AMD Reengineers its Ryzen 7 5800X3D Gaming Processor

The authentic processor is an eight-core, 16-thread Zen 3 processor that used the identical fundamental structure because the Ryzen 7 5800X, with the one distinction being the addition of 3D V-Cache. Instead of accelerating the processor’s clock speeds for elevated efficiency or including extra CPU cores, AMD stacked an extra 64 MB of SRAM cache straight on high of the present 32-MB L3 cache. That cache isn’t positioned beside the CPU die. Rather, it’s bonded to it utilizing TSMC’s 3D chip-stacking expertise that creates dense vertical interconnects.

That’s only a temporary overview of how AMD’s bonding approach created the Ryzen 5800X3D. Otherwise, it isn’t totally different from the 5800X. But it helps clarify what the corporate did for the ten^th Anniversary Edition launched just some months in the past.

The specs for the brand new Ryzen 5800X3D haven’t modified. It nonetheless options eight Zen 3 cores, 16 threads, a most 4.5-GHz increase clock, 96 MB of mixed L2 and L3 cache, and a 105-W TDP. The distinction between them is how they’re manufactured, as the unique TSMC stacking course of has modified since AMD launched the unique chip.

The authentic first-generation manufacturing course of went offline, that means AMD couldn’t merely fireplace up manufacturing utilizing the unique recipe. Instead, the engineers needed to reengineer the 5800X3D in order that they might work with the second-generation cache-stacking course of utilized by newer generations of the X3D processors nonetheless being manufactured.

The new tenth Anniversary Edition makes use of a second-gen stacking course of that AMD adopted for later X3D processors. AMD acknowledged the newer course of modified the traits of how the 2 items of silicon are bonded and stacked.

It additionally meant that AMD could not merely take the outdated Zen 3 design and run it via the brand new course of. They needed to decide if they might use the older cache configuration and discover out if it might bodily work with the brand new bonding course of, then requalify the brand new 5800X3D chip.

David McAfee, VP and GM of AMD’s Radeon and Ryzen divisions, defined in a latest interview on Tom’s Hardware how the Ryzen 7 5800X3D made its comeback: “The original stacking process that was used at TSMC changed when we went from first-gen to second-gen cache, so we had to reengineer that product, and there actually was a fair amount of development that went into bringing back the 5800X3D.”

He went on to say that it utterly modified the traits of how these two items of silicon are bonded collectively and the way they had been stacked collectively.

What makes the Ryzen 7 5800X3D tenth Anniversary Edition noteworthy isn’t that AMD introduced again an outdated processor. What stands out is the corporate needed to reengineer it to work with a more recent manufacturing course of that didn’t exist when the unique chip was manufactured.

Nonetheless, AMD managed to maintain the identical Zen 3 structure, 96 MB of L3 cache, and AM4 compatibility whereas adapting the processor to a more recent technology of 3D V-Cache expertise. It places into perspective simply how semiconductor manufacturing continues to evolve, and the way a lot engineering goes into respiratory new life into outdated designs.