AMD's upcoming gem Ryzen 7 5800X3D has just received an optimizer driver from Gigabyte called 3D V-Cache Performance.
Surprisingly, AMD did not mention this driver, nor did it mention the need for such an optimizer in the first place. This update is also only available to Windows 10 users.
image originated from the network
Gigabyte's new AMD chipset driver (4.03.03.624) is suitable for some of its motherboards. It introduces a subdriver specially made for the upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D. "To "optimize" this driver for 3D V-Cache." This is a really weird addition, especially considering that AMD has not mentioned it yet.
According to the information shared by AMD, although the new processor has innovative architecture, it does not require any special software to run. For the system, 3D V-Cache is like any other L3 cache, just much larger than what other CPUs usually offer. To make the Ryzen 7 5800X3D run properly on existing motherboards, updating the BIOS should be enough.
With that in mind, updating the BIOS will make sense, but a new 3D V-Cache optimizer driver is another matter entirely. Apart from the name of the driver, no information about what it actually does is shared. According to Tom's hardware, AMD and Intel do not need any optimized drivers specifically for L3 cache so far.
images originated from the network
Also strange is that the driver is dedicated to Windows 10, which means that Windows 11 already has all the optimizations needed to make full use of AMD's 3D V-Cache technology. In order for such a driver to exist, AMD had to work with Microsoft, but AMD still did not publish the driver on its own website.
The fact that this driver is only suitable for Windows 10 can be explained by the improvements brought by Windows 11. The operating system has been optimized to support hybrid processors like Intel Alder Lake, so Microsoft may also make some improvements to how Windows 11 handles L3 caches.
However, since we don't know what Gigabyte's mysterious driver actually does, it's hard to say exactly why it's required in Windows 10 and not in Windows 11.
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The upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D will be the first consumer-grade processor to use 3D V-Cache, increasing the L3 cache size to up to 96MB. It also comes with 8 cores and 16 threads, and clocks up to 4.5GHz. It does not support overclocking.
In addition to Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD will release several other new generation processors. All of these CPUs will be available on April 20.
