Ryzen 9 7950X3D: AMD's monster gaming CPU works like a pro, too

This chip impresses even if you don't need one.

- GORDON UNG AND ALAINA YEE

In recent years, two has been a good number for AMD-more specifically, for the second generation of its CPU architectures. What the company began in the first gen, it pushes forward in some substantial way in the next round. We saw this during the company's comeback on desktop, and then its surge forward on laptops. Now Team Red's doing the same with its innovative 3D V-Cache (fave.co/ 3Sg4p0a) offerings.

The Ryzen 7 5800X3D (fave.co/ 3D3nyxE), AMD's first 3D V-Cache processor, launched last summer. Layered with additional L3 cache, it was a gaming monster, but limited to the single 8-core offering. When AMD's own Ryzen 7000 series chips (fave.co/3Thn24k) and Intel's impressive 13th-generation Raptor Lake parts (fave.co/3v8rWqE) launched last fall, the 5800X3D still held its own against them in games, but lagged significantly in workstation tasks that lean heavily on more cores.

Now AMD has released 3D V-Cache versions of its modern Ryzen 7000 CPUs, expanding to three different SKUs: the 8-core $449 Ryzen 7 7800X3D (launching April 6), the 12-core $599 Ryzen 9 7900X3D (fave.co/3JRBGO1), and the flagship $699 Ryzen 9 7950X3D (fave.co/3JUIZJH) we're testing here. (The Ryzen 9 7900X3D and 7950X3D chips launched on February 28.) And since their announcement, everyone's been wanting to know: Is the 16-core, 32-thread 7950X3D the gaming monster we were expecting? The answer is yes...but a qualified one.

You can read more technical details about these CPUs in our write-up about their initial reveal, fave.co/3weWvLE (plus watch our interview with AMD at CES about them, fave.co/3FAtlf4), but we're here to spill the details of our hands-on time with the flagship part. The deep dives are in our YouTube videos, which cover the full gamut of our benchmarks including web browser and Microsoft Office performance-but for the biggest takeaways, read on.

THIS CHIP IS DEFINITELY GOOD IN GAMES