AMD is considering a Ryzen 5 9600X3D 'later this year' but its value for gaming could suffer against its own stiff competition

Sometimes the best things at Computex are the things that aren't at Computex; namely, talk of upcoming tech. Case in point here is AMD's Ryzen and Radeon VP and GM David McAfee telling Tom's Hardware that a Zen 5 replacement for the Ryzen 5 7600X3D—meaning surely a Ryzen 5 9600X3D—“may be something that we look at doing… later this year."

AMD launched the former chip way back in 2024, but it was very limited in numbers because it was only sold by Microcenter. There was talk of a 9600X3D as long ago as this time last year, as references to it were found in driver notes, but nothing ever came of it.

The 'X3D' in the name refers to AMD's 3D V-Cache, which is stacked vertically on top of or under the processor—under, in the case of the 9,000-series—giving the chip easy access to much more L3 cache than a normal processor gets. Lots of games really benefit from big processor caches, so naturally, X3D chips make for some of the absolute best CPUs for gaming.

Given that the cheapest of current-gen options is the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, which costs north of $400, a cheaper six-core option would be nice. Though it might not keep the same 3.9 GHz base and 5.4 GHz boost clock of the Ryzen 5 9600X, given (A) the chip would likely be based on a cut-down eight-core rather than a six-core 9600X, and (B) the stacked cache might prevent the chip from reaching its full potential on that front. Still, though, it would make for a formidable cheaper chip.

But we shouldn't get carried away, because the main problem a Ryzen 5 9600X3D might face is competition from other AMD chips. Given how cheap the Ryzen 5 7500X3D and Ryzen 5 7600X3D CPUs are, many might opt for those instead. And if you want to spend more, unless it's priced very generously, it will be hard to convince some to get a 9600X3D over a 9800X3D, which will have more longevity.

McAfee, however, explained the possible market for this chip as follows:

"I think as we go through the rest of this year, I mean we're always looking for ways to, you know, create as many options as we can, and that may become… maybe something that we look at doing as a runway product later this year, simply because you know we know the pressures that are there in building systems aren't going away anytime soon."

That much is true: more options never hurt in this market. And perhaps it would be more of a processor for pre-builts anyway, in which case it could, for instance, offer a new option for high-end builds when system builders want to save a bit of cash and not opt for a 9800X3D.

At any rate, it seems it's not off the cards for AMD.