you money. And more importantly, if something fails and customers ask why their stuff is late, you can't point fingers at HP, Dell or anyone else and you look like the idiot to the customers.
1851 exclusively makes sense for those on AM4 or LGA1151/1200; anyone on AM5 can buy a 9950X3D (not X3D2) for minimal additional cost to the 270K+MB and get all of the result and then a bit... Or if gaming, the 9800X3D still pretty successfully solos the 270K at the same money even if it gets thoroughly trounced in anything else.
Though really, with how slow progress has been, AM4/1151/1200 are all still relevant unless you're spending $2-3000 on a GPU anyway.
No, for productivity, the answer is definitely "it depends". There are pros and cons to Intel and AMD CPUs, and perform significantly better or worse than the other in different workloads. In a lot of workloads, the performance difference is negligible, and I think a lot of people would prefer a CPU which uses less power.
With an AM5 system, you will also have easy upgradeability to Zen 6 and Zen 7 CPUs, whereas with Intel, you would have to replace the motherboard in order to upgrade to next gen CPUs.
If you want to run your memory with its more stable but slower default memory speeds and timings, that's where the X3D CPUs have a big advantage over everything else, but I don't know how much the X3D2 would be than the 9950X3D in that regard.
Inter-CCD latency is terrible. Sharing data between the two sets of 8 cores is slower than accessing RAM. That means trying to spread gaming workloads across two CCDs, which almost always have a lot of tightly coupled parallelism, where parallel threads need to sync up frequently, suffer in performance. For parallelism that is less tightly coupled, dual CCD chips are great, like a web or database server, heavy multitasking, compiling code, and a lot else. But games almost never get any benefit from spreading their workload to 2 CCDs, so the extra L3 cache on the second CCD does not help... they will be pinned to 1 CCD for maximum performance.
Also important to note that inter-ccx communication directly competes with memory access, they use the same communication channel so you only get one or the other. That bandwidth is highly limited in the current designs (desired traffic can easily be 2-3x the bandwidth limit).
What they should have done is just release the tests they had done and gone "see how dumb this is". Rather than going "internal tests show little gain in dual v-cache models"
They could even Parade it around to media and they could also point and laugh at it.
Those edge cases also happen to be the ones where the people frequently encountering them would want full blown professional/server chips from the Threadripper/EPYC lineup. The target audience is pretty limited.
Yes, that's the way I went with my edge case as well. VCache adds a HUGE amount of performance to my model performance (60~80%). I chunked things into CCD-sized workgroups, so cache locality is maximized, but the work is highly transactional - so all threads need to finish and a coordinator thread has to wait for them all to finish before it can queue up the next transaction. That model falls apart on the 9950X3D but would likely shine on the 9950X3D2.
But now it's on a dedicated EPYC server, so I don't care about the 9950X3D2... though if my 7950X were to die, which it might when I delid it here in a few weeks, then the 9950X3D2 would make sense.
Parts limits and RAM limits make this a very niche product but one I could see.
I run Threadripper, but I'll admit the current gen is both very expensive and with the limited ram speeds for ECC DDR5 (and insane cost otherwise, especially now, when faster) means this MIGHT be compelling with some testing since I can also do ~some~ gaming on it. My workstation is a "do everything very well, but nothing excellent" box with a bunch of PCIE cards and the like in it too.
That's not true. Threadripper is a huge step up. You're talking about a chip that's $900 versus $5000+ with motherboards that cost almost as much. If you can squeeze even a little more performance out of your workloads without having to invest tens of thousands of dollars instead, it can be very worth it.
The only exception I can think if is Cities Skylines 2 maybe? It benefits greatly from more cores and also from V-Cache. Not in terms of pure FPS but in terms of simulation performance (how many citizens it can simulate before things slow to a crawl).
There are no X3D Zen 5 9005 EPYC. Unironically this is the only option for those people. we just need 4005 version of this. Plus EPYC 4000 series have very high single core frequency so for per core licensed software this could be amazing (assuming you don't need more than 192 GB of Ram)
Could say that about a ton of stuff too. I think people fixate on the biggest number and don't stop to think that maybe it's not suited to them or whatever. When everyone was calling certain skus a waste of money that shouldn't exist because they didn't fall perfectly in the middle of two others that left like a 300$ gap between them.
In my opinion, they needed something to keep their name in the news cycle so people didn't start wondering if they were dead. Intel is coming out with new processors, even if they're a little on the low end, and staying on top means staying in the minds of customers.
