Speedy new 5800X3D is AMD’s first non-overclockable Ryzen processor

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AMD's Ryzen 7 5800X3D promises to be one of the company's fastest gaming CPUs, and it's one of the last high-end chips that will grace the AM4 socket before Ryzen 7000 CPUs come out later this year. But the company's experimental new 3D V-Cache stacking technology comes with one negative side effect: This will be the first Ryzen CPU that's incapable of overclocking.

According to PCWorld, AMD Director of Technical Marketing Robert Hallock says that this change is because the processor's voltage limit is locked to 1.35 volts, a bit lower than other Ryzen 5000 chips. A lower voltage for the CPU cores means they'll generate less heat, presumably creating a bit more thermal headroom for the 64MB of additional L3 cache memory that the 5800X3D uses. A lower voltage would also explain why the 5800X3D's clock speeds are a hair lower than the standard Ryzen 7 5800X.

Hallock said this won't be true of future 3D V-Cache CPUs. So if we do see this technology reused in Ryzen 7000 chips, those chips should still be overclockable, as most other Ryzen processors have been. You can also try to squeeze some extra speed from the 5800X3D with memory and Infinity Fabric overclocks.

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