AMD has officially unveiled its latest super-powerful processors for gamers at the CES trade show. The new 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D looks set to be a top tier contender in the desktop gaming market, thanks to the power of AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. It arrives alongside a new 12-core 9900X3D, with both CPUs set to ship sometime this quarter.
While we only have AMD‘s own test numbers to go on so far, the company’s numbers suggest these chips will make quite a mark on our best gaming CPU guide. It’s only been a few months since AMD’s last big launch – the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D – claimed the top spot, and while these new models might not entirely wrestle the crown from their sibling, they could be the top choice for gamers seeking both fantastic gaming performance and hefty multi-core processing power.
The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is quite the powerhouse. This new Zen 5 CPU and its 16 cores will have a base clock speed of 4.3GHz, but they’ll boost all the way up to 5.7GHz, making it the fastest-clocked 9000X3D CPU yet. As you’d expect, this in turn means the 9950X3D comes with a high 170W thermal design power (TDP) rating – 50W higher than the 9800X3D.
There’s big news with the important-for-gaming L3 cache itself though, as it looks like the cache chip will only be applied to one of the two eight-core CCDs housed inside the new processor, just as it is on the 7950X3D. That still means you get a bumper-sized 144MB overall cache compared to the 9800X3D’s 96MB, but the CCD-to-CCD latency issues that affected the 7950X3D could still be present here.
That said, AMD’s own benchmark data suggests that this CPU does a decent job of getting around whatever latency issues it may have. Not only is it 20% faster in games than Intel’s latest flagship, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, at 1080p, it also offers an 8% uplift in gaming performance compared to AMD’s own Ryzen 9 7950X3D, according to AMD’s data. The company also notes this new chip’s performance is within 1% of the 9800X3D, suggesting the older eight-core chip will still be the raw gaming performance champion.
Instead, it will be in multi-thread processing that the 9950X3D will really pull ahead. Its 16 cores compared to the eight cores of the 9800X3D will make it the clear choice for those that run CPU-intensive multi-thread workloads.
The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D, meanwhile, will also sit above the 9800X3D in multi-thread performance, with twelve cores compared to the 9800X3D’s eight, but its reduced clock speed will mean it likely lags a little further behind the 9950X3D in gaming.
There’s no set launch date so far for these impressive-sounding gaming CPUs, but AMD do say they will become available in Q1 2025, so you won’t have too long to wait.
If you’re thinking about how to build a gaming PC in the next few months with the best specs, you’ll probably want to consider AMD first and foremost, at least for your CPU. You can check out our AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3d review to see how well the chipmaker’s last CPU launch performed with hugely superior gaming performance.