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

AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D promises to be one of the company’s fastest gaming processors, and it’s one of the last high-end chips to grace socket AM4 before the Ryzen 7000 processors launch later this year. But the company’s new experimental 3D V-Cache stacking technology has one negative side effect: it will be the first non-overclockable Ryzen processor.

According to PCWorld, AMD director of technical marketing Robert Hallock says the change is because the CPU voltage cap is fixed at 1.35V, slightly lower than other Ryzen 5000 chips. The lower voltage for the CPU cores means that they will generate less heat, presumably providing slightly more headroom for the 64MB of extra L3 cache that the 5800X3D uses. The lower voltage also explains why the 5800X3D’s clock speeds are slightly lower than the stock Ryzen 7 5800X.

Hallock said that this would not be true for future 3D V-Cache processors. So if we do see this technology being reused in Ryzen 7000 chips, those chips should still be overclocked like most other Ryzen processors. You can also try to squeeze some extra speed out of the 5800X3D with memory overclocking and Infinity Fabric.

Overclocking isn’t exactly a common use case for processors these days, and the extra benefits you can get from most chips aren’t as impressive as they might have been a decade or two ago. However, AMD Zen processors feature unlocked multipliers and overclocking support on every desktop processor model and motherboard chipset (so far). Overclocking Intel processors still requires an expensive K-series processor and a high-performance Z-series motherboard, although you can still get extra performance from some Intel processors by increasing their power limits.

The 5800X3D goes on sale April 20 for $449 and AMD promises up to 15% better gaming performance than the Ryzen 5900X. The chip will be accompanied by AMD’s first significant new budget processors in two years, the Ryzen 4000 and Ryzen 5000 processor lineup, priced between $99 and $299.