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AMD has been unafraid to push back against the long-standing dominance of Intel in the CPU arena by talking up both the value-per-dollar and high-end performance delivered by their latest Ryzen hardware.
In 2020, AMD debuted the Ryzen 5000 desktop CPUs including the high-end Ryzen 9 processor. AMD's latest line of processors are primed to compete against Intel's current Core i3, i5, i7 and i9 offering.
Let's take stock and see how the two silicon heavyweights compare.
Which CPU is best: Intel or AMD Ryzen?
The Short Version?
In our opinion, many non-enthusiast PC builders will be better off buying a processor like the Intel Core i7-12700KF (Amazon) even if it costs a little bit more than its closest Ryzen counterpart (Amazon). However, if you're looking for more grunt or want to crank the settings menu in Cyberpunk 2077 all the way to ultra without breaking the bank, AMD's higher-end Ryzen processors are the way to go.
AMD Ryzen — in a nutshell
Credit: IDG The first wave of AMD’s mainstream Ryzen chips was split across three families: Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3. The higher the numeral, the higher the spec of the processor. Simple enough, right?
This initial three-tiered approach also made it pretty easy to compare AMD’s Ryzen chips against the competition. The Ryzen 3 was an entry-level alternative to the Intel i3, the Ryzen 5 was a mainstream counterpart to the Intel i5, and the Ryzen 7 was pitched in opposition to the performance offered by an Intel i7.
Then, in 2018, AMD introduced their second wave of Ryzen CPUs. Relying on a new 12nm manufacturing process and Zen+ architecture, this second series of Ryzen CPUs was broken out into four families. The Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 all returned. This reincarnated Ryzen family offered higher boosted clock speeds, reduced power consumption
AMD also topped out the range with a set of ultra-high-end CPUs called the Threadripper.
Credit: Gordon Mah Ung/IDG Where the mainline Ryzen range offers an impressive 8 cores and 16 threads, the Threadripper series starts at 12 cores and 24 threads and goes all the way up to 64 cores and 128 threads. It’s wild.
The extra processor cores offered by Ryzen compared to Intel’s Kaby and Coffee Lake CPUs meant that certain tasks ran MUCH faster. If you did a lot of 3D rendering/video encoding or any of your favourite games ran better on multiple cores (few do, but some popular titles like Battlefield 1 and Civ are included in the short-but-growing list) then the extra money was well worth paying. The extra cores could also help with video game streaming on services like Twitch.
In late 2019, AMD updated their Ryzen portfolio. However, they didn't just upgrade the Ryzen 3, 5 and 7. They also introduced a new option to the range: the Ryzen 9.
If you've been noticing more fanfare around AMD in the last six months or so, the Ryzen 9 series is probably the reason why. In his review, Gordon Mah Ung called the chipset 'historic' for AMD and said that "With the 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X, AMD is essentially running down the field, spiking the ball, and doing what the NFL would probably fine for excessive end-zone celebrations these days." Since then we've been introduced to the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, which is much faster and offers even greater performance for gamers looking for an edge.
If you're looking for a short and easy way to navigate AMD's Ryzen family: here's the most important thing you need to understand. Right now, every current AMD Ryzen CPU you can build a desktop PC around falls into one of the following five families:
Ryzen Threadripper (Currently unavailable on Amazon)
Intel Core - In a nutshell
Credit: Dreamstime: Chiradech Chotchuang Generally speaking, Intel Core i7 CPUs perform better than Intel Core i5 CPUs, which are in turn better than Core i3 CPUs. A Core i7 does not have seven cores nor does Core i3 have three cores. The numbers are more of an arbitrary way to distinguish between their relative processing powers than a specific designation based on core count or clock speed or anything technical like that.
There's also the Intel Core i9 to consider. Introduced in 2017, the Core i9 series is a super high-end range of processors that boasts incredibly high thread and core-counts. The top-end Core i9-12900Ks (Amazon) touts 16 cores (8 Performance cores and 8 Efficiency cores clocked at 5.20 Ghz) and can handle 24 threads at once while the cheapest option on Amazon - the i9-10850K boasts 10 cores (capable of serving 20 threads) and a base clock speed of 3.6GHz.
[Related: Which Intel Core CPU is the best? How do I decide between a Core i3, i5, i7 or i9?]
Unfortunately, as fearsome (and appealing) as those numbers might sound, most modern software isn’t really ready to make use of these capabilities - especially in the gaming space. They're also quite expensive compared to the rest of the lineup. In many respects, they're more analogous to AMD's Ryzen Threadripper CPUs than they are Ryzen 9 CPUs.
Credit: Adam Patrick Murray/IDG As put by PCWorld's Gordan Mah Ung, "If you’re buying a 16-core CPU solely to play games, you might want to consider an 8-core chip, or even a 6-core chip instead, because few games can use all of the cores. That’s the conventional wisdom, anyway. The problem is modern gaming isn’t about playing a game, winning, and going to sleep warm and happy. It’s about streaming it live, or recording it while adding LOL memes, sound effects, and all kinds of “gaming”-related tasks that didn't exist a few years ago."
So while i7s and i9s do offer higher performance than i3s or i5s, whether or not they’ll be better for you really does ultimately depend on what you’re using your PC for and how much you can afford to spend.
If you're looking to build your next desktop PC around Intel's latest (12th Generation) Core processors, here's what to expect:
- Intel Core i3 (Starts at $169 on Amazon)
- Intel Core i5 (Starts at $269 on Amazon)
- Intel Core i7 (Starts at $519 on Amazon)
- Intel Core i9 (Starts at $779 on Amazon)
Next Page: How does AMD's Ryzen CPU compare to Intel's Core CPU for performance?
