Update — January 8, 11 am ET: Alienware has communicated to Tom's Hardware that the Area-51 Desktop touted by Alienware China will feature the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D, not the rumored 9950X3D2 chip, as previously implied on social media. This story has been updated to reflect this.
AMD's CES 2026 keynote was conspicuously missing the highly-anticipated Ryzen 9 9950X3D2. The CPU originally leaked alongside the Ryzen 7 9850X3D — which did get announced this week — while the true flagship was a no-show. At a company QnA in Vegas on Wednesday for CES, AMD hinted to media, including Tom's Hardware, that the 9950X3D2 is indeed on the cards, but that it doesn't have anything to announce right now.
The 9950X3D2 is rumored to be the company's first processor to stack 3D V-Cache across both CCDs. This would allow for a whopping 192 MB of total L3 cache on the 9950X3D2, way more than even the 128 MB on its namesake brethren, the 9950X3D, which only has the extra L3 cache on one of its two chiplets.
In real-world usage, an increased cache pool could lead to marginal gains in gaming performance. The rest of the chip remains identical to the standard 9950X3D, with current rumors pointing toward a 200W TDP, a slight bump from 170W. It will also carry a max boost clock of up to 5.6 GHz with the same core layout.
AMD's non-commital answer notwithstanding, Alienware China shared a video on its BiliBili account, mentioning the 9950X3D2 coming to its Area 51 desktop. Following the publication of this article, Alienware clarified to Tom's Hardware that the Area 51 will ship with the announced 9850X3D, rather than the 9950X3D2.
Alienware didn't share any more details beyond that, and that's where a British system integrator by the name of "Sytronix" comes in.
The Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 shows up on the company's website, under the workstation page, as part of the "NexStation" system. There, the 16-core/32-thread config is listed along with an "X3D2 architecture" for the chip, claiming it offers improved cache management while running cooler than conventional CPUs. The 9950X3D2 is being paired with AMD's Radeon AI PRO 9700 GPU in the NexStation.
Those are two separate reports that tell us this elusive CPU not only exists, but that it's out there in the hands of some SIs. Why AMD chose to keep it close to its heart instead of revealing it, well, we don't know.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
