I think it’s fair to say that we have plenty of options to choose from when it comes to PC hardware in 2024. Processors, graphics cards, RAM, motherboards, cases, laptops, monitors, portable devices – the list is huge and I choose only one for My private selection of this batch has been difficult, but then I remembered something I had used a lot this year and how inspired I had felt with its remarkable gaming performance.
So there you have it. My personal pick for 2024 is the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D. Released in January for $249, it’s the epitome of old-new. . . or does it deserve to be new-old? It’s a processor with socket AM4, which I’m sure has been around since the dinosaurs and baffles paleontologists when they look for fossils.
It uses the Zen 3 architecture, first released in November 2020, so it’s also quite old. And then there’s the fact that the Ryzen 7 5700X3D is just a Ryzen 7 5800X3D with lower frequencies, and that chip first appeared in April 2022.
So why do I choose something that is obviously an older generation as this year’s most productive generation? This is AMD gaming magic in the form of 3-D V-Cache.
System memory is just too slow for modern processors; even the fastest DDR5 money can buy doesn’t cut the mustard. So, to make sure CPUs are never left waiting for data and instructions, they all have multiple tiers of high-speed cache built into them.
The so-called last point cache (usually classified as point 3 or L3) is the largest but slowest of the points, but is still very important for the speed at which a processor can run systems such as games. A popular Ryzen 7 desktop chip has 32 MB of L3 cache, shared among its 8 cores.
What makes the X3D variants special is that AMD developed a way to add more L3 cache but without making the die bigger. In short, the engineers went vertical, adding a slice of cache to the chiplet housing the cores. In the case of the Ryzen 7 5700X3D, the total L3 cache is a frankly ridiculous 96 MB, even by today’s standards.
AMD’s last level cache works as a victim cache. Instead of holding any data from anywhere, it just stores stuff that’s been pushed out of the L2 cache to make room for new data. With 96 MB on tap, it saves a huge amount of valuable time being otherwise lost waiting for information to be read from the computer’s RAM.
Games process all kinds of data, so 3-D V-Cache can make a big difference in how they work, especially when they’re limited by CPU or formula. Obviously, you can see this in the gaming benchmarks when I reviewed the Ryzen 7 5700X3-d:
But it’s not just about average frame rates or even the 1% low figures. 3D V-Cache can help reduce micro-stutters, those fleeting brief moments when the frame rate crashes right down, but not frequently enough to register in the 1% low data.
As is additional cache, it is of course not genuine magic and cannot fix disruptions caused by a game’s engine or hardware-related issues. But for anyone who has an AM4 gaming PC and is looking for an affordable upgrade that will keep the platform running for many years to come, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D can’t be beat.
Let’s say you currently have a Ryzen 5 5600X. You could pick up a 5700X3D for $220 at Amazon and, if have a decent enough graphics card, enjoy the same kind of performance uplift that you can see in the above charts.
It does use quite a bit more power than a 5600X but you don’t need to spend a fortune on cooling to keep the 5700X3D’s thermals in check. Thermalright’s PA120SE might not look anything special but it’s a brilliant cooler and costs $35 at Amazon.
That’s $255 all-in for a one-time upgrade. We’d all like to have an ultra-powerful gaming PC with a Ryzen 7 9800X3D and an RTX 4090, but that’s several thousand dollars just for the two parts.
In a global technology that doesn’t make much sense, the Ryzen 7 5700X3D ticks all the boxes for me. It’s an old technology, but that doesn’t matter when you consider how smart it is. We may not see something like this again, or at least not for a few years. Well done AMD, you didn’t achieve everything this year, but you sure did with the 57003XD.
If you want to know who won the PC Gamer Hardware Awards, we’ll post the winners on New Year’s Day.
Nick, gaming and computers met in 1981, with a love story that began with a Sinclair ZX81 kit and an e-book on ZX Basic. He eventually became a professor of physics and computer science, but in the late 1990s it was time to start writing for a long-defunct British tech site. He then did the same at Madonion, helping write the support files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a brief stint at Beyond3D. com, Nick joined Futuremark (rebranded as MadOnion) full-time, as Editor-in-Chief of their gaming and hardware section, YouGamers. After the site closed, he became a professor of engineering and computer science for many years, until now. I had no taste for writing. Think back to 4 years of TechSpot. com and over a hundred long articles on anything. He openly admits to being overly obsessed with GPUs and open-world RPGs, but still Who is rarely very those days?
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