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If the game prefers frequency over cache, it should run primarily on the frequency CCD. (less games, notable examples CS:GO, Football Manager, etc) Here is a tuned 4090 running on a 7950X3D using process lasso to force games to the cache CCD and other apps to the frequency CCD. In short, this makes the Ryzen 9 7950X3D not particularly competitive against any of Intel’s competing processors either. In almost every test, the Core i9-13900K is simply faster while also costing less. Gaming Tests You need to use a supported Windows 10/11 build or later. These are the earliest supported versions, so if you are using a version that predates these, you'll need to update. The chipset drivers also install the AMD PPM Provisioning File Driver, which improves performance by parking the slowest cores when Game Mode or Mixed Reality Mode is active. In effect, this shuts down the ‘standard’ CCD when Game Mode or Mixed Reality Mode is active, thus constraining latency-sensitive workloads (like games) to the 3D V-Cache chiplet. This improves the cache hit rate and reduces high-latency communication between the two CCDs, resulting in faster performance for workloads that don’t need access to (or benefit from) all the cores.
The tuned setting did deliver higher performance, but only in the same way you can tune an F1 car to run above tolerances only to explode as it crosses the finish line. I could catch some higher benchmark numbers, but the system was in no way stable. Only fusing the SRAM onto one CCD also reduces manufacturing costs, as the hybrid bonding process and additional chiplet make this an expensive technology. AMD also says that using two V-Cache chiplets doesn’t provide enough performance uplift to justify the extra costs.Stress testing tools like Cinebench R23 push the processor to its engineered limits in terms of power use and operating temperature, and I use these to make sure that every chip is pushed to full 100% CPU utilization under load to determine the minimum and maximum amount of power the processor uses (measured in watts) and the minimum and maximum temperature recorded (measured in Celsius). You also really can't discount the performance-per-watt that you're getting with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which is at least twice what you'd get with the Intel Core i9-13900K and about 55% better than the 7950X.
The cache clearly does not help enough to give the Ryzen 9 7950X3D the performance advantage in any other CPU test in our suite. At the same time, its lower TDP and heat limit cause the 7950X3D to operate a bit slower and perform worse in almost every test except that one. The Ryzen 9 7950X is slightly faster in many of these tests, but, considering how much cheaper that chip is at list price, it’s a bit of a no-brainer which is the better value in this scenario. Many will draw parallels between AMD’s approach and Intel’s Thread Director, the latter of which steers threads to either high-performance or efficiency cores in the company’s x86 hybrid CPUs. The two mechanisms have plenty of similarities, but as you would expect, each company has a unique implementation with different goals. And this test highlights that even at 1440p the extra L3 cache of the 7950X3D tangibly makes a difference to the gaming performance of the system at the highest graphical presets. But, as always, at 4K it's all about the GPU. Metro is the only benchmark that displays some difference between the three chips attached to the RTX 4090, and then that's more down to some vagaries in optimisation and drivers. It's simply the best gaming CPU by performance you can buy on the consumer market and that's not likely to change for the rest of this processor generation, at the very least. The fact performance of X3D CPU is all over the place bothers me too. Yes it's fast in -some- games, but then you get less overall performance in several important applications. If I just used my PC for gaming, I would have bought a console, I don't like the idea of having to make a trade-off with X3D CPU.Putting one CCD to sleep saves some power, but not having them there at all will save more power. Makes sense if you think about it. The second CCD is basically in a deep sleep state, but can be woken up to work if required. There's nothing like the cold harsh realities of logic to kill the upgrade urge. I think I will look at the actual upgrade cost to change my chip, motherboard and memory. The amount of cache on CPUs has grown over time usually by very small steps, but there have also been a few times when AMD and Intel have significantly jumped up the amount of cache in an effort to boost performance. These efforts in the past have seen mixed results with, at the best of times, a modest performance gain occurring and, at the worst of times, nothing really changing. In part, the mixed results are due to software development, as apps need to be explicitly programmed to take advantage of the added cache for a noticeable improvement to occur. The Ryzen 9 7900X3D has also been crafted for high-performance gaming and creating. Its cache capacity is 140MB, paired with twelve cores, twenty-four threads, and boost speeds up to 5.6GHz. When talking about ultimate gaming performance, which these 3D chips are designed for, saying the platform cost of DDR5 is a negative is stupid.
If we're talking about this being AMD's take on the perfect gaming processor, we need to step outside of the 1080p gaming environment. We traditionally test at this lower resolution for our CPU game benchmarking so we are able to highlight the difference in performance down to the actual processors. As you go higher in the resolution scale you end up relying ever more on the power of the graphics card, to the point where you cease being able to discern meaningful performance deltas between chip architectures. To be clear (and contrary to our earlier theorizing that we mentioned in the Editors' Note up top), the Ryzen 9 7950X3D's IGP doesn't have access to the L3 cache on the processors, but just like the 3D V-Cache can help gaming performance with a graphics card, it can help the IGP perform better in the right scenarios, too. If the IGP did have access to the L3 cache, we would expect to see an even more pronounced performance boost, and the idea of seeing a future Ryzen 7000-series APU, a processor with a relatively powerful IGP and the 3D V-Cache together, would be exciting. That's not what this is, though. System Power and ThermalsYou have no intention of upgrading to anything, you have admitted it before. All you do here is dump on new tech because for some reason you cannot deal with change. You have an axe to grind when it comes to AMD and anything that puts your fossil of a setup into perspective. I noted that Paul mentioned AMD's specification to use water-cooling on the X3D lineup. After noting the low power usage of these chips I am curious as to why. Has the chip been tested using a more typical air cooled tower fan (with both standard, PBO, and PBO-UV) to determine if water-cooling is even necessary? Curious as to what games are struggling to run on PC and also what PCs are struggling to run games? Also, are those affected games also having issues on consoles? Perform a clean installation of Windows. Things will work better rather than using an old OS that was used for a different CPU. This bit is important, so don't overlook it, otherwise you might need to use something like Process Lasso. I recommend the latest Windows 11 22H2 build, which I use with my 7950X3D. I've tested Windows 10 vs 11, and 11 is clearly faster in gaming so if you are on 10 take this into consideration. PlaneInTheSky said:The cons just weigh too heavy for me to even consider the CPU or the AM5 platform.
It is good practice to update game bar once or twice a month as new games get released. It will often prompt you when you press the game bar hotkey when launching a game if there is an update available. In terms of power draw, the minimum I recorded for the 13900K is a meager 2.882W, and it could hover around this for hours if you're not using your computer thanks to its energy-efficient hybrid-core design. Meanwhile, the 7950X3D is still slurping up just over eight times as much power as a baseline.Or maybe the Ryzen 9 7900X3D or Ryzen 7 7800X3D might be. I've yet to test the other cache-heavy chips, but if they can deliver the same gaming and efficiency uplifts as this one then they're going to make more sense to a PC gamer. The 7900X3D has the same asymmetrical chiplet layout, so has the same compromises for productivity, but the 7800X3D is a pure 3D V-Cache gaming beast. If you ain't rendering in Blender, that's likely to be the best of the bunch for you.
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