Modifying AMD 3D V-Cache Into RAM Disk Makes For Insane Benchmark Numbers
Modifying AMD 3D V-Cache Into RAM Disk Makes For Insane Benchmark Numbers
AMD’s 3D V-Cache is nothing short of a modern CPU engineering marvel, thanks to its huge pool of cache providing impressive performance gains for the games and apps that may utilize them. Apparently, the thought of benchmarking the cache has crossed into the mind of Twitter user Nemez, and here we end up with a benchmark result with huge numbers all around.
Here’s some context: in certain use cases, RAM can be used as a storage instead of a memory system – this is what we call a “RAM disk”. Of course, turning off the power means all data is lost, so this is reserved in a very limited number of use cases where speeds are crucial for the job. Still, in this particular scenario, it’s nothing more than an experiment to see how fast it can go. (The user also posted a guide on how to run this on your own chip.)
While the cache on Ryzen 7 5800X3D is comparatively large, it is minuscule compared to the kind of drives that CrystalDiskMark is designed to test. This meant the figures are all over the place (at least that is the case with the chip’s successor, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D), though the best run indicates that it’s capable of delivering well over 180GB/s – that’s up to 18x faster than a typical PCIe 5.0 SSD of today, with speeds ranging in between 10-12GB/s.
However, that’s not even close to the speeds that AMD advertised. According to the chipmaker, the first generation 3D V-Cache, used in Zen 3 chips (5800X3D), provides up to 2TB/s throughput; the second generation 3D V-Cache pushes that to 2.5TB/s. Clearly, the benchmark tool fails to utilize the bandwidth it offers – though to be fair, this is not what it’s designed for.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
Pokdepinion: The fact that it even runs is quite the feat in itself. Not surprising it’s a bit wonky at running the tests, though.
