CPU, APU & Chipsets

AMD is planning to unleash its Zen 6 desktop processors either late in 2026, or early in 2027, according to the latest from the rumor mill.

This comes from well-known leaker Kepler, who posted some fresh speculation on X, as you can see above.

The good news for those wondering about motherboard compatibility is that Zen 6 chips will stick with the same socket, we're told. So existing AM5 boards will be good for upgrades to whatever AMD decides to call these CPUs. (Ryzen 10000 seems like it might look a bit odd - it may just be time for a change of tack).

MSI has used its new MEG X870E GODLIKE motherboard and overclocked AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor to a blazing fast 7.241GHz, check it out:

AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D is now in the wild with its 8 cores and 16 threads of Zen 5 processing power + new 3D V-Cache, with the CPU recently used by ASUS and pushed to 6.9GHz seeing 1000FPS+ in Counter-Strike 2 and 2000FPS+ in Valorant... all the while, sipping just 100W of power.

MSI has taken it to another level, using its new MEG X870E GODLIKE motherboard, LN2 cooling, and an incredible 7.241GHz overclock on the 9800X3D chip.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor is here, and now a chip teardown has been performed with some truly beautiful results... the shiny, gorgeous blue of that new 3D V-Cache inside of the 9800X3D smiles for the camera. Check it out:

In the images above, you can see that beautiful shiny blue stack is the Zen 5 CCD, while that gorgeous gold part is the new 3D V-Cache stack. The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D features 8 cores and 16 threads of (blue) Zen 5 CCD goodness, as well as next-gen 3D V-Cache.

Delidding the 9800X3D isn't something everyone will do, while this teardown was performed with a heat gun to remove to melt away the solder under the IHS before it is tool apart. Once the 9800X3D is delidded, the CCD and IO die are the only two chiplets on this chip.

AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor is here, and it's already been overclocked to 6.9GHz and achieving an incredible 1000FPS+ in Counter-Strike 2 and a mind-blowing 2000FPS+ in Valorant.

The new Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor was chilled with LN2 cooling and pushed to 6.9GHz (Elon Musk would be proud of this) by ASUS China General Manager Tony Yu. Being ASUS, Tony used the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Gene motherboard (yeah, not the X870E variant) with the 9800X3D pushed to between 6.7GHz and 6.9GHz.

Tony ran the 9800X3D overclocked on the ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Gene motherboard with 32GB of DDR5-6000 (CL30) memory and NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. Running the 9800X3D through Cinebench R23 saw the overclocked 6.9GHz chip pushing 30,513 points which is a 36% increase over the PBO scores from the 9800X3D.

AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU has gone on sale, but the CPU has vanished from shelves in the US (and in other countries).

If you look at Newegg, the Ryzen 9800X3D is out of stock already, and that's also the case at Amazon.com.

Some people who have managed to place an order with Amazon already are saying that they've been told the processor won't arrive until later in November, a couple of weeks from now. Furthermore, scalpers, in the form of third-party marketplace sellers, are already selling the CPU at much-inflated prices on Amazon.

AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X3D has again been the subject of a leak, and this time, the CPU has been aired in a gaming benchmark - but don't get excited about that part of the spillage.

We'll come back to why shortly, but the real news here is that the Ryzen 9950X3D has been spotted in FactorioBox - which is the benchmark database for the game Factorio - and so the processor exists (add seasoning as appropriate), and it's in testing. That's what to focus on here, rather than the actual benchmark result.

Of course, this isn't your typical Ashes of the Singularity or 3DMark gaming-related rumor - Factorio very much isn't the source of your average leak (or indeed any leak we've seen before). Although it's a pretty good game (created by some stand-up devs) going by the reviews (some of which are fanatical about how great it is, notably).

Apple's new M4 Ultra processor will reportedly come with double the GPU cores that the M4 Max features -- up to 80 GPU cores in total -- and in estimated benchmarks, will beat NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card.

In some estimated benchmarks, Yadim Yuryev from YouTube channel Max Tech, the Apple M4 Ultra processor will feature a Geekbench 6 compute score of 333,000. This is compared to the 192,812 that the Apple M4 Max spits out, with Yuryev saying that the "GPU scaling from the leaked M4 Pro score to the M4 Max chip is 78 percent higher performance".

Yuryev played it safe accounting for Apple to hit just 70% scaling for the M4 Ultra over the M4 Max, with a maximum expectation of seeing 385,624 points, while in comparison the RTX 4090 hits 317,162 points and a Vulkan score of 262,907. If Apple does indeed hit a home run with scaling on the M4 Ultra, it will top the RTX 4090 in this test at least, but not everything across the board.

NVIDIA and MediaTek's upcoming Arm-based consumer-focused CPU is aiming for the high-end market according to new reports, expected in the second half of 2025.

In a new report from DigiTimes, we're learning that NVIDIA's new AI PC processor will join the fray with Microsoft, Qualcomm, AMD, and Intel by laying the foundation for the Windows-on-Arm ecosystem. NVIDIA plans to join the AI PC processor game and use its gigantic ecosystem of partners to design, and deliver regular applications and games for its Arm-based processors.

Not just that, but NVIDIA is also cooking up its new GeForce RTX 50 series "Blackwell" desktop graphics cards, and its new GeForce RTX 50 Laptop series "Blackwell" mobile GPUs, which will end up being featured inside of these new AI PCs with an NVIDIA + MediaTek CPU based on the Arm architecture.

AMD is expected to announce its new Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip for gaming handhelds at CES 2025. It will be based on the company's Strix Point architecture with Zen 5 cores and upgraded RDNA 3.5 graphics, as seen with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370's Radeon 890M graphics.

Instead of waiting for the gaming-handheld-optimized Ryzen Z2 Extreme chip to arrive on the scene, One-Notebook has formally unveiled its new OneXFly F1 Pro PC gaming handheld that features AMD's Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 APU. What makes this exciting is that even though RDNA 3.5 is an incremental update, you're looking at around 20% more gaming performance than the current-gen Ryzen Z1 Extreme seen in handhelds like ROG Ally from ASUS.

The OneXFly F1 Pro is a slick-looking unit with a 7-inch OLED display with an impressive 144Hz refresh rate. One-Notebook has posted a new video showcasing an engineering sample running the in-game benchmark tool in Black Myth: Wukong.

AMD's Zen X3D CPUs are launching this week, with the arrival of the Ryzen 7 9800X3D on November 7. With an impressive 104MB of Total Cache and an MSRP of $479 USD, the eight-core and 16-thread CPU also sports a 4.7 GHz base clock and a 5.2 GHz max boost clock with support for additional overclocking.

According to AMD's data, the new Ryzen 7 9800X3D will deliver an "average 8% gaming performance improvement" compared to the previous generation and "an average 20% faster" performance than the competition - i.e., Intel's new flagship Core Ultra 9 285K. However, AMD has only announced this single Ryzen 9000 X3D chip, with no word on additional models like the Ryzen 9 9900X3D and Ryzen 9 9950X3D.

Rumors point to 16-core Zen 5 3D V-Cache CPUs being announced at CES 2025 in January, with optimized performance for non-gaming workloads. According to GIGABYTE's new press release for its new X3D Turbo Mode for its X870E, X870, and 600 series motherboards, the company not only confirms that Ryzen 9000 series 16-core X3D processors are coming but also offers up some early performance info.