If you're looking for the best CPUs for gaming or the best workstation CPU, or just one of the best budget CPUs, there are only two choices: AMD and Intel. That fact has spawned an almost religious following for both camps, and the resulting AMD vs Intel flamewars make it tricky to get unbiased advice about the best choice for your next processor. But in many cases, the answer is actually very clear: Intel's chips win for most users looking for the best balance of performance in both gaming and productivity at a more accessible price point. However, AMD's lineup of specialized X3D CPUs wins for PCs focused on gaming.
This article covers the never-ending argument of AMD vs Intel desktop
CPUs (we're not covering laptop or server chips). We judge the chips on
seven criteria based on what you plan to do with your PC, pricing,
performance, driver support, power consumption, and security, giving us a
clear view of the state of the competition. We'll also discuss the
process nodes and architectures that influence the moving goalposts.
However, each brand has its strengths and weaknesses, so which CPU brand
you should buy depends mostly on what blend of features, price, and
performance are important to you.
If you're looking for the fastest overall chips on the market at an
accessible price point, you should look to Intel's CPUs. The potent 13th-Gen Raptor Lake
series builds on Intel's hybrid architecture formula, which combines
high-performance and efficiency cores into one package, to deliver a
winning blend of performance in both gaming and productivity workloads,
but that comes at the cost of higher power consumption than AMD's
competing chips.
AMD's answer comes in the form of its Zen 4 Ryzen 7000
series. AMD has recently reduced the pricing of its chips and rolled
our newer non-X models that reduce the price of entry, but AM5
motherboards and DDR5 memory still carry a premium, muddying the value
proposition.
However, AMD's powerful Ryzen 7000 "X3D" models utilize a breakthrough
3D chip-stacking tech to take the lead in gaming performance, as you can
see in our Ryzen 7 7800X3D review
that finds the 7800X3D to be the fastest gaming CPU on the planet, bar
none. AMD has also leveraged this X3D tech with its older architectures
to make incredibly value-centric gaming chips, like the new Ryzen 5 5600X3D.
This tech does result in significant performance reductions in
productivity applications, so you'll need to be aware of the tradeoffs,
but the gains in gaming performance are phenomenal.
For a more detailed look, below you can see how the entire Ryzen 7000
family stacks up against Raptor Lake in a series of categories that also
includes benchmarks and pricing.
AMD vs Intel: Which CPU is Best?
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Intel | AMD |
|---|---|---|
| CPU Pricing and Value | X | Row 0 - Cell 2 |
| Gaming Performance | X | X |
| Content Creation/Productivity | ✗ | Row 2 - Cell 2 |
| Specifications | ✗ | Row 3 - Cell 2 |
| Overclocking | ✗ | Row 4 - Cell 2 |
| Power Consumption | Row 5 - Cell 1 | ✗ |
| Drivers and Software | ✗ | Row 6 - Cell 2 |
| Process Node | Row 7 - Cell 1 | ✗ |
| Architecture | X | ✗ |
| Security | Row 9 - Cell 1 | ✗ |
| Winner: Intel - Total | 7 | 5 |
Here
are the results of our analysis and testing, with Intel taking a 7-to-5
lead over AMD in the criteria in the table above. In the following
sections, we'll go over the in-depth details of how we came to our
conclusions for each category.
Intel currently offers the best blend of performance and overall value
at an affordable price. AMD's relentless onslaught with its Zen-based
processors has redefined our expectations for both the mainstream
desktop and the HEDT markets, originally catching Intel flatfooted as it
remained mired on the 14nm process and Skylake architectures. The past
several years have seen AMD CPUs go from value-focused and power hungry
chips to designs that deliver more cores, more performance, and lower
power requirements.
Intel fought back by slowly adding features and cores across its product
stack, resulting in negative side effects, like more power consumption
and heat. That only highlighted the company's struggles on the design
and fabrication side of its operation.
The AMD vs Intel CPU conversation has changed recently, as Intel has
taken the overall performance crown while undercutting AMD's
price-to-performance ratio with the Raptor Lake chips. Raptor Lake comes
with the most disruptive change to Intel's CPU overall chip design
methodology, not to mention core architectures, that we've seen in a
decade. They also come with the 'Intel 7' process that has proven
exceptionally competitive, particularly against AMD's superior 5nm
process node from TSMC. That shifted our rankings from a 7-to-4
advantage for AMD to a 7-to-5 advantage in Intel's favor.
AMD isn't taking the challenge lying down, though, as its new lineup of 5nm Ryzen 7000 X3D chips use the company's new second-gen 3D V-Cache
tech to impart tremendous gains in gaming performance, giving AMD the
lead in terms of sheer gaming performance. That comes with a tradeoff of
higher pricing and lower performance in productivity applications, but
AMD also has its standard Ryzen 7000 lineup for those looking for a more
balanced blend of performance. However, the standard models can't match
Raptor Lake's performance and value.
Intel moved forward to PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 technologies first, but AMD
also now supports both with its Ryzen 7000 processors. DDR5 does add
significant cost to motherboards, but Intel gives you the choice of
selecting either DDR4 or DDR5 memory, while AMD only supports pricey
DDR5 — a significant disadvantage given that it doesn't confer
meaningful performance advantages. However, Intel still hasn't eased its
draconian segmentation policies that limit features, like
overclockability, to pricey chips and motherboards.
Intel's chips also hold the crown on overclockability for both core and
memory frequencies, and not by a small margin. If you spend the cash on a
Z-series motherboard, you'll attain far more overclocking headroom than
you'll get with the Ryzen 7000 chips. You can see an example in our How to Overclock a CPU feature.
