The world is changed. I feel it in the silicon. I sense it in the code. I hear it in the whisper of my Noctua cooling fans. Much that once was is soon to be lost, for the following generations will one day forget the hardships of the past.
In the land of pineapple cakes and scallion pancakes, in the fires of TSMC’s foundries, the One CPU was forged. One CPU to rule them all, catering to the masters of the creative arts and the enjoyers of video games alike, into this silicon AMD’s engineers poured their skill, their knowledge, and their desire to dominate all of computing.
One CPU to rule them all. Once only a legend, spoken of only in hushed whispers across the lands, it is now real, crafted by masters of dark and mysterious arts, and it is called the 9950X3D.
The age of compromise is at an end.
A time of strife, and salvation
The time before the coming of The One CPU was a time of strife. Gamers and creators stood divided, one side seeking fewer, faster cores and large caches, while the masters of rendering and compilation sought processors with more cores, as many as could be crammed into a single CPU.
The swiftest gaming chips – those of the single CCD X3D line – outpaced all others in the realms of play, but in the halls of creation it was the mighty dual CCD 12- and 16-core processors that held sway.
Eventually, a marriage attempted to end this strife, a middle ground was sought and the 7900X3D and 7950X3D were born, offering both a larger cache to satisfy gamers, and a large number of cores to satisfy creators. Yet this path was one of compromise. Both CPUs were great, but they were neither the fastest at gaming, nor the mightiest in labour.
The architects of this marriage, AMD, refused to give up, however. With the coming of second-gen 3D V-Cache, no longer would one be forced to forsake gaming for creation, or vice versa. The days of strife are set to wane.
The ryze of the chiplet
The lords of silicon originally shaped their works from a single sheet of silicon, unbroken. This was a perilous path, however, for the greater the CPU, the harder it was to perfect, leading to great cost and waste. The smiths of Ryzen thus turned to a new art, that of the chiplet, forging a CPU not as a whole slab, but as many smaller shards, a chiplet.
The lesser processors, the 9600X and 9700X, bear but a single chiplet — a die or CCD — coupled with a secondary I/O die that helps them communicate with the rest of the PC.
The X3D was an improvement, with the smiths of Ryzen figuring out how to layer a cache die either above or below a CCD, bestowing unmatched speed in the fields of play.
For those seeking even more, the creators, AMD joined two CCDs by strands of Infinity Fabric, a bridge of sorts, forming the mighty 12-core 9900X and 16-core 9950X. 32-core and larger parts are also possible by the joining of even more CCDs.
Thus is the power of Ryzen scaled.
Ryzen 9 9950X3D: Two CPUs in one
To forge the mighty 9950X3D, the smiths of Ryzen combined not just two 8-core CCDs and an I/O die, but also a 64 MB 3D V-Cache die. By layering this die underneath the CCD rather than on top – as they did with the 7950X3D – the smiths extracted never-before-seen performance from the new CPU.
However, a duality was also wrought in this forging. Only one of the CCDs could be blessed with 3D V-Cache, enabling it to lay waste in the battlefield of play. On these battlefields the other, the 3D V-Cache-less CCD, must stand silent lest it hamper the swift and cunning cache-bearing CCD.
When tasks of great toil emerge — of rendering and compilation and more — both CCDs work together, distributing the work evenly and harnessing the full might of all 16 Zen 5 cores.
AMD’s chipset drivers and Windows 11 together maintain this delicate balance, guiding games to the CCD with 3D V-Cache, and the labours of creation to both.
Maintaining this balance is necessary because of latency. Within a single CCD, communication between cores is swift and sure, but between two CCDs, voices must travel a longer, more winding path through Infinity Fabric and the I/O die. In the 9950X3D, this inter-CCD delay is fourfold.
For gamers, this delay is unwelcome, anathema. The downward stroke of a blade, the pressing of a trigger, all must happen at the speed of thought.
Judgement
When placed in the hands of rendering masters and creators, the 16-core, dual-CCD 9950X3D outpaces the 8-core, single CCD 9800X by up to 83%.
In the realm of professional video editing, however, the lords of Intel still hold sway for QuickSync is still the only technology to support 10-bit 4:2:2 codecs, leaving such professionals with no other choice.
For all else, the 9950X3D is possibly without equal.
Though it wields two CCDs, the wisdom of core parking and the deft handling of AMD’s chipset drivers and Windows 11 ensure that the 9950X3D does not falter in the hands of video game enjoyers.
Thus it is made clear. The age of compromise is at an end. No longer must one choose between speed and power, for it’s in the 9950X3D that both are found and a new king crowned, The One CPU to rule them all.
The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is expected to be available to all at around Rs 75,000. While those who sought the 9800X3D must weave strange reckonings to justify their choice — the choice of CPU being one of pure indulgence — the 16-core 9950X3D is expected to be sought by master craftsmen who expect nothing but the finest of tools, money no object. The small premium it demands for additional performance on the fields of play is insignificant.
