AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition crams 208MB of cache into a single chip

The extra cache does have mild downsides. The 9950X3D2’s peak clock speed is 5.6 GHz, down very slightly from 5.7GHz for the 9950X and 9950X3D, and its default TDP is 200 W instead of 170 W. Higher power consumption typically comes with higher cooling requirements. And AMD’s initial announcement video didn’t include pricing; the vanilla 9950X3D currently retails for around $675, not far from its $699 launch price. We’d expect the 9950X3D2 to run at least a couple hundred dollars more.

But the Ryzen 9000 series has steadily eroded the downsides of older Ryzen 5000 and Ryzen 7000 X3D chips. The 9950X3D2 will be fully overclockable and tunable via AMD’s Precision Boost Overdrive/Curve Optimizer/Ryzen Master features; stacking the cache beneath the CPU makes it easier to keep those CPU cores cool; and there’s no longer a several-hundred-megahertz-large gap between the base and boost clock speeds. The periodic “core parking” issues with the hybrid X3D chips was one of their last downsides; the 9950X3D2 may be an expensive solution to the problem, but it’s also a foolproof fix that won’t require OS reinstalls or driver updates, which might make it worth it to a certain type of high-end PC user.

The Ryzen 9950X3D2 Dual Edition will be available starting April 22.