Despite AMD's recent refresh, Intel is winning the CPU war overall right
now. Of course, an AMD processor could still be the better choice
depending on your needs, like if you prize the lowest power consumption
or forward compatibility with your motherboard for a few more chip
generations. AMD has also told us that it plans to move to a hybrid architecture, which incorporated a blend of high-performance and efficiency cores like Intel's architecture, in the future, which should tighten the race.
However, for now, if you want the best in gaming or application
performance, overclocking, or software support, Team Blue deserves your
hard-earned dollars.
AMD vs Intel CPU Pricing and Value
Pricing
is the most important consideration for almost everyone, and AMD has
generally been hard to beat in the value department. However, that has
changed. Intel is fully committed to winning back market share, so
Raptor Lake finds the company continuing its bare-knuckle price war with
AMD. That's particularly painful for AMD now that Intel's Raptor Lake
chips have the performance crown paired with brutally competitive
pricing.
The arrival of Intel's Raptor Lake-S models has found the company adding
more cores, threads, and features to its mainstream lineup, but without
increased gen-on-gen pricing for most models. The Core i5 and under
models do carry a gen-on-gen markup, but that comes with increased
performance that justifies the extra cost. Overall, Raptor Lake
represents a substantial reduction in price-per-core and
price-per-thread metrics, allowing the company to steal the value crown
from AMD in the Core i5, i7, and i9 ranges. Meanwhile, Intel's
previous-gen Alder Lake continues to dominate the Core i3 and below
segments.
AMD used to offer a plethora of advantages, like bundled coolers and
full overclockability on most models, not to mention complimentary
software that includes the innovative Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO)
auto-overclocking feature. Paired with aggressive pricing for Ryzen
processors, AMD held the value crown for several generations. However,
that calculus began to change after AMD hiked pricing significantly and
stopped including bundled coolers with its chips, especially now that it
has more stringent cooling requirements than in the past.
| Family | AMD | Intel |
|---|---|---|
| Threadripper - Xeon W | $2,399- $6,499 | $949 - $4,499 |
| AMD Ryzen 9 - Intel Core i9 | $549 - $699 | $538 - $699 |
| AMD Ryzen 7 - Intel Core i7 | $299 -$449 | $298 - $409 |
| AMD Ryzen 5 - Intel Core i5 | $129 - $299 | $157 - $319 |
| AMD Ryzen 3 - Intel Core i3 | $95 - $120 | $97 - $154 |
However, AMD still freely allows overclocking on all chip models and all but its A-Series motherboards (see our article on CPU overclocking),
which is a boon for enthusiasts. Meanwhile, Intel still charges a
premium for its overclockable K-Series chips, but you'll also need to
shell out for a pricey Z-Series motherboard for the privilege of
overclocking your processor — Intel doesn't allow full overclocking on
B- or H-series motherboards, but has enabled memory overclocking on its
B560 and H570 chipsets, though.
AMD generally has better coolers than Intel — most of AMD's bundled
coolers are suitable for at least moderate overclocking — but the
company no longer includes them with any of the 'X' models. Intel also
doesn't throw in a cooler for its pricey overclockable K-series SKUs. So
be sure to budget for a cooler (and a beefy one, at that) if you plan
on overclocking an Intel processor.
Both Intel and AMD include a
bundled cooler with their downstream SKUs (non-K for Intel, non-X for
AMD), but Intel's coolers are flimsy and 'good enough' at best. We've
even seen cases where Intel's stock coolers don't provide full performance at stock settings.
AMD, in contrast, has solid coolers that often even provide a bit of
headroom for overclocking. Intel did slightly bulk up its coolers, but
the aesthetic and slight thermal improvements aren't enough to match
AMD's competent coolers, and they aren't available on all models.
Pricing isn't entirely dictated by what you pay for the chip, though —
we also have to factor in platform pricing. Intel's Raptor Lake chips
drop into the same LGA 1700 interface as the previous-gen Alder Lake
chips, and Intel has one more generation coming to market for this
platform. Raptor Lake is backward compatible with previous-gen 600-series boards after a firmware update, which can save you some serious cash (pay attention to the caveats, though).
AMD supported its AM4 socket for five generations of chips, and while
that platform will live on for some time with the Ryzen 5000 chips
slotting in as value alternatives, the company's new AM5 socket
houses its newest Ryzen 7000 chips. AMD says it will support this
socket until 2025+, so it is possible that it could enjoy similar
longevity to AM4, thus giving enthusiasts a long upgrade path.
Intel moved forward to PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 technologies first, but AMD
also now supports both with its Ryzen 7000 processors. DDR5 does add
significant cost to motherboards, but Intel gives you the choice of
selecting either DDR4 or DDR5 memory, while AMD only supports pricey
DDR5 — a significant disadvantage given that it doesn't confer
meaningful performance advantages. In the end, high memory and
motherboard pricing for AMD's AM5 has given Intel a big platform pricing
advantage.
Finally, AMD followed Intel in exiting the high end desktop (HEDT) segment entirely,
marking the end of an era. Now you'll have to step up to
workstation-class processors from both companies to attain more cores
and connectivity, as seen in our Threadripper Pro 5995WX and 5975WX reviews. In either case, AMD owns the performance tier for the best CPUs for workstations,
so it can charge eye-watering premiums as a result — and it does. The
company even excluded its lowest-priced Threadripper models from retail,
creating a $2,399 bar for entry.
Winner: Intel. When comparing Intel vs AMD CPUs, Team
Red still has a strong performance story across the full breadth of its
product stack, but Intel's Raptor Lake currently offers the best overall
performance and value across the full spectrum of price ranges.
However, not only does that apply when we take chip pricing into
account, the difference in pricing turns into a chasm when we factor in
the other costs associated with building a PC. Both Intel and AMD
support PCIe 5.0 and DDR5, which results in a gen-on-gen increase in
motherboard pricing. However, Intel's platform also supports DDR4, so
you can avoid both the DDR5 memory and motherboard tax.