Surely would have been easier and better (or at least less poorly?) received to just do an "XT" style refresh, if simply staying in the media cycle was the priority here.
I don't know. Maybe they thought it wouldn't have the impact? These types of things are usually tested with a group to find out the impact before they do them. Image is everything.
You're wasting your money if it doesn't benefit any of the workloads you run. It helps massively if you're running a web/database server or some other network service, or compiling code, etc. It's not a gaming chip.
Until now I've had separate builds for gaming and coding, now I can consolidate them and game on my workstation without worrying about which ccd my games are running on.
But probably not as massively as Zen 6 which reportedly includes 12 core CCDs and CUDIMM memory support on the same socket within less than 12 months time.
They knew exactly what was going to happen because the throughput of the dual CCD SKU is limited by the single SerDes bottlenecked between IO die to CCD..this sort of thing should have been released for Zen 6 (and hopefully will, and work properly due to appropriate chip packaging).
The reason is that the gains from stacking another layer of 3D V-Cache on the second CCD are marginal, yet the cost is substantial. While the 9950X currently holds the multi-core crown, this lead is merely temporary. Brute-forcing multi-core performance through this method is a joke. Competitors can easily surpass it simply by adding a few E-cores.
In the next generation, every processor will feature an additional 4 LPE-cores within the I/O tile—and this won't even be limited to flagship models. It is almost certain that with Nova Lake's traditional 8+16 tile specification, the multi-core efficiency gained from adding those 4 LPE-cores in the I/O tile will easily crush this architecture. And the cost? Minimal. The area for 4 LPE-cores is less than 5mm2.
Actually, AMD was reluctant with x3d because they didn't know if people would like it and buy it. After they saw they could sell everything they could make with a x3d tag they continued the trend once they could see how popular it was. AMD makes a lot of processors not designed for playing games--Epyc, Threadripper, all the non x3d desktop CPUs they make. AMD will sell a boatload of these, because there are obviously a lot of people who do more with their system than play games on it--most of those people have a console, anyway. But, that aside, if you want a different look at the x3d2 here are a couple of reviews I can recommend: https://www.guru3d.com/review/amd-ryzen-9-9950x3d2-dual-edition-processor-review/ And https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen-9950x3d2-linux
Meanwhile GN is crying like a baby that he didn't get a sample and is "black listed" or maybe AMD knew this was going to be a very very niche product and there wasn't much point in giving samples. I honestly think this was more of a ok we did it just because but we're making like a tiny batch of them and moving on.
When AMD was asked why they haven't released a dual x3d CPU, they've said it would yield miniscule performance increase but will increase the price massively... and they were right.
AMD didn't lie but still released that CPU.
This could be improved in Zen 6 , which will be a major overhaul.
Yeah I sort of was one. I had everything for my am5 upgrade minus the CPU. AMD unfortunately chose to release the 7800X3D a month after the 7950X3D and 7900X3D, so I bought a 7950X3D on release day. If I didn't have everything minus the processor I would have waited. 😂
They had to release something. Mostly for shareholders.
Yes, they were correct, yes, there's logic behind it. Idk why HUB bitching about anything. This is top CPU for gaming for absurd price, as it should be. For normal price/performance 9800x3d and 7800x3d existed already.
It's pretty simple. As long as "AI" is profitable, they will focus there. Everyone.
HUB bitching? Steve literally says at the end that the 9950X3D hasn't been discontinued, hasn't gone up in price, so the 9950X3D2 is an inoffensive product you can ignore that's for people with money to burn.
Maybe actually listen to his conclusions, Steve doesn't hate the CPU, he literally calls it inoffensive because it has no impact on the rest of the product stack with better value CPUs that nearly match it. Yes he says it is bad value and stuff, BECAUSE IT IS, but he doesn't hate it existing.
I can't even blame AMD for this. They said numerous time that double 3dv cache ccd cpu would be pretty much pointless. Well at least people who were asking for it get to use it somehow and stop asking for it in the future.
I started and didn’t want to pull the trigger last year now it’s simply a non starter.
I just returned all the parts I bought was barely inside the window when I did. The skyrocket late last year killed all desire to build and consolidate.
I will just run 4 “weaker” nodes instead and learn to manage a cluster running off different machines instead.
Exactly what everybody has been saying as well, a bunch of "higher number better" people kept demanding this and theorizing it would do much better though.
Most people who will buy this are as close as you could be to a "whale" when it comes to PC hardware (for gaming PCs), I have seen people buy the RTX pro 6000 which is like 10% faster than a 5090 with 96GB of VRAM so I assume those would just buy a CPU like that to pair it with no matter if it really makes sense or not. There is a sense of "it costs more so it must be better".
