AMD May Have Gamers’ Hearts, but Intel is Courting Others

AMD May Have Gamers' Hearts, but Intel is Courting Others

As a seasoned gamer with years of experience under my belt, I can confidently say that AMD has truly outdone itself with its latest offering, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. This CPU is nothing short of a game-changer for gamers who are always on the hunt for superior performance and smoother gaming experiences.


It’s well-known that AMD is currently thriving due to its cutting-edge gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which has been causing quite a stir. Meanwhile, its Ryzen 7000 and 9000 series CPUs are striving to establish themselves in a CPU market that’s only getting more competitive.

A significant part of this is because AMD leverages the larger cache size on its 3D V-Cache CPUs, which becomes crucial in modern gaming scenarios where resources are heavily demanded. These games and their engines frequently tap into data that a CPU needs to fetch from much slower memory like desktop DDR4 and DDR5 RAM, compared to the faster onboard L3 cache.

The AMD Ryzen 7000 X3D CPUs, along with the more recent Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPUs, present a distinctive advantage for gamers due to their exceptional performance capabilities. Specifically, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU boasts an impressive 96MB of L3 cache, allowing it to outshine competitors from both AMD and Intel in terms of performance, even with lower clock speeds when handling most contemporary games.

AMD’s Ryzen 7 9800X3D: A Gaming-Centric CPU

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor is out of stock at nearly all U.S. retailers and international locations, suggesting high consumer interest and limited availability. This situation arises partly because the price of the Ryzen 7 7800X3D has significantly risen at many stores, as well as other X3D CPUs in the 7000 series.

Simultaneously, the limited variety of Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs is cause for worry. While Intel’s latest CPUs do show improvements in productivity, performance, and energy efficiency, they still trail behind their predecessors in gaming capabilities, rendering them unattractive to most gamers. This is unfortunate since new motherboard upgrades are required.

Intel’s Current 3D V-Cache Approach And Plans

Given that Intel currently boasts productivity advantages and manufactures CPUs that are both affordably priced and high-performing, it leaves one pondering: When can enthusiasts anticipate the release of a future Intel CPU generation featuring a more expansive cache tailored for gaming requirements?

The information provided comes from a recent interview given by Florian Maislinger, Tech Communications Manager at Intel. In this interview, he delved deeply into this topic, and the German publication, Hardwareluxx, highlighted key points. The focus of their discussion revolves around when we might expect to see Intel release large-cache CPUs that could potentially enhance gaming performance.

The relevant part of the interview is highlighted below:

AMD processors are designed primarily for gamers, understanding that this technology offers significant benefits to them, yet comes with its own set of trade-offs and limitations. If you’re after gaming performance, an X3D CPU might be suitable, though it may not excel in other applications. We at USS acknowledge these shortcomings, but we continue to advance the technology. Significantly, next year will see the introduction of a CPU featuring cache tile technology, although this won’t be available on desktop platforms.

– Florian Maislinger, Tech Communications Manager at Intel

Intel appears to perceive AMD’s X3D CPUs as chips that are exceptional at gaming but lack in other productivity areas, thereby limiting their appeal to a specific niche. Given the perspective provided, Intel seems to consider the gaming market as minor and part of a smaller desktop-class CPU market, implying that producing similar CPUs may not be a primary focus for them.

It doesn’t imply that Intel has no role left in producing larger cache CPUs. In fact, their Clearwater-based Xeon CPUs are anticipated to include a larger cache tile, and there’s been recent excitement about Intel’s “Adamantine” L4 cache. Notably, their focus seems to be on the expanding data center market specifically.

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2024-11-19 18:05