The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition processor has appeared in early retail listings, with prices near $1,000 ahead of its official launch on April 22. The chip is the first mainstream processor to feature 3D V cache stacked on both base complex dies, which could significantly improve performance.
Early listings in Canada indicate the processor costs $1,373.99 CAD, or about $985 USD. A similar price is noted on shopRBC.com. In the United Kingdom, Overclockers UK briefly listed the chip at £905.82, although some shadow prices included an unusual £100,000, indicating uncertainty over the final price. AMD has yet to disclose an official MSRP for the 9950X3D2.
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 is built on AMD’s Zen 5 architecture and features 16 cores and 32 threads. It has a base clock of 4.3 GHz and a boost clock of 5.6 GHz, which is 100 MHz less than the standard Ryzen 9 9950X3D. This fit meets the additional power requirements of the second cache stack.
The chip offers a total of 208 MB of cache (16 MB L2 plus 192 MB L3), thanks to 64 MB of 3D V-Cache on each of its two CCDs. The thermal design power (TDP) is set at 200W, higher than the 170W of the single-cache 9950X3D. Previous Ryzen X3D processors used 3D V-Cache on a single CCD, leaving half of the processor cores without the benefit of cache.
With the dual-cache design, all 16 cores benefit from increased cache capacity. AMD claims that this configuration can generate productivity gains of 5-10% in specific workloads, including DaVinci Resolve and Blender.
If retail prices hold, the 9950X3D2 would cost about $300 more than the launch price of the single-cache 9950X3D, which was $699. Analysts caution that some early prices shown could be preliminary values rather than final retail prices.
AMD Senior Vice President Jack Huynh announced the 9950X3D2 on March 25, highlighting its appeal to creators and developers. Alienware is expected to launch an Area-51 desktop with the 9950X3D2 on the same launch date, April 22.
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