Since the first AMD Ryzen processors hit the market all the way back in 2017, Intel has somehow been on the defensive. It had been stuck on a 14nm process for so long, and while it was able to keep up with the single-core performance, it quickly lost the lead in the multi-core performance – something that becomes more important every year.
Generation Alder Lake processors, powered by the Intel Core i9-12900K, Intel finally won a battle chance against the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X – a processor that was untouchable when it came out in late 2020.
And since both processors are trying to do pretty much the same thing, albeit in very different ways, we thought it would be time to take a closer look at these two processors. After all, choosing the best processor is not just about the numbers on the box or the color theme of the brand.
Intel Core i9-12900K vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X: Price
There is no way to get around the fact that both the Intel Core i9-12900K and the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X are expensive processors. Looking to build or buy a system with either of these chips probably means you are going for a high-end device. So, it should come as no surprise that they have high price tags.
The Intel Core i9-12900K is the most recently released, and it’s still available at full price pretty much everywhere. You can find this 16-core processor at around $ 612 / £ 559 / AU $ 949. This is a bit higher than Intel’s recommended price of $ 589- $ 599, but not much. We imagine that prices will start to go down as the processor ages, and you should be able to find good deals on it.
The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, however, is out for about a year and a half, and is starting to be seen as such at lower prices. You can find it starting at $ 499 / £ 409 / AU $ 739, which is much more affordable than the Intel Core i9 at the moment. However, it has fewer grains. But if you want an AMD 16-core chip, you can get over $ 599 / £ 548 / AU $ 919 for the Ryzen 9 5950X instead.
Intel Core i9-12900K vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X: Specifications
Both the Intel Core i9-12900K and the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X are high-end CPUs, but they are very different from each other.
The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X will look pretty familiar to anyone with passing knowledge about desktop PC CPUs. It is a 12-core, 24-thread processor with a maximum boost of 4.8GHz. It also comes with a full 70MB cache, split between L2 and L3, and a TDP (thermal design power) of 105W.
The Intel Core i9-12900K is a 16-core processor, but the way these cores are laid out is quite different from the AMD chip. Unlike the Ryzen processor – and Intel’s earlier CPUs, no less – the 12900K uses a hybrid chip design. Specifically, it follows the big one.LITTLE Design Philosophy popularized by Arm.
Basically it has 8 Performance Cores and 8 Efficient Cores. Performance cores are dual-threaded, just like the Ryzen threads, but the efficient cores are not. So, while this chip has more cores overall, it has the same amount of threads, 24, as the Ryzen 9 5900X.
Both Intel and Apple have moved to a hybrid chip design like this, and AMD is the only CPU manufacturer that still uses a monolithic chip layout. We’m not sure how much longer AMD will stick with this design philosophy, but it seems to be working for the company at the moment.
Intel Core i9-12900K vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X: Performance
While AMD and Intel have been battling for the past few years, the release of the Intel Core i9-12900K Team Blue looks set to return – but this time around, the difference is quite significant.
In our review, we found that the Intel Core i9-12900K is about 21% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X in single core workloads, especially Cinebench. It’s weird because Cinebench was the workload that saw the most success on AMD processors, but Intel really pulled it off this time.
And it’s not just single-core. In the Cinebench multi-core test, Intel is 23% faster, an end to AMD’s dominance as a multi-threaded champion. This is repeated in pretty much every benchmark we’ve done in our review, with the 5900X getting no lead in any of our creative workloads.
The closest was in the blender where the Ryzen 9 5900X was just 10% slower than the Core i9-12900K. But even then, this is still a relatively large loss.
In gaming, Intel still wins, especially in CPU-intensive Total War: Three Kingdoms. We ran the game at low settings to make sure it ran as much as possible on the CPU, and the Core i9-12900K got 480 fps on the Ryzen 9 5900X’s 380 fps.
Anyway, the tables turned in the Metro: Exodus where the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X beat Intel at 251 fps at Team Blue’s 246 fps. That’s a small victory, but it’s still a victory.
Whichever way you cut it, the Intel Core i9-12900K is faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X. Whether that compensates for the price difference is up to you though. However, Intel support for DDR5, PCIe 5.0 and Thunderbolt can make all the difference.
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