The Ryzen 5 5500X3D — Is This The New AM4 Gaming King?

With the gaming cpu landscape always changing, the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D is a real head-turner, introducing new 3D V-Cache technology on the proven AM4 socket. While it currently only launches in South America, it already has the entire technology world buzzing due to a thorough benchmark by Steve Burke over at Gamers Nexus. Let us first get into the performance — and how Ryzen 5 in its new incarnation stacks up against its predecessors.

A Brief History of AMD’s 3D V-Cache Technology

AMD has also been very hard at work squeezing the last drops of juice out of its new 3D V-Cache stackable CPU performance architecture, and we see that again in the form of its Ryzen 5 5500X3D. This extreme-performance block has already shown up in flagship processors with the launch of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D and has become the gold standard of high-end gaming PCs in very few weeks. So what on Ryzen AM4-based chips that are older? AMD Shows AM4 Users It aint Leaving You Behind with Ryzen 5 5500X3D

Benchmark Insights from Gamers Nexus

Before we dive into the details, we should mention that we owe our first look at real-world gaming performance to the helpful Steve Burke from Gamers Nexus, who got his hands on a Ryzen 5 5500X3D. It includes an exhaustive range of games and scenarios used to test the CPU against the competition and its non-X3D brother, the Ryzen 5 5500. The biggest change? They come with the 3D V-Cache, which brings the L3 support from the rather small 16MB to a gigantic 96MB.

Key Specifications & Features:

• Architecture: The actual architecture is identical to the original Ryzen 5 5500 with both featuring 6 cores and 12 threads based on AMD’s Zen 3 architecture.
• Cache Size: This is where the biggest upgrade comes; a full 96MB of L3 cache, six times that of the non-X3D part.
• Clock Speeds: The base clock is a tad lower (3.0 GHz, versus 3.6 GHz on the non-X3D) but the boost clock scales as high as 4.0 GHz (X3D)
• TDP (Thermal Design Power): We see a bump to 105W from 65W for the standard Ryzen 5 5500 for the 5500X3D.

Performance Benchmark Results

The real-world gaming performance numbers tend to be impressive vs the competition, but the 5500X3D doesn’t quite keep up with the high-end 5600X3D or 5700X3D. It placed in between the Intel Ultra 7 265K and Intel i7-12700KF on benchmarks, providing good speed for normal users who are not looking for bleeding edge forces.

Though it has a lower clock speed, the larger cache makes it a bit easier to deal with game assets and data and avoids the bottleneck that often plagues smaller cache CPUs.

Do You Need to Get Excited Over the Ryzen 5 5500X3D?

The Ryzen 5 5500X3D could be the one to go if you are in South America and is looking for a gamer upgrade — and an AM4 motherboard, of course. 3D V-Cache is also a fantastic option for faster gaming, especially in CPU-limited scenarios. It doesn’t have the raw performance of the 5600X3D or 5700X3D, but it’s still more than good enough for gaming.

Will It Come to Europe?

Currently Ryzen 5 5500X3D is limited to South America, there is still some time left for larger availability. Given the stratospheric success of AMD’s X3D series in the gaming world, it feels like we’ll soon be seeing this processor in Europe and beyond. Should AMD make this chip available worldwide? Tell us in the comments down below!