The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Intel Core i9-13900K are arguably the two best processors you can buy, but they are not the same. We threw both CPUs on the benchmark to answer the age-old question: is AMD or Intel better?
Based on our tests, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D wins this battle, largely due to the excellent gaming performance provided by AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology. Intel’s Core i9-13900K still holds its own, especially in productivity applications, but Team Red wins this time.
Prices and availability
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
First announced in September 2022, Intel’s Core i9-13900K hit store shelves on October 20, 2022, with a starting price of $590. You can find it for a bit less now, with most retailers selling it for between $530 and $570.
For Intel, the Core i9-13900K was one of the first Raptor Lake processors to arrive. For AMD, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D comes after several other chips have already hit the market.
AMD initially launched the Ryzen 7000 line in September 2022, introducing chips like the Ryzen 9 7950X. Announced during CES 2023, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D arrived on February 28, 2023 for $700. It will be joined by the Ryzen 9 7900X3D on the same day, while the Ryzen 7 7800X3D arrives in April.
You can expect an AMD processor to cost around $100 more than an Intel one. The Core i9-13900K has been around for a few months now, so it often sells for under $600, giving Intel an advantage when it comes to overall value.
Glasses
| Intel Core i9-13900K | Ryzen 9 7950X3D | |
| Cores/Threads | 24/32 (8 P cores, 16 E cores) | 16/32 |
| basic class | 3 GHz (P cores), 2.2 GHz (E cores) | 4.2GHz |
| turn up the clock | 5.8 GHz (single core) | 5.7GHz |
| Cache (L2 + L3) | 68MB | 144 megabytes |
| TDP | 125 W (253 W amplified) | 120W |
| Price list | 590 dollars | 700 dollars |
A look at the specifications of both CPUs reveals quite a few differences between the two.
First, the Intel Core i9-13900K has Intel’s Hybrid Core architecture, which means it has a combination of performance (P) and efficiency (E) cores. Ultimately, it has more cores than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, but the same number of threads.
AMD’s CPU has a significantly higher base clock and slightly lower boost clock than the Intel chip. The processors are very similar in terms of power consumption, but the Core i9-13900K can be bumped up to 253 watts.
Finally, there is a difference in the size of the cache. Intel has increased the cache significantly on Raptor Lake CPUs, but it’s still no match for the Ryzen 9 7950X3D running 3D V-Cache. The AMD chip has a whopping 144MB of combined cache, all thanks to AMD’s 3D chip architecture.
Performance
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
We tested the Core i9-13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X3D in various benchmarks, and you can see our results below. All tests were done with 32GB of DDR5-6000 memory, paired with Nvidia’s RTX 4080 GPU.
| AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D | Intel Core i9-13900K | |
| Cinebench R23 multicore | 36,335 | 40,191 |
| Cinebench R23 single core | 2,045 | 2,259 |
| 7 zippers | 224 446 MIP | 175,477 |
| blender monster | 271.9 | 267.8 |
| blender junkyard | 172.1 | 139.9 |
| blender classroom | 133.4 | 125.7 |
| Handbrake (seconds, lower better) | 38 | 37 |
| stream jet 2 | 353.9 | 344.2 |
| PugetBench for Photoshop | 1,590 | 1,634 |
| Multicore Y-Cruncher (seconds, less is better) | 8.87 | 9.93 |
| Single Core Y-Cruncher (seconds, less is better) | 77.19 | 89.19 |
Overall, the Core i9-13900K has the lead in productivity performance. Cinebench shows it to be ahead of the curve in both single-core and multi-core speed, which is backed up by real-world benchmarks like PugetBench for Photoshop and faster transcode times in Handbrake. Content creators are better off with the Core i9-13900K, mainly due to its higher overall clock speed (can easily hit 6GHz) and higher core count.
Still, it’s not a clear win for Intel’s processor. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D had a slight advantage in Blender, for example, thanks mainly to more powerful cores. Remember, the Core i9-13900K has more cores than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, but AMD’s chip has efficient cores.
Similarly, AMD took the lead in Y-Cruncher, where we used processors to compute 500 million digits of Pi. This boost could come from the extra cache in the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, as Pi computing is a RAM-intensive task. Although applications are thin, AMD’s 3D V-Cache can go beyond gaming.
However, Intel maintains the lead in raw productivity performance. It pales in comparison to AMD on various tasks, but the Core i9-13900K is also $100 to $150 cheaper. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D holds up well, but the extra cost is mostly for gaming performance, not productivity.
Games
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
If AMD’s latest generation Ryzen 7 5800X3D taught us anything, it’s that 3D V-Cache is made for gaming. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D proves this, vastly outperforming the Core i9-13900K in almost every game we tested. You can see our results below, using the same test equipment as the previous section.
| AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D | Intel Core i9-13900K | |
| F1 2022 | 379.8fps | 368.2fps |
| far away 6 | 196.1fps | 145.7fps |
| gear tactics | 273.5fps | 255.3fps |
| Hitman 3 (Dartmoor) | 234.6fps | 203.8fps |
| red dead redemption 2 | 164.8fps | 162.7fps |
| time spy cpu | 16,116 | 18,516 |
| LeelaChessZero | 643 | 652 |
There are some minor wins in games like red Dead Redemption 2, but CPU-limited games heavily favor AMD’s processor. The worst reinforcement we saw was in the f1 2022, with a 3% advantage for the AMD processor. On the other hand, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D was almost 35% ahead in the farcry 6.
Our benchmark package is designed to show the differences between processors, so don’t expect these improvements to extend to all games. All of our tests were run at 1080p on high settings, and as you increase resolutions, your GPU will become a performance bottleneck. There’s no question that the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is the best gaming CPU you can buy, but the Core i9-13900K is no slouch.
Gaming is the opposite of productivity. AMD is in the lead and Intel is lagging behind, but neither processor is significantly behind. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is more expensive, but if you mainly game, that extra cost is justified.
A tale of two CPUs
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
There is no bad choice between the Ryzen 9 7950X3D and the Core i9-13900K. Both hold up well to productivity and gaming tasks, but there’s usually a better option here.
The Ryzen 9 7950X3D may be more expensive, but it matches the Core i9-13900K in productivity performance while sometimes offering a 35% boost in gaming performance. The Core i9-13900K may win when it comes to value, but when you spend $600 or $700 on the CPU alone, the value is gone.
There are some other considerations here as well. In general, you’ll spend more to upgrade to an AMD platform than an Intel platform. AMD only supports DDR5 in the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, as well as expensive 600-series motherboards. On the other hand, AMD says it will continue to support the AM5 socket used by the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, while the LGA1200 socket used by the Core i9-13900K will be retired when next-generation Intel processors arrive. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is more expensive up front, but it will probably be cheaper in the long run.
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Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn