AMD stealth launches the Ryzen 5 5500X3D, a cheaper downclocked version of its oldest 3D V-Cache CPU architecture

Without the slightest fanfare, AMD has added a new "X3D" model with 3D V-Cache to its CPU lineup. Give it up, ladies and germs, for the new Ryzen 5 5500X3D (thanks to X user MEGAsizeGPU for spotting it).

It's a six-core, 12-thread chip with 96 MB of L3 cache memory, which makes it a hardware doppelgänger for the existing Ryzen 5 5600X3D, which launched back in 2023. The difference with the new chip is all about clockspeeds.

The old 5600X3D runs 3.3 GHz base and 4.4 GHz Boost clocks. The "new" 5500X3D makes do with rounding those numbers down to 3 GHz and 4 GHz respectively.

Both chips share AMD's first-gen 3D V-Cache tech, which stacks a slab of cache memory atop the CPU die. The idea is that the added on-package cache means the CPU cores have less need to pull data from main system memory. Accessing data from on-package cache is much faster than going out to RAM.

The real-world performance benefits of the added cache vary according to application type. Tasks like video encoding don't see much of an uptick from adding cache. However, games can run quite a bit faster, sometimes as much as 30 to 40% faster than a comparable CPU without the 3D V-Cache, albeit the upside is usually more in the 10% range. Which is why AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D is currently our gaming CPU of choice.

Apart from the 3D V-Cache, the main appeal here is compatibility with legacy rigs running ye olde AM4 socket. Arguably, if you're building a new rig from scratch to today, it would make more sense to go with a newer AM5 non-X3D CPU, for instance a Ryzen 5 7600X or 9600X. That way you should have more drop-in upgrade options down the road.

But if you've already got an AM4 rig and the time isn't quite right to go for a full system upgrade, the new 5500X3D could be interesting. That will, of course, hinge on price to a great extent.

For now, pricing and availability isn't clear. The Ryzen 5 5600X3D was a Microcenter exclusive and is no longer available. Right now, the closest alternative is the Ryzen 7 5700X3D, which goes for around $260.

That's an eight-core chip with higher clocks, so the 5500X3D would probably come in around $200. For context, a Ryzen 5 9600X is currently around $180 and hits 5.4 GHz, though obviously isn't a drop-in option for AM4 motherboards. So, we'll have to wait and see how the 5500X3D is priced and how widely available it is.