AMD introduced a couple of days ago the new Ryzen 7000X3D, a new generation of high-performance desktop processors that uses the Zen 4 architecture and uses the 3D stacked L3 cache to improve performance. As our regular readers will know, this type of cache can make a substantial difference in certain applications, mainly games, but its impact depends on the particularities and optimization of each specific game.
The Ryzen 7000X3D will keep the design of the previous generation, which means that the first CCD unit, made up of 8 cores and 16 threads, will have 32 MB of L3 cache and an additional 64 MB 3D stacked. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D will only have one CCD unit, but the Ryzen 9 7900X3D and Ryzen 9 7950X3D will have two active CCD units, so they will have 64 MB of L3 (32 MB per CCD drive) and another 64 MB stacked in 3D on the first CCD drive.
Having 3D L3 cache stacked on a single CCD drive means that processes running on that drive benefit from higher performance, but what about processes running on the second CCD drive? Well, that benefit disappears, a reality that has been confirmed by Scott Stankard, from AMD, who has also left us a very interesting fact, and that is that to compensate for this situation have provided the second block of nuclei with higher frequencies of work.
With that structure, the first CCD unit of a Ryzen 7000X3D It would be ideal to move games optimallysince it has enough cores and threads (8 cores and 16 threads) and adds 96 MB of L3 cache, while the second CCD unit would have less L3 cache but would run at a higher speed, which means that it would be better to run applications that depend more on the frequency of work.
Due to that particular division, AMD has confirmed that it was essential have optimizations at the operating system level, and it is also essential to optimize in games so that they can take advantage of that structure and so that they know which CCD unit is best to use at any given time. Yes, I’m second that this reminds you of Intel’s Thread Director and the Alder Lake-S and Raptor Lake-S split into P-cores and E-cores, the approach is similar, despite their important differences.
At AMD they have worked with Microsoft and developers to implement those optimizations, and it seems that To be able to take full advantage of a Ryzen 7000X3D it will be necessary to have Windows 11. It goes without saying that all this should also have positive effects on the performance of the Ryzen 7000 under Windows 11.
