Our Verdict

Painfully expensive, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition is basically a 9950X3D with a bit more juice behind it, for a whole lot more cash. There are some cases where the symmetrical CCDs and extra cache do make a difference in games, but that doesn't really justify the price tag.

For

AMD's most powerful gaming CPU

192 MB of L3 cache

Bragging rights

Against

Marginal gains over the 9950X3D

Runs hot

Power hungry

Massive price tag

PC Gamer's got your back

Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.

AMD said it would "simply be too expensive" and that "games would not benefit." It was, of course, talking about why it had never launched a dual CCD Ryzen desktop processor with 3D V-Cache on both chiplets. There was no technical barrier, just a matter of pointlessness. And yet here we are, with the Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 Dual Edition.…