AMD Ryzen 9 9000 Series With 3D V-Cache Hits Geekbench

Gamers waiting for new Zen 5 CPUs with AMD’s vaunted X3D cache will want to look at two chips that landed on Geekbench: the Ryzen 9 9950X3D and the 9900X3D. Although AMD announced the processors at CES 2025 in early January, it hasn’t made much noise about them lately. Their appearance on Geekbench might suggest that the CPUs are moving closer to release. Wccftech expects AMD to bring out the CPUs in the late February/ early March timeframe, meaning you might have a new X3D cache to pair with your Radeon RX 9070 XT or 9070 if you’re going the all-AMD route.
The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D landed a 20465 in Geekbench’s Multi-Core Score and 3363 for the Single-Core Score. The slower of the two processors, the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, scored 19227 in Multi-Core and 3274 in Single-Core. As VideoCardz points out, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D outperforms its Ryzen 7 7950X3D counterpart by about 4% in Multi-Core and 15% in Single-Core. The Ryzen 9 9900X3D, on the other hand, showed a 9.3% performance bump from the 7900X3D in the Multi-Core test and a nearly 15% bump in the Single-Core test.
Those results don’t show as big a performance bump as we’d like, but we don’t have the whole picture. The chips could change before we see them, or there could be any number of other reasons to take things with a grain of salt and wait for the reviews before making buying decisions.
Both processors were benchmarked on a Gigabyte X670 Aorus Elite AX motherboard with 32GB of DDR5 memory under Windows 10 Pro.
If you’re wondering about the excitement over AMD’s 3D V-Cache (designated by the X3D at the end of the CPU’s model number), the answer is that it can boost gaming performance. The Ryzen 5 7600X3D provides good performance in games thanks to its 3D V-cache chip, but its position meant some cores weren’t activated. AMD moved the V-cache under the Core Complex Die (CCD) from above it with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. With all cores back in contact with the cooler (and with the multiplier unlocked), the CPU became a solid choice for gamers. Now, AMD appears to be on the verge of releasing new X3D gaming chips.
Barring any last-minute changes, we’re expecting AMD to announce its Radeon RX 9070 XT (and likely the RX 9070 and lower-tier GPUs, like the RX 9060) on Feb. 28. Hopefully, we’ll see the X3D processors around that time.
© 2001-2025 Ziff Davis, LLC., a Ziff Davis company. All Rights Reserved.
ExtremeTech is a federally registered trademark of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. The display of third-party trademarks and trade names on this site does not necessarily indicate any affiliation or the endorsement of ExtremeTech. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant.

source