AMD also has spec'd new requirements into its motherboards that create
high pricing relative to Intel's 600- and 700-series motherboards,
which increases AMD's platform pricing significantly. That
does result in more robust lower-tier motherboards, but it gives Intel a
lead in the pricing department. AMD has recently rolled out its A620 motherboards to help address its pricing issues, but Intel also has a robust lineup of value-focused H-series motherboards.
Intel vs AMD CPU Gaming Performance
In the AMD vs Intel CPU gaming performance battle, Intel holds the lead in all critical price bands. Below we have a wide selection of collective gaming performance measurements for the existing chips in the different price bands. In addition, we have two series of test results below that encapsulate performance in both Windows 10 and Windows 11 because Intel's Raptor and Alder Lake offer more performance in Windows 10 than 11. Regardless, the Blue Team holds the lead in both operating systems. You can see a much more holistic view in our CPU Benchmarks Hierarchy.
Our first four slides encapsulate Windows 11 gaming performance with the new Raptor Lake and Ryzen 7000 processors included, while the Windows 10 slides show a larger selection of processors.
As you can see, Intel's Raptor Lake chips are faster than AMD's standard Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7000 processors in all areas. However, AMD's new Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Ryzen 9 7950X3D, and Ryzen 9 7900X3D take the overall lead, though that does come with performance tradeoffs in many productivity applications.
The Core i9-13900K and Core i9-13900KS slot in as Intel's fastest gaming chips, price be damned, but the Core i7-13700K
delivers basically the same gaming performance for far less cash,
making it the go-to choice for performance addicts. For mainstream
gamers, the Core i5-13600K offers a great option, but the Core i5-13400 is the chip to beat at around $200, while the Core i3-12100 is the chip to beat in the ~$110 price class.
The Ryzen 9 7900X slots in as AMD's fastest standard gaming chip, but not by much — the Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 7 7700X offer nearly the same gaming performance. The Ryzen 5 7600X
offers less performance at a friendlier $300 price point. However,
these chips are significantly slower than Intel's chips, especially if
we factor in pricing. AMD also has the lower-priced AMD Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700, and Ryzen 5 7600 on offer, and these chips rival their X-series counterparts after overclocking, thus improving AMD's value proposition.
Kicking your resolution up to 1440p and beyond typically pushes the
bottleneck back to the GPU, so you won't gain as much from your CPU's
gaming prowess. However, a bit of extra CPU gaming performance could pay
off if you plan on updating your graphics card (see our best graphics cards)
with a newer generation while keeping the rest of your system intact.
We expect most builds in the mid-range to come with lesser GPUs, which
generally serve as an equalizer in terms of CPU performance.
In terms of integrated graphics performance, there's no beating AMD. The
company's current-gen Cezanne APUs offer the best performance available
from integrated graphics with the Ryzen 7 5700G and Ryzen 5 5600G. Hit those reviews for a dedicated breakdown, or head to our CPU Benchmark hierarchy for even more detail.
Winner: Tie. Intel's Raptor Lake chips have wrested the
gaming crown from AMD's standard Ryzen 7000 models in the critical
price bands, but AMD's new 3D V-Cache models take the lead if you're
willing to pay a premium.
AMD's new X3D chips are undoubtedly the fastest on the market, but they
do come with tradeoffs in productivity applications. AMD's Ryzen 7 7800X3D
is an incredible processor, offering the highest level of gaming
performance available on the market and thus earning a spot on our list
of best CPUs. However, its $449 price tag places it outside of the
traditional $250 to $300 sweet spot for mainstream gamers.
If you're looking for the best blend of performance in both
gaming and productivity, Intel's Core i9-13900K is the answer on the
high-end. If you're looking for a lower-priced chip that offers the same
gaming performance but exchanges some heft in productivity applications
for a lower price tag, the Core i7-13700K is your chip. For the vast
majority, the Core i5-13400F offers the best blend of price and
performance, making it the uncontested best CPU for gaming at its price point.
AMD vs Intel Productivity and Content Creation Performance
In the non-gaming performance battle of AMD vs Intel CPUs, Intel's Raptor Lake chips have also made great strides against AMD's finest and offer a superior price-to-performance ratio in a broad swath of workloads. That said, AMD's highest-end chip takes the outright win in terms of the ultimate performance in threaded productivity and content creation applications in a few workloads. That comes courtesy of its copious slathering of cores, threads, and cache on its flagship Ryzen 9 7950X. However, those wins come at the expense of a much higher price point, and it isn't enough to justify the premium.
Raptor Lake marks the
continuation of using a mixture of two types of cores for the mainstream
desktop PC. The big performance cores (P-cores) are best for
latency-sensitive work, giving Intel the uncontested lead in
single-threaded applications. The efficiency cores (E-cores) step in to
add some additional heft in threaded and background applications, which
pays big dividends in heavily-threaded content creation and productivity
applications. The E-cores have proven to be the unsung hero for Raptor
Lake in creativity and productivity workloads, allowing Intel to take
the lead from AMD in the most important pricing bands.
Solid performance in single-threaded work equates to faster performance
in all manner of workloads, particularly day-to-day applications that
rely on snappy responsiveness from the processor. The Raptor Lake Core
i9-13900K has taken the uncontested lead in single-threaded performance
across the full spate of our benchmarks, but that's Intel's most
expensive mainstream CPU. If you're on the hunt for snappy
single-threaded performance, the other Raptor Lake processors also take
comparatively large leads over competing AMD processors. Overall,
Intel's Raptor Lake family holds the single-threaded performance crown.
Winner: Intel. For professionals on the hunt for performance in content creation and productivity applications, the winner of AMD vs Intel CPUs goes to Intel on the strength of its x86 hybrid architecture. This new design blends two types of cores to create a single powerhouse processor architecture that's just as agile in single-threaded work as it is powerful in threaded applications.
