AMD has released three distinct generations of its 3D V-Cache technology, which initially appeared in the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in 2022. The kernel of the idea has remained the same throughout AMD’s efforts: take an existing desktop processor design and graft 64MB of additional L3 cache onto it.
This approach disproportionately helps apps that benefit from more cache, particularly games, and the size of the boost that 3D V-Cache gives to game performance has always been enough to offset any downsides these chips have come with. In the four years since the 5800X3D was released, AMD also has steadily chipped away at those disadvantages, adding more CPU cores, improving power consumption and temperatures, and re-adding the typical Ryzen range of overclocking controls.
AMD’s new Ryzen 7 9850X3D, which launches for $499 starting tomorrow, is the very definition of a mild upgrade. It’s the year-old Ryzen 7 9800X3D but with an extra 400 MHz of turbo boost speed. That’s it. That’s the chip.
But it is mildly interesting that the 9800X3D’s 5.6GHz boost clock is now 100 MHz higher than that of the Ryzen 7 9700X, the chip’s nearest non-V-Cache equivalent. It’s not nearly as interesting as an actual new chip, but it does mean AMD has closed the last major functional gap between the V-Cache and non-V-Cache Ryzen chips (the pricing gap remains; the 9700X currently retails for around $329).
It also means that the 9850X3D behaves more like a 9700X in other ways—differences that likely won’t matter to its target audience but which do distinguish it from being “just a faster 9800X3D.”
Chip recap
The biggest change AMD made to the Ryzen 9000 version of the X3D chips is that the 3D V-Cache is now stacked underneath the CPU silicon rather than on top. This has the benefit of moving the CPU cores closer to your heatsink or AIO loop, making them easier to keep cool.