Processors can always be faster. For example, by adding more cores, or by allowing more power so that clock speeds can be increased. The “trick” that AMD has been applying to its desktop processors since the beginning of last year is to add a large amount of L3 cache. AMD calls this “3D V-Cache”. This very large memory has always been reserved for desktop processors, but now the laptop processor is also equipped with a very large cache memory. You’ll find this Ryzen 9 7945HX3D processor in one laptop at the moment. We tested this laptop and in this article you can read if AMD claims the 7945HX3D laptop The world’s fastest mobile game processor He, cut a little wood.
Laptop: the well-known ASUS ROG SCAR 17
Mobile processors are not standalone products. There’s a whole laptop around and in this case it’s a recognizable system: the ASUS ROG Strix Scar 17. We reviewed that laptop in May 2023 and then it was equipped with a Ryzen 9 7945HX processor, so no 3D cache. The 7945HX3D is actually the same CPU, but with 128 instead of 64MB of L3 cache. If you want to dive deeper into this laptop, you can find our review here.
| Ryzen 9 7945HX | Ryzen 9 7945HX3D | |
|---|---|---|
| Cores/Threads | 16/32 | 16/32 |
| base clock frequency | 2.5 GHz | 2.5 GHz |
| The maximum clock frequency | 5.4 GHz | 5.4 GHz |
| ctdp | 55-75 watts | 55-75 watts |
| L1/L2 cache | 1MB/16MB | 1MB/16MB |
| L3 cache | 64 MB | 128 MB |
What does this cache do? You can read about that in this basic article. And what is good? We’ve also written about that before. On the desktop, AMD released the Ryzen 7 5800X3D first, followed by the 7950X3D, 7900X3D, and 7800X3D. If you don’t want to read all of these articles from start to finish, the content roughly boils down to the following. Thanks to the larger cache memory, the correct data is more often available for the CPU to work on. If that data is not in the L3 cache, it must be retrieved from the much slower working memory. sun miss cache It causes delays which is common in unpredictable workloads. Games are generally more difficult to predict workloads and thus benefit from larger cache memory.
We ran our usual benchmarks on the new Scar 17, but there was hardly any difference between the result of the Scar 17 and the regular 7945HX.
In all of the PCMark 10 subtests, the test scores were nearly identical, even on the gaming test. It should be clear that variations are not made for these types of workloads.
Also in Cinebench we don’t see any differences between the 7945HX and 7945HX3D.