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X vs Intel Core i9-13900K Face Off
- Intel Core i5-13600K vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 5 7600X Face Off
- Ryzen 7 5800X3D vs Core i7-12700K and Core i9-12900K Face-Off: The Rise of 3D V-Cache
- Intel Core i9-12900K vs Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X: Alder Lake and Ryzen 5000 Face Off
- Intel Core i5-12600K vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and 5800X Face Off: Ryzen Has Fallen
- Intel Core i7-12700K vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and 5800X Face Off: Intel Rising
- Intel Core i5-12400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Face-Off: The Gaming Value Showdown
AMD vs Intel Processor Specifications and Features
AMD
has its Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7, Ryzen 9, and Threadripper lines,
while Intel breaks up its offerings into Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core
i9, and Cascade Lake-X families. For the sake of brevity, we'll focus
on the top chips in the respective families to compare Intel vs AMD CPUs
based on specs and features. Be aware that both companies have value
options within each tier, but we can get a general sense of the
landscape with these (relatively) smaller lists. We're using both
vendors' recommended pricing and street pricing.
The high end desktop (HEDT) used to be the land of creative prosumers
with fire-breathing multi-core monsters for just about every need. Intel
had long enjoyed the uncontested lead in this segment, but AMD's
Threadripper lineup eventually pushed Intel out of the segment. AMD
literally muscled Intel out of the HEDT market —Intel hasn't released a
new HEDT chip since the Cascade Lake-X processors in 2019 — and AMD's decision to abandon the market marks the end of the HEDT era, at least for now (signs have emerged that AMD will make a return to HEDT with its Threadripper 7000 chips).
Intel's new lineup of HEDT-class chips
drops into expensive platforms that require expensive DDR5 ECC memory,
so while these chips are overclockable and Intel positions them as
HEDT-capable, they are far out of reach of most casual enthusiasts.
| High End Desktop (HEDT) | MSRP / Retail | Cores / Threads | Base / Boost GHz | L3 Cache | TDP | PCIe | Memory |
| Threadripper Pro 5995WX | $6,499 | 64 / 128 | 2.7 / 4.5 | 256 (8CCD + I/OD) | 280W | 128Gen4 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper 3990X | $3,990 / $3,750 | 64 / 128 | 2.9 / 4.3 | 256 | 280W | 72 Usable Gen4 | Quad DDR4-3200 |
| Xeon w9-3495X | $5,889 | 56 / 112 | 1.9 / 4.8 | 105 | 350W | 112 | 8-Channel DDR5-4800 |
| Xeon w9-3475X | $3,739 | 36 / 72 | 2.2 / 4.8 | 82.5 | 300W | 112 | 8-Channel DDR5-4800 |
| Intel W-3175X | $2,999 / N/A | 28 / 56 | 3.1 / 4.8 | 38.5 | 255W | 48 Gen3 | Six-Channel DDR4-2666 |
| Threadripper Pro 5975WX | $3,299 | 32 / 64 | 3.6 / 4.5 | 128 (4CCD + I/OD) | 280W | 128 Gen4 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper 3970X | $1,999 / $1,899 | 32 / 64 | 3.7 / 4.5 | *128 | 280W | 72 Usable Gen4 | Quad DDR4-3200 |
| Xeon w7-3455 | $2,489 | 24 / 48 | 2.5 / 4.8 | 75 | 270W | 112 | 8-Channel DDR5-4800 |
| Threadripper Pro 5965WX | $2,399 | 24 / 48 | 3.8 / 4.5 | 128 (4CCD + I/OD) | 280W | 128 Gen4 | Eight-Channel DDR4-3200 |
| Threadripper 3960X | $1,399 / $1,399 | 24 / 48 | 3.8 / 4.5 | *128 | 280W | 72 Usable Gen4 | Quad DDR4-3200 |
| Xeon W-3265 | $3,349 / N/A | 24 / 48 | 2.7 / 4.6 | 33 | 205W | 64 Gen3 | Six-Channel DDR4-2933 |
| Core i9-10980XE | $979 / $1,099 | 18 / 36 | 3.0 / 4.8 | 24.75 | 165W | 48 Gen3 | Quad DDR4-2933 |
Here we can see that when it comes to AMD vs Intel HEDT/workstation CPUs, AMD's final HEDT-only lineup holds the uncontested lead with 64 cores and 128 threads in its flagship Threadripper 3990X, and the 32- and 24-core Threadripper 3970X and 3960X models cemented the overwhelming lead over Intel's chips. AMD's 64-core AMD Threadripper Pro 5995WX, 32-core Threadripper Pro 5975WX, and 24-core Threadripper Pro 5965WX slot in for the workstation market.
Intel splits its highest-end lineup into two classes, with the Xeon W9-3945X dropping into exotic LGA4677 motherboards that carry eye-watering price tags to match the chips' high pricing.
You'll get more cores and cache with AMD's Threadripper lineup, but they
do come with higher price tags befitting such monstrous processors.
