Leaker posts alleged specs for upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 with 192 MB L3 cache along with Ryzen 7 9850X3D specs

AMD currently does not have any real competitor in the desktop gaming processor arena as Intel’s Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200K-series CPUs proved quite disappointing. Admittedly, Intel has been struggling with all the latest restructuring, new CEO and vision reassessment, but Team Blue is far from being down and out. The upcoming Arrow Lake Refreshes plus possibly the Nova Lake-S desktop processors expected to launch sometime next year with most components produced on TSMC’s N2P nodes should bring back the heat and AMD seems to be aware of all this, since there are rumors circulating about a Granite Ridge Ryzen 9000 refresh. According to the latest leaks, AMD is looking to counter Intel’s efforts with even more 3D V-Cache per processor. Chi11edog on X posted specs for two upcoming AMD desktop processors that appear to be improved versions of existing X3D models.

First up is the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, which is essentially a Ryzen 9 9950X3D with 192 MB L3 cache - a sizeable increase over the 128 MB from the existing model, but the maximum core boost clocks seem reduced from 5.7 GHz to 5.6 GHz, while base clocks remain at 4.3 GHz. Core count is still 16 with 32 threads and there are two core chiplet dies, each with its own 3D V-Cache chiplet. The additional L3 cache ups the TDP from 170 W to 200 W and could bring significant performance boost in some content creation apps. However, the two separate 3D V-Cache chiplets might introduce unwanted latency in gaming scenarios.

For such uses, AMD plans to introduce an upgrade for the popular Ryzen 7 9800X3D. The successor is dubbed Ryzen 7 9850X3D and retains the 96 MB L3 cache with a single 3D V-Cache chiplet for the 8-core / 16-thread die, but it will up the boost clocks from 5.3 to 5.6 GHz. This modification is not too drastic, so the TDP remains at 120 W, with AMD presumably using slightly better binning methods on the N4 nodes from TSMC.

If these specs are indeed accurate, the upcoming desktop processor refresh will probably not require any major hardware updates from AMD’s motherboard partners and owners of AM5-compatible motherboards will most likely only need a BIOS upgrade.