• Intel Core i9-13900K
    Intel Core i9-13900K

    Intel's newest range-topper is a 24-core, 32-thread monster that devours gaming and even the most demanding workloads.

    Pros
    • Better overall performance
    • Higher core and thread count
    Cons
    • More power-hungry
    • Older manufacturing process
  • AMD Ryzen 7000 9
    AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

    AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X is the flagship CPU of the Ryzen 7000 series, coming with 16 cores, 32 threads, and a 5.7GHz boost clock.

    Pros
    • More efficient
    • Newer fabiraction process
    Cons
    • Runs hotter
    • Higher platform cost

Intel and AMD have been making some great processors, and their lineups currently compete very well against each other. Currently, we have AMD’s 7000 series of CPUs, based on the new Zen 4 architecture, going up against Intel’s latest 13th Gen chips. At the top of Intel’s lineup is the Intel Core i9-13900K, which competes directly with the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Both are very capable chips and in the range, and it's a difficult choice to pick between the two. We've extensively tested both chips, and here’s how they stack up against each other.

Specifications


  • Intel Core i9-13900KAMD Ryzen 9 7950X
    Cores8P / 16E16
    Threads3232
    ArchitectureRaptor LakeZen 4
    ProcessIntel 7TSMC 5nm
    SocketLGA 1700AM5
    Base Clock Speed3GHz / 2.2GHz4.5GHz
    Boost Clock Speed5.8GHz / 4.3GHz5.7GHz
    RAMDDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800DDR5-5200
    PCIe5.05.0
    GraphicsIntel UHD Graphics 770AMD Radeon Graphics
    TDP253W170W

Price & availability

The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X launched at $699, while the Intel Core i9-13900K undercut it at launch, with a price of $589. However, now, both these chips retail around the $570-$580 mark, making for minimal price difference between the two. The Ryzen had a higher platform cost at launch, because of the X670E motherboards, which are some of the best motherboards you can buy, but also expensive.

However, now the cheaper B650E motherboards are available, significantly lowering the overall platform cost. The i9 also has an overall cost advantage since it has DDR4 support, which means you can save on the RAM costs. However, that would require sacrificing some performance, so it's not quite recommended for everyone.

Intel Core i9-13900K vs. AMD Ryzen 9 7950X: Architecture differences

Angled view of AMD Ryzen 7950X installed on a motherboard

Both the Intel Core i9-13900K and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X are some of the best CPUs you can buy and will serve you well. However, they also have some differences, making for differing performances across games and applications. There are a few things to consider.

First off, is the difference in the make of these two chips. The Intel Core i9-13900K is a 24-core, 32-thread CPU, but eight of those cores are performance cores (P-cores), while the other 16 are efficiency cores (E-cores). The performance cores do the heavy lifting when it comes to the more CPU-intensive tasks, while the efficiency cores usually focus on background tasks, and aid the P-cores when needed.

The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is a 16-core, 32-thread CPU, with all cores being identical. So, you have 32 threads on both CPUs, but they work a bit differently in terms of performance.

The Intel Core i9-13900K is made with Intel’s own 10nm fabrication process, while the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is made with TSMC’s 5nm process. AMD has the superior fabrication process on paper, but Intel has managed to make some solid performance gains despite being stuck at 10nm.

Intel Core i9-13900K vs. AMD Ryzen 9 7950X: Performance

Intel Core i9-13900k

Coming to raw performance, the Cinebench R23 figures have the Intel Core i9-13900K beating the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X in our testing. The difference is rather minor, though.

Cinebench R23

Intel Core i9-13900K

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

Single core

2,114

1,941

Multi-core

38,610

37,327

Geekbench 5 scores are slightly different, with the Intel Core i9-13900K surpassing the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X in multi-core, but having nearly the same score in single core performance.

Geekbench 5.0

Intel Core i9-13900K

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

Single core

2,154

2,155

Multi-core

24,997

21,896

The Ryzen 9 7950x has an advantage in some other applications, like the file decompression test using 7-Zip, where it outperforms the i9 by about 20%, as demonstrated in Jarrod's Tech's testing. In compute-based tasks, the i9-13900K performs better most of the time.

Coming to gaming, it’s a bit of a toss-up as well. The Ryzen 9 7950X performs better in games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator, CS:GO, while the i9-13900K wins out in Far Cry 6, DOOM Eternal, The Riftbreaker, and some others. The performance difference seems to thin out at higher resolutions, with frame rates having very little deviation in 4K resolution. The i9 has an advantage overall, but the difference is about 2.1% averages across 25 games at 1080p, 1.29% at 1440p, and only 0.29% at 4K.

While these two CPUs have similar performance figures, the performance per watt is a different case altogether. The Ryzen 9 7950X is noticeably more power efficient when compared to the Core i9-13900K, consuming less power to deliver the same amount of performance. For example, the Cinebench R23 results mentioned earlier had the Core i9 system consuming 461W of power, a whopping 110W higher than the 351W of the 7950X.

Which one should you buy?

Picking a high-end CPU has never been this difficult, but that can only be a good thing since consumers now have a lot more choice. That being said, our pick between the two would be the Intel i9-13900K. It beats the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X in most commonly-used applications, and you get the option to save on RAM due to its DDR4 support. Intel's bet on the new design with P-Cores and E-cores has also paid out over time, and you get a balanced performance.

Intel Core i9-13900K
Intel Core i9-13900K
$580 $690 Save $110

Intel's newest range-topper is a 24-core, 32-thread monster that devours gaming and even the most demanding workloads.

That doesn't make the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X a bad pick at all. It's an excellent CPU that delivers great performance, and is very power-efficient. It's still a solid value purchase, even after AMD has debuted its new Ryzen 7000X3D CPUs, and will serve you well for an extended period of time. It has the newer 5nm fabrication process, so you're getting cutting edge technology, and while it runs hotter overall, it comes with performance to match while consuming fewer watts of power.

AMD Ryzen 7000 9
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X is the flagship CPU of the Ryzen 7000 series, coming with 16 cores, 32 threads, and a 5.7GHz boost clock.