However, when we boil it down to per-core pricing, or how much you pay
for each CPU core, AMD offers a compelling value story.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Street/MSRP | Cores / Threads (P+E) | P-Core Base/Boost (GHz) | E-Core Base/Boost (GHz) | Cache (L2/L3) | TDP-PBP / MTP | Memory |
| Core i9-13900K / KF | $589 (K) - $564 (KF) | 24 / 32 (8+16) | 3.0 / 5.8 | 2.2 / 4.3 | 68MB (32+36) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Ryzen 9 7950X | $569 ($699) | 16 / 32 | 4.5 / 5.7 | - | 80MB (16+64) | 170W / 230W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 9 7950X3D | $699 | 16 / 32 | 4.2 / 5.7 | - | 144MB (16+128) | 120W / 162W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X | $419 ($549) | 12 / 24 | 4.7 / 5.6 | - | 76MB (12+64) | 170W / 230W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X3D | $599 | 12 / 24 | 4.4 / 5.6 | - | 140MB (12+128) | 120W / 162W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 7 5800X3D | $323 ($449) | 8 / 16 | 3.4 / 4.5 | - | 96MB | 105W | DDR4-3200 |
| Core i7-13700K / KF | $409 (K) - $384 (KF) | 16 / 24 (8+8) | 3.4 / 5.4 | 2.5 / 4.2 | 54MB (24+30) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Ryzen 7 7700X | $349 ($399) | 8 / 16 | 4.5 / 5.4 | - | 40MB (8+32) | 105W / 142W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 5 7600X | $249 ($299) | 6 / 12 | 4.7 / 5.3 | - | 38MB (6+32) | 105W / 142W | DDR5-5200 |
| Core i5-13600K / KF | $319 (K) - $294 (KF) | 14 / 20 (6+8) | 3.5 / 5.1 | 2.6 / 3.9 | 44MB (20+24) | 125W / 181W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Ryzen 7 5700G (APU) | $295 | 8 / 16 | 3.8 / 4.6 | - | 32MB | 65W | DDR4-3200 |
In the battle of high-end AMD vs Intel CPUs, AMD's Ryzen 9 and Ryzen 7 families square off against Intel's Core i9 and Core i7 lineup.
The
Ryzen 9 7950X3D is the uncontested fastest gaming chip on the market,
and the Ryzen 9 7900X3D isn't far behind. As mentioned, these chips do
carry a premium, though. The Core i9-13900K holds the throne as the best all-around processor for gaming, single- and multi-threaded work, while the Ryzen 9 7950X
takes a few scant leads in some types of multi-threaded work. However,
that comes at a big tradeoff in performance in the other categories.
A similar story plays out in the decidedly more mainstream Ryzen 7 and
Core i7 markets. Honestly, these are the chips the majority of gamers
should buy if they have enough cash, though the Core i5 and Ryzen 5
models in the next category are even better for that task. Here Intel's Core i7-13700K
offers nearly the same gaming performance as the Core i9-13900K, albeit
at the expense of some threaded horsepower in productivity
applications, but at a far lower price point. It also beats the
price-comparable Ryzen 9 7900X. However, AMD has its Ryzen 7 7800X3D coming soon, so gamers should keep their eye out for this disruptive new chip.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Price | Cores / Threads (P+E) | Base / Boost Clock (GHz) | Cache (L2/L3) | TDP-PBP / MTP | Memory |
| Ryzen 5 5600X3D | $229 | 6 / 12 | 3.3 / 4.4 | 99MB (3+96) | 105W | Row 1 - Cell 6 |
| Ryzen 5 7600X | $299 | 6 / 12 | 4.7 / 5.3 | 38MB (6+32) | 105W / 142W | DDR5-5200 |
| Core i5-13600K / KF | $319 (K) - $294 (KF) | 14 / 20 (6+8) | 3.5 / 5.1 | 44MB (20+24) | 125W / 181W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Core i5-12600K / KF | $289 (K) - $264 (KF) | 10 / 16 (6+4) | 3.7 / 4.9 | 29.5MB (9.5+20) | 125W / 150W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 |
| Ryzen 5 5600G (APU) | $220 | 6 / 12 | 3.9 / 4.4 | - | 65W | DDR4-3200 |
| Core i5-13400 / F | $221 - $196 (F) | 10 / 16 (6+4) | 2.5 / 4.6 | 1.8 / 3.3 | 65W /148W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 |
| Core i5-12400 / F | $192 - $167 (F) | 6 / 0 (6P+0E) | 4.4 / 2.5 | - | 65W | DDR4-3200 |
| Ryzen 5 5600 | $199 | 6 / 12 | 3.5 / 4.4 | - | 65W | DDR4-3200 |
| Ryzen 5 5500 | $159 | 6 / 12 | 3.6 / 4.2 | - | 65W | DDR4-3200 |
| Ryzen 5 4600G (APU) | $154 | 6 / 12 | 3.7 / 4.2 | - | 65W | DDR4-3200 |
When it comes to AMD vs Intel mid-range and budget CPUs, the Core i5 and i3 families do battle with AMD's Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 processors. This market segment comprises the most substantial portion of AMD and Intel's sales, so pricing and value here are paramount. Both Intel and AMD have recently launched the first salvos of their newest architectures, Raptor Lake and Ryzen 7000, and as per usual, those only included the high-end models for each category. As such, some of the lower-end models in the Ryzen 5 and Core i5 tiers, along with all Core i3 and Ryzen 3, are previous-gen models.
The Core i5-13600K provides class-leading performance in gaming, single- and multi-threaded applications at the $300 price range, while Intel's Core i5-13400 leads the ~$200 price range.
