Gigabyte releases a strange driver for AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D

AMD’s upcoming gem, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, has just received a surprising driver from Gigabyte, called the 3D V-Cache Performance Optimizer Driver.

What’s surprising is that AMD hasn’t said anything about this driver, nor did it mention that such an optimizer would be needed in the first place. The update is also only available to Windows 10 users.

The new AMD Chipset driver (4.03.03.624) from Gigabyte applies to some of its motherboards. It introduces a sub-driver made specifically for the upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Made to “optimize” the 3D V-Cache, the driver is really rather a curious addition, especially considering that AMD has made no mention of it yet.

According to previous information shared by AMD, the new processor, although innovative in its architecture, is not supposed to require any special software in order to run. To the system, the 3D V-Cache is just like any other L3 cache, it’s just much larger than what other CPUs usually offer. A BIOS update was supposed to suffice in order to make the Ryzen 7 5800X3D perform as intended on existing motherboards.

Considering that, a BIOS update would make sense, but to find a new 3D V-Cache optimizer driver is something else entirely. Beyond the name of the driver, no information has been shared as to what it actually does. According to Tom’s Hardware, up until now, AMD and Intel didn’t need any optimizing drivers for the L3 cache specifically.

It’s also strange that the driver is a Windows 10-exclusive, implying that Windows 11 already has all the optimization it needs to make the most of AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. For such a driver to exist, AMD would have had to cooperate with Microsoft, but AMD still hasn’t released the driver on its own website.

The fact that the driver is only made available for Windows 10 can be explained by the improvements brought by Windows 11. The operating system was already optimized to support hybrid processors such as Intel Alder Lake, so it’s possible that Microsoft also made some improvements to the way the L3 cache is handled by Windows 11.

However, as we don’t know what Gigabyte’s mysterious driver actually does, it’s hard to say with any certainty why exactly it’s required in Windows 10 but not in Windows 11.

The upcoming AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is going to be the first consumer-level processor to feature the 3D V-Cache, bringing L3 cache size to a whopping 96MB. It also comes with eight cores and 16 threads as well as clock speeds reaching up to 4.5GHz. It won’t support overclocking.

Alongside the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD is set to release several other current-gen processors. All of these CPUs are going to hit the market on April 20.

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