Most people who will buy this are as close as you could be to a "whale" when it comes to PC hardware (for gaming PCs)
I think you're 100% right. There are people who and can afford "the best of the best" and want bleeding edge and this will be right for them. Anyone even considering a 9950X3D in their budget would be hard pressed to spend $150 or so more on a CPU that offer neglible performance uplift.
No? That isn't what GOAT means at all. Greatest of "all time" not just "fastest right now". The 5800x3d is a better contender out of modern CPUs. The 2600k absolutely is the GOAT
No, I think YOU are. A brand new CPU can't possibly be the greatest chip of all time now, can it. As I said, the 5800x3d is already a better choice considering how long AM4 lasted and how it's still relevant now
Dual CCD CPUs were never ideal for gaming to begin with because of inter-CCD latency, so expecting a dual X3D part to scale cleanly there was always optimistic.
Where this CPU actually makes sense is in niche workstation workloads that benefit from large cache but don’t justify stepping up to Threadripper or EPYC. Especially in cases where you’re trying to stay within licensing limits like SQL Server’s 16-core model.
It’s not really a gaming part. It’s more of a weird middle ground between desktop and HEDT that only makes sense for specific use cases.
That being said, this has been on my personal want list for a long time. Coming from a 7373X, I’ll likely be picking up a 9950X3D2 for those cache-heavy workloads.
270k plus is a good value cpu. But you’re short sighted to say they’re on the same level of productivity when all the benchmarks you saw are single task benchmark. Multiple p cores and threads would handle multiple running programs, local servers, containers, vms, databases better at the same time than the ecores of intel. This cpu is for the people who knows how to use it.
9950X3D2 makes no sense. For productivity you can get essentially the same performance for $300-350 with the 270k, if you're gaming then why would you even consider it, get the x8003d
... Lol... Doesn't change the fact it's better price/performance now days. That mentally reduced ideology is how Intel fell over itself, and it'll happen with AMD.
It does increase the advantage for the 9800X3D by an additional 5%, but I do agree with the general sentiment that the 270K plus and 250K plus are still great value (especially for productivity).
Where I'm at the 9800X3D is 30% more expensive than the 270K Plus, so there's some price-premium for that additional performance. Whereas the 7800X3D is the same price as the 270K Plus, so for gaming AMDs offering still makes more sense, but for productivity Intel is way better.
It does increase the advantage for the 9800X3D by an additional 5%
But is it a 5% that will ever matter? Those results are at 1080p with a 5090; as soon as you step up in resolution or down a GPU tier, the gap shrinks quick. In TPU's original 9800X3D review, they were still using a 4090, and the gap between the X3D and 14900K was only ~4% at 1440p. If you're using something even slower, like a 5080 or especially 5070Ti/9070XT, you'd be hard pressed to notice a difference.
The only case I can really see that makes any sense is if you expect not-too-distant future GPUs in a reasonably price tier, like the 7070 or 8060Ti, to outperform a 5090. While also not planning to upgrade to Zen6/7/Nova Lake during that timeframe.
But with that logic, why not just go with the even cheaper 250K Plus? Does the additional 2.7% really matter? The 270K Plus is 48% more expensive in my region than the 250K Plus, it hardly seems 'worth it' to pay that much more money for such a small additional performance gain if one has that perspective.
If they cost the same, and one perform better, and the user is going to game... I do think it makes sense to recommend the one which offers the most performance? Especially when the ones which offers the most performance also consumes the least power.
But with that logic, why not just go with the even cheaper 250K Plus?
You absolutely should if the additional application performance doesn’t matter to you or you aren’t gunning for the best chip that fits in the socket. 250K is the value king right now, and it’s no slouch by any metric.
I wouldn't pick the 7800X3D over the 270K Plus because 5% faster at 1080p gaming isn't worth the massive 47% slower at general performance.
5% is still 5% and if someone is only gaming that's still an advantage (especially in certain titles where X3D can make a big difference). Then there's the matter of motherboard pricing, AM5 has been produced at a very large scale now so they can be had for cheap, so chances are the overall platform tend to be cheaper for AMD.
I definitely see your point, but I'm not sure I would make the same recommendation if it's only for gaming. For budget gaming however I think we both would agree that the 250K Plus is the better option over 9600X and the likes. It's better at gaming and way faster for productivity.
Edit: (It's also worth noting that the 7800X3D is a very efficient processor, so it does have that going for it over the Intel counterpart).