If you're looking for pure gaming performance, though, AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X3D is the king of the value hill at $229. The 5600X3D delivers 95% of the 5800X3D’s gaming performance for 20% less cash, and is also faster in gaming than the entire standard Ryzen 7000 lineup — including the $599 Ryzen 9 7950X. That’s because even though the Ryzen 5 5600X3D comes with two fewer cores and slightly lower clock speeds than its pricier 5800X3D counterpart, it still wields the same 96MB of game-boosting L3 cache. Unfortunately, this limited-edition CPU is only available in-store for a limited time at Micro Center, but its the best value hands-down in gaming.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Price Street/MSRP | Design - Arch. | E/P – Core|Thread | P-Core Base/Boost (GHz) | TDP / PBP / MTP | Memory Support | L3 Cache |
| Ryzen 5 5500 | $100 | Zen 3 - Cezanne | 6P | 12T | 3.6 / 4.2 | 65W | DDR4-3200 | 16MB |
| Ryzen 5 4600G (APU) | $100 | Zen 2 - Renoir | 6P | 12T | 3.7 / 4.2 | 65W | DDR4-3200 | 8MB |
| Core i3-13100 (F) | $134 - $139 (F) | Raptor Lake | 4 / 8 (4+0) | 3.4 / 4.5 | 60W / 89W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 | Row 3 - Cell 7 |
| Core i3-12100 / F | $122 - $97 (F) | Alder Lake | 4P+0E | 4C/8T | 3.3 / 4.3 | 60W / 89W | DDR4/5-3200/4800 | 12MB |
| Ryzen 5 4500 | $80 | Zen 2 - Renoir | 6P | 12T | 3.6 / 4.1 | 65W | DDR4-3200 | 8MB |
| Ryzen 3 4100 | $70 | Zen 2 - Renoir | 4P | 8T | 3.8 / 4.0 | 65W | DDR4-3200 | 4MB |
AMD
leans on its prior-gen Zen 2 APUs, like the Ryzen 5 4600G, to fend off
Intel's lower-end chips. However, if you're looking for a sub-$200 chip
for gaming, Intel wins by a vast margin. That said, AMD's APUs come with
potent Vega graphics units that enable low-end gaming across a broad
spate of titles. Intel's chips can't hold a candle there—you'll need a
discrete GPU if you plan to do any meaningful gaming with the Intel
contenders.
Intel's chips have an integrated GPU (iGPU) available for all of its
SKUs, but it also sells its graphics-less F-Series chips for a discount.
AMD finally added an RDNA 2 iGPU to its Ryzen 7000 chips, marking a
first for its mainstream Ryzen models. Like the iGPU present on Intel's
chips, these graphics units aren't suitable for gaming — you'll need to
select an APU If you want gaming from a desktop CPU.
Winner: Intel. When you compare AMD vs Intel CPU specifications, you can see that Intel offers options with lower pricing and more performance. Intel's chips also provide support for DDR4, an important consideration in these early days of DDR5 adoption.
AMD vs Intel CPU Power Consumption and Heat
When comparing AMD vs Intel CPU power and heat, the former's 7nm process node makes a big difference. Power consumption comes as a byproduct of design choices, like lithography and architecture, which we'll discuss below. However, higher power consumption often correlates to more heat generation, so you'll need beefier coolers to offset the heat output of greedier chips.
Overall,
Intel has reduced its power consumption from meme-worthy to an
acceptable level, but it still consumes more power than Ryzen. However,
Raptor Lake is much faster than other chips, earning it some
forgiveness.
Intel became known as a notorious power guzzler as it struggled with its
14nm process, but that has improved with its last two gens. Paired with
the x86 hybrid architecture, the debut of the 'Intel 7' process has
brought big improvements to Intel's power consumption and efficiency
metrics.
Yes, the Intel Raptor Lake chips still suck more power than AMD's Ryzen
7000 series chips, but pairing the Intel 7 process with the hybrid
architecture brings big improvements, particularly in threaded work.
Still, in aggregate, AMD's 5nm chips either consume less power or
provide much better power-to-performance efficiency. As a result, you'll
get more work done per watt of energy consumed, which is a win-win, and
AMD's cooling requirements aren't nearly as overbearing.
Winner: AMD. In judging AMD vs Intel CPU performance
per watt, It's impossible to overstate the importance of having the
densest process node paired with an efficient microarchitecture, and
TSMC's 5nm and AMD's Zen 4 are the winning combination. The latest Ryzen
processors consume less power than Intel on a power-vs-performance
basis.
Intel vs AMD CPU Overclocking
There's
no debate when you compare Intel vs AMD CPU overclocking. Intel offers
the most overclocking headroom, meaning you can gain more performance
over the baseline speed with Intel chips than you can with AMD's Ryzen
processors. To learn more about overclocking, head to our How to Overclock a CPU guide.
Above you can see that in chart form, and here's that same data in table
form, showing that Intel's Alder Lake offers far more overclocking
headroom than Ryzen 5000:
| Tom's Hardware - %age Change | 1080p Gaming | Single-Thread | Multi-Thread |
| Core i9-12900K DDR4/ DDR5 | +9.7% / +5.2% | +1.6% / +3.2% | +3.3% / +7% |
| Ryzen 9 5950X | +5% | -2.3% | +5.7% |
| Core i7-12700K DDR4/ DDR5 | +9.8% / +7.1% | +2.3% / +2.1% | +3.9% / +6.4% |
| Ryzen 9 5900X | +3.7% | -0.6% | +2.1% |
| Core i5-12600K DDR4/ DDR5 | +15.2% / +12.9% | +4% / +4.2% | +8.8% / +11.3% |
| Ryzen 5 5600X | +6.7% | +3.8% | +2.7% |
As mentioned, you'll have to pay a premium for Intel's K-Series chips and purchase a pricey Z-Series motherboard, not to mention splurge on a capable aftermarket cooler (preferably liquid), to unlock the best of Intel's overclocking prowess. However, Intel's chips are relatively easy to push to their max, which peaks at 6.0 to 6.2 GHz with the 13th-Gen Raptor Lake processors.
Intel doesn't allow full overclocking on
B- or H-series motherboards, but it has infused memory overclocking into
its B560 and H570 chipsets, and that works with any chip that is
compatible with the platform. That can provide a big boost to locked
chips, like the Core i5-13400 we recently reviewed.
AMD doesn't have as much room for manual tuning. In fact, the maximum
achievable all-core overclocks often fall a few hundred MHz beneath the
chips' maximum single-core boost. That means all-core overclocking can
actually result in losing performance in lightly-threaded applications, albeit a minor amount.
