AMD Announces Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 CPU at $899 for April 22

Advanced Micro Devices announced on Wednesday that its new flagship processor, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, will carry a suggested retail price of $899 and launch on April 22. The chip represents the company's first consumer-grade CPU to incorporate 3D VCache technology across both of its core complex dies, aiming to boost performance in demanding professional applications.

Built on AMD's Zen 5 architecture, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 features 16 cores and 32 threads, with a base clock speed of 4.3 GHz and a maximum boost of 5.6 GHz. Its standout specification is a total cache of 208 MB, including 192 MB of L3 cache and 16 MB of L2 cache. This marks a significant increase from previous models, such as the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, which uses 3D VCache on only one die and offers 128 MB of L3 cache. The dual-cache design stacks 64 MB of 3D VCache on each of the processor's two eight-core dies, allowing all cores to access the enhanced on-chip memory storage.

The processor has a thermal design power of 200 watts, up from the 170 watts of the single-cache 9950X3D, to accommodate the additional cache layers. AMD executive David McAfee confirmed the pricing and release date in a post on X, noting that...