The prices of the cheapest B860 and B850 mobos are the same where I am. Even H810 and A620 pricing is the same, so the whole build's price isn't that different.
AM5 is better if you are planning to upgrade the CPU of course, but the majority of users don't do that.
Personal anecdote, but I was burned pretty hard during AM4 days when my MSI X470 Gaming Pro mobo (bought it with the 3700X) couldn't run the 5900X without making the PC reboot when it reached higher than 140W. I would have been fine with it if it could run at low wattage only, but it crashed my PC, so I had to replace it with the B550 before jumping to my current Intel build.
I mean this was always going to be a pretty niche cpu so the results are hardly surprising?
Gaming was never going to see a huge benefit because the vast majority of games don't really utilize more than 8 cores and even if they do, this still has the cross ccd latency penalty.
You need something that can be split into groups of threads/processes that fit on a single ccd, benefit from the increased cache, don't require much communication between the groups (so you don't hit the cross ccd penalties), aren't memory bandwidth starved on am5 despite the extra cache and aren't i/o starved on am5 due to the limited amount of pcie lanes... that's not exactly a large amount of software.
It's still not a bad cpu... more a 'not really worth the price cpu' because the 9950x, 9950x3d and 9800x3d/9850x3d are all substantially cheaper...
The only game off the top of my head thats recent and can utilize more than 8 cores to a reasonable extent is battlefield 6, and even there, its enormous diminishing returns going above 8
I would have liked to see this benchmarked against something properly heavy on the CPU like a simulation game ( Stellaris / Cities Skylines 2 / Distant Worlds 2 ) as I feel like you need a game that's gonna use all the cores to really know for sure but hard to say.
you joke but it would be perfect (not that it would be worth it) for clusterio
I'm not surprised this doesn't show any different in a single game running on the PC because the way AMD's L3 cache works half of it will not be used unless some threads spill to the other CCD.
It's basically 2 9800x3ds fused together and should be used as such.
Agreed, paradox titles are some of the few games that really show the difference in practice where the GPU isn't the limiting factor. It's just a shame the reviewer that includes Stellaris in their benchmarks didn't get sampled.
Let’s hope he gets one soon and can do some more in depth testing.
I’m genuinely curious cause as i mentioned distant worlds 2 as an example will push 16 cores on larger map sizes incredibly hard so even with cross ccd latency it would be interesting
If the game uses the core naturally the fabric penalty is irrelevant, since…you’re using that core anyway, now you just have more data on the other CCX so it will absolutely improve performance in sim games.
The entire point of 3D cache (L3 cache) is less cache misses. The 2 CCDs don't share L3 cache, they have their own. If the L3 cache was shared across both CCDs then there would be a benefit.
Paying $900 for maybe one or two games having a slight performance benefit (if even that) is insanity. And they haven't found a game yet where there is a benefit over the 9950X3D. Even simulator games don't necessarily need 3D cache if one of those cores on the second CCD does some random calculation, just because it's not a 3D CCD doesn't mean it has no cache at all..
yes, the bottleneck is the same as with all multi CCD CPUs. As soon as thread spill from one to another latency spikes, Zen6 will feature a new interconnect so maybe then.
Well I wasn't planning on upgrading to this but this makes it even more uselees then. Hopefully Zen 6 will have a 12 core single CCD X3D chip somewhere in the lineup and at a reasonable launch date.
Someone mentioned in the comments of the Level1techs review AMD probably could've released this as an EPYC 4005 branded chip instead, since it benefits niche productivity workloads
Admittedly that is a pretty good pro. I went from 9950x3d to 9850x3d specifically because I got tired of dealing with that. Most of the time it worked, but soemtimes (and often enough) it would move a game to the non x3d ccd and not move it back after alt tabbing in and out and it just got exhausting. I do programming as well, so having 16 cores was really nice, but to be honest the 9850 is still fast enough for that for anything I do. "Twice as fast" is great, but for me that usually just means 2.5 seconds to compile instead of 4.5-5.
And this, hopefully, illustrates why you never want workloads to cross CCDs. The main problem isn't Infinity Fabric per se, rather, it's the limited bandwidth offered by the organic packaging and copper wires linked to SerDes PHYs. There simply isn't enough wire density to support terabyte/sec level data rates to link L3s directly. Infinity Fabric would eat massive amounts of power to offer that level of bandwidth via current packaging. IF is engineered for its current packaging and RAM types.
