AMD's breakthrough 3D V-Cache tech appears to be making its way to laptops, and the laptop that receives the 3D treatment could be one ferocious device.
A Ryzen 9 7950HX3D processor was discovered inside an Asus ROG Strix laptop. Will the 3D V-Cache propel this gadget to the top of every best laptops rating, or will it simply become a power-hungry desktop in a smaller package?
Because to 3D V-Cache technology, some of AMD's best CPUs contain vast amounts of cache. While effective in desktops, the technology has yet to make its way to laptops, but evidence indicate that this is about to change – assuming the reports are true. So yet, neither AMD nor Asus has made any attempt to corroborate this, so hold your breath until we get an official confirmation.
Let us now indulge in some wonderful supposition. The chip first appeared on Weibo, a Chinese platform, and has since been removed — however @9550pro on Twitter saved a screenshot of it. The AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D processor has 16 cores, 32 threads, and 128MB of L3 cache.
The screenshot is one thing, but Tom's Hardware has discovered an actual product listing for the Asus ROG Strix, which has yet to be released. It has a 17-inch 1440p display and Nvidia's top GPU, the RTX 4090, as well as 32GB of DDR5 RAM. The CPU cache is indicated as 64MB in the spec sheet, which is most likely an error because the 7950X3D has 128MB of total cache.
This laptop will be pricey, which comes as no surprise. It costs £3,904 (about $5,000) in British pounds. Of course, no one knows how much it will cost in the United States if and when it makes its way across the pond.
According to Tom's Hardware, this is a Dragon Range chip, and it will be a regular desktop CPU housed inside a considerably smaller laptop chassis. This could cause the laptop to overheat, and depending on the processor's final power consumption, the gadget could be more of a portable desktop than a laptop - its battery life is likely to be rather limited.
Without a doubt, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D in conjunction with an RTX 4090 will give unrivaled performance in laptops. However, it's unclear whether the restricted space combined with such strong components will result in thermal throttling. Given that it's a 17-inch model weighing just under 2 pounds, Asus has most certainly considered this and made the laptop somewhat thick.
If the reports are true, this laptop is expected to hit the market this year, so we may hear more soon.