AMD will reportedly let journalists publish their reviews of its Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Ryzen 9 7900X3D processors on February 27, a day before those chips will become available, according to hardware leaker @momomo_us. Meanwhile, some additional peculiarities about the range-topping Ryzen 9 7950X3D were revealed by @9550pro and those will not please at least some enthusiasts. 

AMD will start sales of its 12-core Ryzen 9 7900X3D with 140MB of L2+L3 cache as well as 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X3D with 144MB of L2+L3 cache on February 28, so reviews with performance numbers published on February 27 would allow potential buyers to make well informed purchase decisions. Meanwhile, the eight-core Ryzen 7 7800X3D with 104MB of L2+L3 cache will hit the market in early April. 

AMD’s Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 X3D-series processors with extra 64MB of 3D V-Cache are poised to become some of the best CPUs for gaming as additional L3 positively affects performance of workloads that depend on single-thread performance and memory bandwidth.  

But there is a catch about the top-of-the-line Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor: the clocks of its core complex die (CCD) equipped with 3D V-Cache could be lower than those of the less-expensive Ryzen 7 7800X3D, according to @9950pro. 

Such lower frequencies will affect performance in workloads that need high clocks. Last week we learned that transpired that the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is actually slower than the Ryzen 9 7950X in Blender and Geekbench 5 and apparently this might be a result of lower clocks on the CCD equipped with additional cache.

Previously AMD said that its Ryzen 9 7950X3D processor will offer the best of both worlds: high clocks on the CCD without 3D V-Cache and large cache on the CCD with 3D V-Cache chiplet. It remains to be seen how this CPU will perform in real world applications, which is why it is important for potential owners to read reviews before purchasing.