Part of this disparity stems from AMD's tactic of binning its chips to allow some cores to boost much higher than others. In tandem with AMD's Precision Boost and innovative thread-targeting technique that pegs lightly-threaded workloads to the fastest cores, AMD exposes near-overlocked performance right out of the box. That results in less overclocking headroom.
However, AMD offers its Precision Boost Overdrive, a one-click auto-overclocking feature that will wring some extra performance out of your chip based on its capabilities, your motherboard's power delivery subsystem, and your CPU cooling. AMD's approach provides the best performance possible with your choice of components and is generally hassle-free. In either case, you still won't achieve the high frequencies you'll see with Intel processors, but you do get a free performance boost. AMD has also vastly improved its memory overclocking capabilities with the Ryzen 7000 series.
Winner: Intel.
When it comes to AMD vs Intel CPU overclocking, Team Blue has far more
headroom and much higher attainable frequencies. Just be prepared to pay
for the privilege – you'll have to buy a K-series processor. Intel has
added memory overclocking to the newest B- and H-series motherboards,
which is an improvement.
AMD's approach is friendlier to entry-level users, rewarding them with
hassle-free overclocking based on their system's capabilities, but you
don't gain as much performance.
AMD vs Intel CPU Lithography
There are a few major underlying technologies that dictate the potency of any chip. The most fundamental rule of processors still holds true: The densest process nodes, provided they have decent power, performance, and area (PPA) characteristics, will often win the battle if paired with a solid microarchitecture. When you judge AMD vs Intel CPUs based on these criteria, AMD has the lead in lithography.
But whether or not AMD actually owns the process lead is a topic of debate: Unlike Intel, AMD doesn't produce its processors. Instead, the company designs its processors and then contracts with outside fabs that actually produce the chips. In the case of AMD's current-gen Ryzen processors, the company uses a combination of TSMC's 6nm and 5nm nodes for its chips, with the latter being the most important.
TSMC's 5nm node is used by the likes of Apple and Nvidia, among many others, so it benefits from industry-wide funding and collaborative engineering. In contrast, Intel itself says its process tech won't retake the leadership crown until it releases its 'Intel 20A' node (2024 time frame).
The benefits of TSMC's 5nm node mean AMD can build denser chips with more performance cores, all within a relatively low power consumption envelope. However, the economics of semiconductor manufacturing dictate that the cost-per-transistor is increasing as we move to smaller nodes, so the 5nm chips are more expensive to produce than their forbearers.
Intel has seen a bit of a resurgence with its new Alder and Raptor Lake lineups. Intel etches those cores on its 'Intel 7' process, finally ending the misery of the 14nm node after six long years that ultimately cost the company its performance lead over AMD in desktop PCs. We previously knew this 'Intel 7' manufacturing tech as 10nm Enhanced SuperFin, but Intel recently renamed its process nodes to match industry nomenclature.
The
new 'Intel 7' node brings the company into much closer competition with
AMD on the process node front. Yes, Raptor Lake still sucks more power
than AMD's Ryzen 7000 series chips, but the Intel 7 process is a big
improvement. Overall, Raptor Lake has vastly improved power efficiency
metrics.
Winner: AMD (TSMC). The 'Intel 7' process does bring
Team Blue back into closer competition with AMD than it has been over
the last several years, but AMD still holds the overall power efficiency
and transistor density crown due to the virtues of TSMC's 5nm process.
Intel vs AMD CPU Architecture
When comparing AMD vs Intel CPUs, we must consider that two design decisions have a big impact on performance, scalability, and performance-per-dollar: Interconnects and microarchitecture.
AMD's Infinity Fabric allows the company to tie together multiple dies into one cohesive processor. Think of this as numerous pieces of a puzzle that come together to form one larger picture. The approach allows the company to use many small dies instead of one large die, and this technique improves yields and reduces cost. It also grants a level of scalability that Intel might not be able to match with its new mesh interconnect inside its HEDT chips, and it undoubtedly takes the lead over Intel's aging ring bus in its desktop processors.
AMD first paired that advantage with its Zen microarchitecture, designed from the ground up for scalability, yielding an explosive 52% increase in instructions per clock (IPC) throughput over AMD's previous-gen 'Bulldozer' chips. The Zen 2 microarchitecture added another 15% improvement to IPC. Paired with the 7nm process, AMD lunged forward another (up to) 31% in per-core performance (a mixture of frequency and IPC). Zen 3 brings another 19% jump in IPC, giving AMD its largest single step forward in the post-Bulldozer era. Zen 4 and its 5nm node matched that with another 14% jump.
Intel's 13th-gen Alder Lake and 13th-Gen Raptor Lake chips bring the company's hybrid x86 architecture, which combines a mix of larger high-performance cores paired with smaller high-efficiency cores, to desktop x86 PCs for the first time. The Golden Cove architecture powers Alder and Raptor Lake's 'big' high-performance cores, while the 'little' Atom efficiency cores come with the Gracemont architecture. Intel etches the cores on its 'Intel 7' process, marking the company's first truly new node for the desktop since 14nm debuted six long years ago.
Intel's new Thread Director is the sleeper tech that enables the huge performance gains we've seen with Alder Lake. However, due to the use of both faster and slower cores that are optimized for different voltage/frequency profiles, unlocking the maximum performance and efficiency requires the operating system and applications to have an awareness of the chip topology to ensure workloads (threads) land in the correct core based on the type of application.
Overall, the x86 hybrid architecture has proven to be a big win for Intel, with class-leading performance in gaming, not to mention in both single- and multi-threaded workloads in standard applications. However, while the hybrid x86 architecture hails from a similar ethos as the big.LITTLE designs pioneered by Arm, it doesn't have the same tuning for power efficiency. Instead, Intel unabashedly tunes its design for performance at any cost, so AMD still holds the power efficiency crown in most types of workloads.
