One of the most powerful processors for gaming, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D looks like it could be even more powerful. Normally, the 16-core chip has 128 MB of L3 cache, but one user posted video and screenshot processor with 192 MB of fast on-chip memory.
According to the Windows Task Manager image and CPU-Z data, the claimed L3 cache size is indeed 192 MB, and all other characteristics seem normal. However, some of the values in the screenshot indicate a possible Windows bug. Some commentators believe that this is a bug in CPUID, which falsely reports 192 MB in L3 cache. Others suggest that the owner was lucky and received an engineering prototype. Unfortunately, the user has not posted any tests to confirm the L3 cache size.
Although the possibility of an error cannot be ruled out, the Tom`s Hardware believe that Ryzen 9 7950X3D may be an early engineering sample. It is technologically possible to add 64 MB of 7nm SRAM cache to the chip to get 192 MB of L3 cache.
Before AMD released the Ryzen 9 7950X3D in 2023, Gamers Nexus visited the company’s campus in Austin, Texas. During this visit, the team discussed various configurations tested with AMD. Among them were samples with several crystal variants that could be chips with 192 MB of cache. The chipmaker demonstrated Gamers Nexus the unreleased Ryzen 9 5950X3D with 192 MB of L3 cache, so at least such processors exist.
After all, AMD could simply decide not to produce the Ryzen 9 7950X3D in this configuration. Having multiple cache pools has previously been found to cause increased latency in most games and reduce performance, not increase it. Engineering samples are usually destroyed, but they still sometimes fall into the hands of enthusiasts.