AMD launches new Ryzen 9000X3D CPUs for PCs that play and work hard

AMD's batch of announcements at CES this year includes just two new products for desktop PC users: the new Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D. Both will be available sometime in the first quarter of 2025.

Both processors include additional CPU cores compared to the 9800X3D that launched in November. The 9900X3D includes 12 Zen 5 CPU cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.5 GHz and the 9950X3D includes 16 cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.7 GHz. Both include 64 MB of additional L3 cache compared to the regular 9900X and 9950X, for a total cache of 144 MB and 140 MB, respectively; Games in particular tend to benefit disproportionately from this additional cache memory.

But the 9950X3D and 9900X3D aren't aimed at people who build PCs primarily for gaming; the company says its gaming performance is typically within 1 percent of the 9800X3D. These processors are for people who want maximum gaming performance when gaming, but also need a lot of CPU cores to handle heavy CPU workloads during the workday.

AMD estimates that the Ryzen 9 9950X3D is about 8 percent faster than the 7950X3D when gaming and about 13 percent faster in professional content creation applications. These modest gains are roughly in line with the small performance boost we've seen in other Ryzen 9000 series desktop CPUs.