A new teaser image of AMD’s upcoming 9850X3D CPU has appeared on a Chinese social media platform, showing the chip operating at 5.3 GHz (rather than the 5.6 GHz in its specifications) with extremely high-speed memory: 9,800MHz, TechPowerUp reports. This is well above the official 5,600MHz supported by AMD’s current 9800X3D, suggesting AMD’s refreshed gaming king could support new CUDIMM standards.
Or it could just be some troll post. Chalk this one up as speculative, at best.
But what speculation it is. AMD’s current memory configurations on its top chips are far behind those supported by Intel, which can go over 8,000MHz thanks to its support of new CUDIMM standards. AMD chips, however, struggle with higher memory speeds over 6,000MHz, as it involves uncoupling the Infinity Fabric clock, and then you’re in the realm of complicated ratios trying to find the best performance in the real world.
Perhaps that problem is solved with the 9850X3D, though. AMD may be using a redesigned, or especially binned, I/O die that can handle the improved memory performance. Higher clock speeds and higher memory support would be one way to bolster its capabilities beyond the stock 9800X3D, and offer extra competition for Intel’s Arrow Lake refresh processors.
AMD’s CPUs don’t tend to benefit massively from higher-speed memory because of the complexities involved. They do, however, prefer lower latencies over higher bandwidth, so if these higher-speed modules can instead be tuned for tighter timing, they could offer a noticeable performance boost for these refreshed CPU designs.
If this screenshot is accurate, that is. The date is inaccurate, though that’s probably deliberate to hide when it was taken. The board in question is decidedly budget. It’s B850 and part of Asus’ As You Wish (AYW) range, so high-end memory support is unlikely. Unlike Intel boards, though, you can overclock on mid-tier chipsets, so perhaps they’re just running a competent memory kit and got lucky.