The chip enthusiast community has been waiting on this one since last year, and AMD finally pulled the trigger today. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition is officially real, officially named, and officially coming April 22, 2026. It is the first desktop processor to place AMD’s 3D V-Cache stacking on both core complex dies simultaneously, and the cache numbers alone are enough to make any PC builder sit up a little straighter.
The 9950X3D2 Dual Edition is a 16-core, 32-thread Zen 5 processor built for the AM5 socket, which puts it in familiar territory for anyone who already owns a 600 or 800 series board. What separates it from the existing Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the second cache stack. Where previous high-end X3D parts applied 3D V-Cache to only one CCD, leaving the other chiplet to fend for itself in terms of cache bandwidth, the 9950X3D2 Dual Edition stacks 104MB of 2nd Gen 3D V-Cache onto each CCD. Total on-chip L3 cache lands at 192 MB per the spec sheet, with AMD quoting 208 MB as the full figure including all cache levels. Either way, it is the most cache ever crammed into a Ryzen desktop processor, and it is not particularly close.
| Specification | AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 | AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D | AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D | AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU Family | AMD Ryzen 9000 Series (Granite Ridge) | AMD Ryzen 9000 Series (Granite Ridge) | AMD Ryzen 9000 Series (Granite Ridge) | AMD Ryzen 9000 Series (Granite Ridge) |
| Model Number | Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 | Ryzen 9 9950X3D | Ryzen 7 9850X3D | Ryzen 7 9800X3D |
| Release Date | 03/26/2026 | 03/12/2025 | 01/29/2026 | 11/07/2024 |
| MSRP | $ 899 | $ 699 | $ 499 | $ 479 |
| Total Cores | 16 | 16 | 8 | 8 |
| Total Threads | 32 | 32 | 16 | 16 |
| Base Clock | 4.3 GHz | 4.3 GHz | 4.7 GHz | 4.7 GHz |
| Boost Clock | 5.6 GHz | 5.7 GHz | 5.6 GHz | 5.2 GHz |
| L1 Cache | 1280KB (80KB per core) | 1280KB (80KB per core) | 640KB (80KB per core) | 640KB (80KB per core) |
| L2 Cache | 16MB (1MB per core) | 16MB (1MB per core) | 8MB (1MB per core) | 8MB (1MB per core) |
| L3 Cache | 192 MB | 128 MB | 96 MB | 96 MB |
| Total Cache | 208MB | 145.MB | 104.6MB | 104.6MB |
| TDP | 200 W | 170 W | 120 W | 120 W |
| Max Junction Temp | 95 °C | 95 °C | 95 °C | 89 °C |
Clock speeds come in at a 4.3 GHz base with up to 5.6 GHz boost. That boost figure is 100 MHz lower than the standard 9950X3D, which traded some clock headroom for the thermal demands of the additional cache stack. TDP is rated at 200W, making it the highest-draw AM5 processor to date, and AMD is explicitly recommending a liquid cooler. The chip is manufactured on TSMC’s 4nm FinFET node for the compute dies and 6nm for the I/O die, and it supports DDR5 memory up to DDR5-5600 in dual-channel configurations (this is official speed, not what you’ll be able to get with EXPO), with ECC support (motherboard dependent). PCIe 5.0 lanes, overclocking support via Precision Boost Overdrive, Curve Optimizer, and AMD EXPO are all present.
AMD is positioning this as a chip for creators and developers rather than pure gaming, though gaming performance should also benefit from eliminating the latency penalty that comes when a game thread running on the non-cached CCD of a standard 9950X3D has to reach across to the other chiplet’s cache. The company’s own benchmarks show gains of 5 to 13 percent over the 9950X3D in workstation-class tasks including V-Ray, Blender, DaVinci Resolve, Unreal Engine, and large-scale source code builds like Chromium. As AMD Senior VP Jack Huynh put it in the announcement video, “208MB of cache means more game data, more assets, and more working data sitting right next to the CPU cores.”
Pricing has not been announced. The Ryzen 9 9950X3D is currently pricing out around $675, so we’d expect the 9950X3D2 Dual Edition to land a bit higher than that.
This chip was a long time coming. We started reporting on rumors of this chip in the summer of last year, rumors continued to swirl through CES and popped up yet again a few days ago.
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition launches April 22, 2026. Let us know your thoughts in the forums, and stay tuned for pricing and full availability details as they emerge.
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →Not gonna lie if fhe numbers rumored are right I kinda want to flip amd the Ole bird for not just doing this with the 9950x3d. Sigh...
Man, RAM prices suck. That's all I got to say.
while this sounds great on paper, I don't think there will meaningful real world benefits.
