The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is supposedly one of the best gaming processors on the market,
but is that 3D on the end just a marketing gimmick to remind you of the superior way of
watching movies? Or is there actual truth to it? That was a joke, 3D movies suck.
But this 3D does not. The 3D actually refers to a feature that AMD calls 3DVcash, with V standing
for vertical, and 3D implying that the cash actually is stacked on the CPU die to make it, you know,
three-dimensional. So it's not false advertising, even if technically you could label every processor
3D since our universe does in fact have three dimensions, but let's not get pedantic.
Okay, so 3DVcash is CPUcash stacked vertically. But what is CPUcash? Well, it's basically just
a small amount of very fast memory, like way faster than your system RAM, that sits on the
CPU itself. Modern CPUs move information that is likely to be needed soon into the cash,
so by the time they actually need that information, it's sitting right there for them to go ahead
and act upon instead of having to wait for it to arrive from system RAM. So it's not hard to figure
out that having more cash equals better, but slapping more onto a chip is actually fairly
difficult. As transistor sizes have gotten smaller, manufacturing has gotten more difficult
and more expensive. It's actually not uncommon for cash to use an older process node than the
CPU cores do. So instead of trying to shrink the cash transistors down to cram more of them onto the
CPU die, AMD decided to just build up instead and stack several layers of cash on top of each other,
hence the name 3DVcash. But how much does having a cash sandwich in your PC actually make a difference
in the programs you use the most? AMD markets the 5800X3D, the only consumer chip featuring 3DVcash
at the time we wrote this video, as a gaming powerhouse. And it does turn out that having
additional CPUcash makes a significant difference in gaming performance. Having more cash space
means that the graphics card doesn't have to wait around as long for data from the CPU.
Without that additional cash, your CPU needs to go back and grab data from your RAM more often,
which takes time and leaves your CPU frustrated and exhausted, wondering why its creators didn't
give it more cash when they dumped it into this cruel world. Indeed, benchmarks have consistently
shown performance benefits across the board compared to both AMD and Intel chips that don't
utilize vertical cash. And it's not surprising considering just how much more you can add
by building vertically instead of horizontally. While the original 5800X contained 32 megabytes
of level 3 cash, the 5800X3D increases that number to a whopping 96 megabytes. Wowie, zowie.
Of course, this kind of cash design comes with its own costs. And we're not talking about the
premium you pay for the CPU either. Vertical cash does require extra power and it generates more
heat. And although AMD has done a pretty good job mitigating these issues, partly by packing
the cash layers as close together as possible, the 5800X3D does not officially support multiplier
overclocking as the cash and the CPU cores actually share voltage. So you can't change one
without affecting the other. This also means boost clocks are lower than chips with more
traditional cash. So while gaming performance is often better depending on exactly which game it
is you're playing, other chips with more cores and higher clock speeds are still superior for
other tasks. But if you do mostly use your PC for gaming, there's exciting news in that more
chips using 3D Vcash are on their way as additions to the Ryzen 7000 series. And over in serverland,
there are AMD Epic chips featuring the technology since server CPUs have to move
so much data that a bigger cash can be beneficial. However, it's yet to be seen whether Intel answers
with a similar strategy. Right now, Team Blue seems to be sticking to consistently high boost
clocks instead. But you have to admit, there's something elegant about stacking chips like
a can of Pringles. Truly a snack for the elite. They're not sponsoring us, why am I? And even
though you're not sponsoring us, you kind of are by watching this video. So thanks for watching,
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