AMD Ryzen 9000 series desktop processors could be cheaper than their last-gen counterparts; Ryzen 9 9950X3D rumoured to launch with way more 3D V-cache

AMD revealed precious little about its Ryzen 9000 Granite Ridge desktop CPUs at their Computex 2024. First-party benchmarks highlighted an average ~15% IPC uplift. A subsequent leak confirmed AMD's marketing claims of up to 2x increased cache bandwidth. The biggest piece of the puzzle, however, still remains a mystery: the price. YouTube leaker Moore's Law is Dead has some new information about it. 

The flagship Ryzen 9 9950X is rumoured to cost between $599-649. This is $50 lower than the Ryzen 9 7590X's launch price of $699. Similarly, the Ryzen 9 9900X also gets the same price cut with a price range of $449-499. Next up, the Ryzen 7 9700X has supposedly costs $329-379 and the Ryzen 5 9600X $$249-$299. In essence, Zen 5 is shaping up to be cheaper than its predecessor, at least at launch. Tom opines AMD could get away with the discounts due to a reduced die size and lower wafer prices from TSMC.

As is the case with most price leaks, these are subject to change before launch, but multiple sources have told Tom that the prices will, at worst, remain the same as last-gen. If accurate, AMD has the potential to capture even more market share in the desktop segment. Plus, users will have plenty of time to put Zen 5 SKUs through the paces well before Intel's Arrow Lake shows up later this year. However, AMD admitted Zen 5 non-X3D SKUs would still lag behind Zen 4 X3D in gaming. Usually, you'd be better off picking the latter, but a little patience could go a long way this time.

Ryzen 9000 X3D could arrive later this year

An earlier leak predicted AMD's coveted 3D V-cache CPUs could arrive before 2024 ends. Tom agrees with the sentiment, with one of his sources stating it could be as early as Q3 of this year. Some of the notable improvements include the ability to overclock your CPU. The feature was disabled on Zen 4 and Zen 3 models because you couldn't push X3D CPUs beyond a certain voltage. That said, the X3D CPUs won't be breaking any overclocking records anytime soon. Still, the ability to extract more performance out of your hardware is a welcome addition.

This time, the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D could launch with a dedicated 3D V-cache for each of its two CCDs. The last-gen Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D lagged behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D (curr. $339 on Amazon) due to this. However, this is only a rumour at this point and might not materialize at launch. Should it materialize, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D can potentially top all gaming benchmark charts and not lose out to its Ryzen 7 counterpart like it did with Zen 4.  AMD plans a deep-dive for all things Zen 5 via a "Tech Day" later this year, which is when we'll know if the above leak is true.