The 9950X3D is king, but don’t rule out the 9950X. If you need a new CPU and want the best of the best at just about everything, the 9950X3D is the processor to go for.

AMD’s new Ryzen 9 9950X3D delivers a final blow to Intel. The 9950X3D is superior in both gaming and creator tasks, making it one of the best CPUs to buy.

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the newer option out these two CPUs, launching on March 11, 2025 for a list price of $700. The Core Ultra 9 285K released on October 24, 2024 for a list price of $600.

That's as much as a 30% increase for the very top end, though all chips appear to be up over the last generation.

The 9950X3D has a base clock of 4.3GHz and a boost clock of 5.7GHz. On paper, that's hardly a step up from the 7950X3D, but its increased TDP should allow its cores to stay fed for longer.

Ryzen 9 9950X3D review: AMD irons out nearly every single downside of 3D V-Cache Not a lot of people actually need this thing, but if you do, it's very good.

2. The 9950X3D continues the Intel beatdown. As we covered in our overview of the 9800X3D last November, AMD’s mid-range X3D chip put the pain on Intel’s best consumer chip, the Core Ultra 9 285K.

The 9950X3D is a powerhouse of a desktop processor, with tons of L3 cache to speed up gaming and no compromises for intensive productivity work. The only downside is its relatively high price.

AMD’s new Ryzen 9 9950X3D and Ryzen 9 9900X3D will be available from March 12 for $699 and $599 respectively, while in the U.K. those prices have just been confirmed at £659 and £564.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is the highest-end 3D V-cached chip from Team Red. The processor has been filled to the brim with the latest Zen 5 hardware and baked to a gaming-ready state.

It’s clear looking at the specifications that the 9950X3D is the big brother of the comparatively-humble 9800X3D. It has double the cores and thread support, more L3 cache, a higher clock speed ...