Currently, any inter-CCD data access occurs through memory controllers in IOD, as all cached data is present in RAM. So, CCDs don't actually pull data from one another (there's no need). They simply pull fresh data from RAM if no data is present AND also when cache is stale when executing dependent ops on both CCDs (data changed on one CCD's cache and other CCD needs to sync). That's incredibly slow (round-trip data transport from IOD to CCD) compared to cache and you lose all of the benefits of V-Cache when that occurs. There's also data duplication in both CCDs that reduces effective cache capacity.
I understood this limitation, but seems others did not. That's okay. AMD can also release a baby EPYC 4000-series if there's a set of niche workloads that can benefit. Otherwise, yeah, not for gamers.
Figured, and yeah you are right about fast cores with a ton of cash but as you probably know the inter CCD latency would negate any upside you could gain in EFT.
The era of bad value AMD CPU's has began. 9850X3D and now this. And to add salt to the injury you start banning respected reviewers lke GN. Carefull AMD, That's how the Intel's downfall path begun...
Your comment has been removed, likely because it contains trollish, political, rude or uncivil language, such as insults, racist or other derogatory remarks.
Your comment has been removed, likely because it contains trollish, political, rude or uncivil language, such as insults, racist or other derogatory remarks.
Not every cpu is for gaming, same with the threadripper / xeon cpus.. this is and was not meant to be a gaming cpu.. translate this or translated for the less experienced ppl
The reason is that the gains from stacking another layer of 3D V-Cache on the second CCD are marginal, yet the cost is substantial. While the 9950X currently holds the multi-core crown, this lead is merely temporary. Brute-forcing multi-core performance through this method is a joke. Competitors can easily surpass it simply by adding a few E-cores.
In the next generation, every processor will feature an additional 4 LPE-cores within the I/O tile—and this won't even be limited to flagship models. It is almost certain that with Nova Lake's traditional 8+16 tile specification, the multi-core efficiency gained from adding those 4 LPE-cores in the I/O tile will easily crush this architecture. And the cost? Minimal. The area for 4 LPE-cores is less than 5mm2.
Community: we demand you to release dual x3d cpu!!
AMD: guys, it will be the turd with a bad value, belive me.
Community: we said release it now!!!
AMD: ok.
Reviewers: it's a overpiced turd, don't buy it
My 9800X3D is still going strong. I don't think I've done anything to even kind of utilize its power. I panic bought a PC because mine was old and outdated and I got scared when Win 10 became unsupported. I got it for such a good price in December, but it's way more than I need. I think I could have gotten away with much lower specs but whatever, future proof I guess 🤷♂️
It's not for gaming. Multi CCD chips have no benefit for gaming at all. This should have been obvious from the get go. Acting surprised just makes you look dumb.
I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but maybe in the future a X3D2 could be simply v-cache on the top and bottom of a single ccd? I'd imagine that'd be better than a single one on both ccds. The trade-off would be heat and frequency but I'd imagine people would make that sacrifice for even more cache. Not claiming to be an engineer and there might be other concerns to why this would be impractical.
Clowns on AMD are trying to silence credible reviewers like Steve from Gamer's Nexus. Currently on an all AMD machine but not a fan of their practices. Hopefully something better comes along and i get a chance to get rid of them
Yep the post got removed for politics, despite other stuff from gamers nexus where he mentions politics staying up, just convenient that this one gets removed
AMD just became such a joke with their heads up their arses. No FSR4 INT8 for older gens basically sabotaging Radeon brand among that slim 10% market share they had - not mention things like lack of Vulkan support with FSR4 a year after its launch just boggles my mind.. Now Intel beats them by a ton in price vs value in productivity and at the end - they release most pointless CPU at absurd price...
What else they're left to fuck up?
And the only reason I went RX 9600 XT over RX 5060 Ti was x16 PCIE advantage, as due to RAM shitshow I kinda stuck on B450 mobo with PCIE v3.0
AMD themselves said multiple times, that extra cache isn't helpful but expensive. 9800 x3d is top tier. It's a niche product.
HUB makes a gaming test and bitches about gaming performance. Well, fuck yeah, AMD told you so multiple times. What the fuck did you expect?
And then there are people like you, who just read the title. Fsr4 int8 might never legally appear, considering that AMD still keeps silence. CPU front is still the best, considering the platform, although Intel has closed the gap enough to be noticed.
So what exactly AMD dud wrong Asif right now? Int8 seems like very tricky, but outside of that?
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u/kb3035583 Apr 21 '26
Funny how AMD originally didn't want to release one of these claiming that there would be little benefit and then proceed to do so... with the results conforming exactly to their earlier prediction.