Keeping a keen eye on this but still waiting for that Zen6 part with 10 or 12 or more cores but I have a feeling we won't get anything official until the fall or maybe even CES 27.
Well, not in gaming at least. Or raw compute.
It will help. The dual CCD X3D nutsack will finally be balanced.
Because that's what the original plan was before someone thought, ph wait, let's make double the money! https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-shows-new-3d-v-cache-ryzen-chiplets-up-to-192mb-of-l3-cache-per-chip-15-gaming-improvement
This is the way.
Proving numbers (well technically finding them, but they're not like, missing or hiding but anyway) are prime that are millions of digits long where their FFT length is greater than 32MB (The amount of data that the process needs to do calculations) will be able to still fit within' the L3 cache of the processor for both CCXs. This will allow those calculations to happen at a faster rate. Compared to those sized prime searches needing to utilize the RAM of the host system doing the calculations.
Server grade hardware for Intel has CPUs with large amounts of unified cache, but AMD chiplet designs limits the amount of fast access to the L3 within' a CCX to whatever size that L3 cache domain is. Sure some EPYCs have all their CCX's with this technology, but for the consumer parts that are more affordable for the mass being able to buy a consume CPU that double's this ability will be significant for that specific, real world, use case.
Real world benefit.
It's funny watching the reaction to this:
Before Launch Everyone: I sure wish AMD would release a dual X3D part, 9950X3D should have had cache on both CCDs, Come On We want Cache on BOTH cores. Disappointed it isn't on BOTH cores, Do it AMD, Do It. etc....
Post Announcement Everyone: Meh, Pointless, negligible game performance increase, Won't Do Much, Going to be Too Expensive to be Meaningful, Not much Perf Increase, Worthless for Gaming etc...
I remember very clearly people wanting it on both cores, now that they are doing it, all I see is negativity about it's worth. People make up your minds!
I for one, welcome more options, and I think it's awesome that they can even do this from a technical perspective.
Now if someone would kick the Radeon team in gear
I think its because of well... the ones who didnt want it, probably didnt talk about wanting it when it wasn't available.
Those who did want it, are just glad they're coming out and got nothing to complain about.
Realistically speaking, I've got no need for but I still want it just for the cool factor that it exists.
I bet a lot of it is due to sour grapes. Since it wasn't available, people went for 9800X3D or 9950X3D and now they don't see why they should go to the trouble of selling their existing CPU, messing with their coolers to re-install the CPU etc. It's mainly AMD's fault for being so late. I regret getting the 9950X3D, mainly because I didn't need it and got it simply coz I thought trump would do something to cause its price to double or triple. Now I wish I hadn't so I could get this instead.
Any AMD representative, if you are reading this, get in touch with me, take your 9950X3D and give me a 9950X3D2 so I can stop saying that AMD disappoints.
I am sour about it. I want it, but after it was leaked and then disappeared in the fall, I went ahead and got a 9950x3d for my next daily driver.
Now if I change CPUs, I'll lose an activation on TurboTax 2025.
Aiight cool, now we got a Ryzen CPU with X3D cache on both CCDs. Now I'm just waiting for a single CCD to have more than 8 cores. Then I'll be really happy.
There's this: https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/17298533?baseline=17275882
The faster one is the same CPU with loadline 130.
So I can relate my case if you like.
When the 9950x3d was destined to come out we were pretty much universally hoping for it to have dual 3dvcache. What the x3d2 is destined to have.
We complained, we asked, and interviewers asked. And they were told... without doubt. That the dual 3dvcache would not be a performance boon as people thought it might be. And that in reality it would make more sense to do the single with core disablement in order to meet the gaming need and still have good performance everywhere else.
Basically every thing you have said as a naysayer reaction is just EXACTLY WHAT AMD TOLD US initially.
So now we have to ask ourselves... did AMD lie? Is there some huge performance boon to have dual 3dvcache on a 9950x3dv2? And if there is why did they lie to us initially.
Currently we are just parroting back to them why it makes no sense for gaming.
I am NOT saying other workloads won't benefit. But for the past few generations the x3dvcache chips have been squarely aimed at the the gaming market. Ai workloads and other specific workloads that love all of the cache (and really should be on a Pro compute platform.) will love the 3dvache. It's a budget mans box at that stage for doing light weight programmatic processing like what folks are wanting in here.
So I'll reiterate and TLDR this.
What you are calling out as gnashing of teeth and whining and poopooing the dual 3dvache processors.. is EXACTLY what AMD told us.
IF these turn out to be great all around CPU's with 10% raw uplift for gaming at 4k... (I know it won't but still) I'll be a pissed off consumer with AMD because they then knowingly lied to us about the use case of dual 3dvcache cpu's.