AMD already has fine form when it comes to extending the life of the AM4 CPU socket, what with the Ryzen 9 5900XT and Ryzen 7 5800XT chips it announced back in June. Now comes news that there's a new 3D V-cache headed for the socket.
A new Ryzen 5 5500X3D variant has reportedly been spotted on the Eurasian Economic Commission register of goods (via Sweclockers). The entry doesn't provide any details, but it's thought the new CPU model will offer six cores and 12 threads, with base and turbo frequencies of 3GHz and 4GHz respectively.
As for how that fits into the existing Ryzen 5000X3D lineup, well, the limited edition Ryzen 5 5600X3D released to MicroCenter last summer has the same core count but clocks in at 3.3GHz and 4.4GHz base and turbo speeds. It was pitched at $230 last summer, but availability seems elusive right now.
Then there's the eight-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 5700X3D with 3GHz and 4.1GHz clocks, yours for around $210. Finally, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the OG 3D V-cache model, again with eight cores and 16 threads, but with 3.4GHz and 4.5GHz clocks. It's quite a bit pricier at around $340.
To make any sense, then, the new 5500X3D is going to have to undercut the $210 5700X3D by a fair margin. At current prices, that means it could well be the first AMD 3D V-cache chip to dip under $200.
If so, that will be a very welcome option for owners of PCs running AM4 motherboards. A sub-$200 X3D V-cache chip could be quite the budget gaming option.
Of course, whether it happens and if it does what the availability of the chip will be like has yet to be seen. Hopefully it will be a market-wide launch that's reasonably easy to get hold of rather than the much more limited roll out that we saw with the 5600X3D.
As far as we can tell that chip is tricky going on impossible to buy right now, with the possible exception of turning up to the right MicroCenter in person.
Perhaps this rumoured 5500X3D is the consequence of a limited supply of eight-core X3D chips with a couple of broken cores and thus supplies could be limited. But here's hoping AMD has a whole hill of them ready to go with the wide roll out that would imply.