AMD has also now told us that it will embrace a hybrid CPU design with a mixture of high-performance and efficiency cores. However, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster was coy when he told us about the company's shift, so we don't know when those chips are slated to come to market. As such, for now, Intel is the only company with an x86 hybrid architecture for PCs.
Winner: Tie. In judging AMD vs Intel
CPU architecture, it's clear that the competition is now far closer than
it has been over the last few years. AMD's Zen 4 architecture is a
marvel that allows for enhanced scalability, and due to the
efficiency-minded design paired with the TSMC 5 node, it delivers
superior power consumption metrics.
On the other hand, Intel's Raptor Lake architecture is also a marvel in
its own right, bringing the first pairing of small efficient cores with
large performance cores to x86 desktop PCs for the first time. That
lends it the performance advantage, but it still trails in power
efficiency metrics, resulting in a tie in this category.
Intel vs AMD CPU Drivers and Software
When we look at AMD vs Intel CPU software support, Team Blue has a stronger reputation. AMD has suffered plenty of issues with its CPU and chipset drivers, a natural byproduct of its limited resources compared to its much-larger rivals. Intel isn't without its missteps on the driver front, but its reputation for stability helped earn it the top spot in the processor market, particularly with OEMs.
You might be a little more cautious when approaching Intel's more exotic solutions, though. In the past, the company has developed innovative new products that have been relegated to the dustbin of history due to pricing and market forces, and long-term support for those products might not always be clear-cut.
AMD still has its work cut out for it. The company has had several issues with BIOS releases that failed to expose its chips' full performance, though AMD has mostly solved those issues after a long string of updates. As a side effect of being the smaller challenger, AMD also faces a daunting challenge in offsetting the industry's incessant optimization for Intel's architectures above all others.
Upsetting the semiconductor industry is hard, particularly when you're fighting an entrenched and much-larger rival, and sometimes things get broken when you're redefining an industry. In AMD's case, those broken things consist of operating systems and applications that weren't tuned to extract the full performance of its fledgling first-gen Zen architecture, let alone the core-heavy designs of Zen 3. We still see vestiges of those challenges on multi-CCD Zen 4 models in gaming, but most of the disparities have been ironed out over the years.
Intel also continues to face challenges, though. The company's Alder Lake architecture is the first hybrid x86 design and uses large performance cores (P-cores) and small efficiency cores (E-cores) for different types of tasks. Placing the correct workloads on the correct cores requires a new Intel Thread Director technology, but that's only supported in Windows 11. That means some programs might need extra handholding to extract the best performance in Windows 10.
Winner: Intel wins the battle of AMD vs Intel CPU drivers and software. Over the last year, Intel has addressed its laggardly driver updates for its integrated graphics, and the company has an army of software developers at its disposal that help ensure its products get relatively timely support with the latest software. AMD has made amazing progress convincing the developer ecosystem to optimize for its new Zen architectures. However, there's still plenty of work to be done as the company moves forward.
AMD vs Intel CPU Security
The last few years have found security researchers poking and prodding at the speculative execution engine that's one of the key performance-boosting features behind all modern chips. The resulting research has spawned an almost never-ending onslaught of new vulnerabilities that threaten the safety of your system and private data. Unfortunately, these types of vulnerabilities are incredibly dangerous because they are undetectable—these tactics steal data by using the processor exactly as it was designed; thus, they are undetectable by any known anti-virus program.
The rash of fixes required to plug these holes also continues to grow, and many of them result in reduced performance. That's particularly painful for Intel because it suffers from more of these vulnerabilities than other vendors. The company has developed in-silicon mitigations with newer processors that can reduce or eliminate the performance overhead, but some older processors are subject to drastic reductions in performance.
Intel has now suffered a new round of Spectre v2-variant attacks, too, that has reduced its performance further. These new Spectre Branch History Injection (BHI) vulnerabilities can result in substantial performance losses that vary by workload.
AMD isn't immune to vulnerabilities, though. It's hard to ascertain if the initially limited discoveries in AMD processors were due to a security-first approach to hardened processor design, or if researchers and attackers merely focused on Intel's processors due to their commanding market share: Attackers almost always focus on the broadest cross-section possible. We see a similar trend with malware being designed for Windows systems, by far the predominant desktop OS, much more frequently than MacOS, though that does appear to be changing.
In the course of the research into the new class of Spectre vulnerabilities, Intel actually discovered that AMD's existing Spectre mitigation is broken, which has resulted in AMD using a different, slower approach to addressing the issue.
However, AMD has also had several other new vulnerability disclosures in the recent past, including a Meltdown-esque variant that requires software re-coding. Like Intel, AMD has made a few targeted in-silicon fixes for its newer Ryzen processors, thus lowering its exposure to vulnerabilities.
However, newer vulnerabilities and hacks continue to present issues for chipmakers. For instance, computer motherboard maker MSI was recently hacked, leading to its OEM private keys, used for verifying firmware to a computer's secure boot mechanisms, being released to the public. This puts an untold number of PCs at risk from fake drivers and firmwares. Additionally, it was recently revealed that AMD's TPM implementation can be hacked, thus giving nefarious actors the cryptographic keys to a system if they can get physical control of the system.
Winner: AMD. The AMD vs Intel CPU security debate continues to evolve as researchers and nefarious actors alike turn more of an eye towards AMD's newer architectures. As things stand, Intel still suffers from more known vulnerabilities than AMD, and the impact of the Spectre mitigations on previous-gen Intel processors leads to larger performance losses (at times equivalent to a few generational gains worth of improvement) than the fixes we've seen from AMD, granting Team Red the win.
