During AMD's keynote at Computex, we got an early look at new 3D stacking technology that the company is working on. Using a prototype Ryzen 9 5900X with 3D stacking, significant performance improvements were shown, with games running up to 25 percent faster. 

Using its new 3D stacking technology, AMD was able to add an extra 64MB of L3 cache by adding a DRAM stack on top of a CCD using a “hybrid bond approach”. By the same logic, on a dual-CCD chip, it would be possible to increase the cache by 128MB.

This technology development was made in partnership with TSMC. As per AMD's claims, it offers “over 200 times the interconnect density of 2D chiplets and more than 15 times the density compared to existing 3D packaging solutions”.

AMD 3D Chiplet Technology: A packaging breakthrough for high-performance computing.

— AMD (@AMD) June 1, 2021

AMD also showed a slide comparing the gaming performance of a standard Ryzen 9 5900X at 4GHz with the prototype at the same clock speed. On average, the prototype was 15 percent faster, but in some titles, like Monster Hunter World, the performance gain reached as high as 25 percent.

The Ryzen 9 5900X prototype is just a glimpse of what can be achieved using this technology. Now that AMD has succeeded in implementing it on a chip, future architecture should feature a similar 3D chiplet design by default.

KitGuru says: We know that the current Zen 3 processors support this new technology, but would it be worth it for AMD to launch a Zen 3 refresh or Zen 3+ line-up of processors using it? Or will AMD debut the 3D chiplet design on upcoming Zen 4 processors? 

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