With the announcement of AMD Ryzen 7000X3D-series chips at CES 2023, plenty of consideration has been paid to what the brand new stackable cache know-how can carry to Zen four processors. In response to a brand new teardown of the Radeon RX 7900 XT, there may be purpose to hope that this similar know-how can be making its option to a graphics card close to you.

What else are you able to see? A linear array of “spots” that look remarkably just like the preserve out zones on X3D, and which might be on the identical 17-18 um pitch. Might they be contemplating stacked MCD performance (or possibly they’re one thing else)?January 27, 2023

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Tom Wassick, a self-described “semiconductor packaging engineering skilled”, tore down the brand new Radeon RX 7900 XT (opens in new tab) to do a deep dive into its guts utilizing infrared imaging. He says the identical sort of 3D V-cache connections used for the AMD Ryzen 5800X3D exist on the Radeon RX 7900 XT’s MCD die, although there’s a clean piece of silicon the place a compute-capable die may go.

It is not clear that one of these connection is supposed particularly for 3D V-cache, as Tom’s {Hardware} (opens in new tab) factors out, however that is the one factor thus far that AMD has introduced for its chiplet stacking know-how. 

It has lengthy been rumored that AMD can be bringing 3D V-cache to its GPUs after efficiently implementing it in its Ryzen 5800X3D processor, in addition to its forthcoming Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Ryzen 9 7900X3D, and Ryzen 7 7800X3D due out in February.

What would 3D V-cache even do for a GPU?

The thought behind V-cache is to make use of a hybrid bonding approach to place a slab of cache reminiscence on high of the compute cores of a processor. This will drastically broaden the quantity of cache accessible, which saves the processor vital clock cycles because it would not should go additional out to common reminiscence to fetch knowledge or directions.

When it comes to a pc’s CPU, this produces an enormous enhance in gaming efficiency, however it’s not clear that such a efficiency acquire can be achieved with GPU cache, although it is prone to see some enchancment.

One other downside although can be thermal efficiency, an particularly vital consideration for a graphics card. With 3D V-cache, the extra slab of cache on high of the compute cores of the processor complicates cooling. AMD may need to cut back clock speeds to compensate, which may negate any of the acquire that further cache may present.

We aren’t prone to see these developments on mainstream Radeon playing cards this yr, however we should always count on them to drop throughout midcycle refreshes in playing cards just like the RX 7950 XT or the RX 7650 XT, most likely someday in late 2023 or early 2024.