Intel’s Core i9-12900K and AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X are the best processors currently
available from both companies, but which is best? I’ve compared both
CPUs in games and applications to find out all of the differences!
Both are 16 core parts, but there’s more to the story than that. Intel’s 12th gen processors use
a hybrid architecture and introduce P cores and E cores. P cores, or performance cores,
are basically your regular cores as we’ve had before, while the new E cores, or efficient cores,
are smaller lower powered cores that can handle less important background tasks,
though as you’ll see they’re definitely still quite capable.
The 12900K has 8 P cores which have hyperthreading, and it’s also got 8 E
cores which do not have hyperthreading, meaning that while it’s technically got 16 cores like
the 5950X, it’s got fewer threads at 24 compared to the 32 available to the 5950X, plus the 5950X
also has more cache, and I’m not talking about money, though it is also more expensive too.
Right now on Newegg it’s on sale for $749 USD, while Intel’s 12900K is almost $100 less,
or another $20 less with the KF version if you don’t need integrated graphics.
So AMD’s 5950X costs more money, has more cache and more threads,
so it’s obviously better right? Surprisingly that’s not the case.
DDR5 memory is another difference, as Intel’s 12th gen was the first to support it, and
while 12th gen also supports older DDR4 memory, memory support will depend on the motherboard.
MSI have sent over their Z690 Carbon WiFi motherboard,
which supports the two 16 gig DDR5-5200 sticks of Fury memory that were provided by Kingston,
and this is what my Intel testing has been done with.
Both processors were otherwise tested in the same system, only the motherboards and
RAM were changed depending on the platform. Both processors were tested with MSI’s Core
Liquid S360 AIO as this has support for both AM4 and 12th gen LGA 1700 sockets,
and I’ve used Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste on both for comparable thermal results.
I’ve also used Windows 11 for all testing. Intel recommends using Windows 11 with 12th gen because
the scheduler better understands P cores and E cores. You can still use Windows 10 on 12th gen,
it’s just not going to be an optimal experience as the scheduler doesn’t fully recognize that
architecture. There also shouldn’t be any problems running Ryzen under Windows 11,
as all of my testing was done with all updates in place that resolve early known performance issues.
AMD notes that they verified performance with these updates under Windows 11, and
I confirmed the results were very close to when I previously tested the 5950X under Windows 10.
Now you can still run Windows 10 on Intel 12th gen if you like, Intel says that the performance
in most applications shouldn’t be noticeable to the user, it’s just that there might be
more run-to-run test variance as the scheduler doesn’t really know how to handle P and E cores.
Let me know if you want to see a comparison between Windows 10 and Windows 11 on 12th gen.
Anyway for now, let’s get into the benchmarks and see how both processors compare. We’ll start out
with productivity workloads, power draw, thermals, gaming then cost per frame value afterwards.
Let’s start out with everyone’s favorite Cinebench R23, as it’s a nice way to get
a general idea of both single threaded and multi threaded performance. Intel’s i9-12900K
is scoring 21% higher in single core performance, impressive stuff, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any
CPU around 2000 here. The i9 was scoring around 5% higher in the multithreaded test, which I
found interesting considering the 5950X has more threads, but I suppose it is also a year older.
Linux kernel compilation is the only test I’ve done on Linux rather than Windows 11.
The 5950X was completing this threaded test a couple of seconds faster than the 12900K,
so not much of a practical difference at all, but hey winning’s winning.
Handbrake was used to convert one of my 4K 60 FPS laptop review videos to 1080p. This workload also
generally benefits from more threads, however that wasn’t stopping the 12900K from completing
the task 28% faster, one of the biggest differences out of all applications tested.
Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark. This is another multithreaded workload,
and although the i9 was completing the shorter BMW test a couple of
seconds quicker, the i9 was about 6% slower in the longer Classroom test.
The V-Ray benchmark is another thread heavy rendering workload,
and the 5950X was scoring about 9% higher in this one.
Likewise the Corona renderer was about 16% slower on the i9, so it seems like
those rendering tests like this, V-Ray and Blender generally come out ahead on the 5950X.
Things start to turn around for the i9 with Adobe Premiere, which was tested
with the Puget Systems benchmark tool. This tests video editing tasks like exporting,
playback and more, and the i9 was scoring 4% higher, so not much of a difference,
but there’s a larger 10% lead for Intel in DaVinci Resolve, which was giving the best
result I’ve ever seen in this test, so video editing appears to have the win on Intel.
Now for some office tasks, this is basically the new PCMark. Microsoft Excel was scoring 24%
higher with the i9, Microsoft Word had a similar lead on Intel too, Microsoft PowerPoint was 16%
higher with the i9, and Microsoft Outlook was 24% faster on the i9,
so if you need to send some email ASAP, Intel’s apparently the way to go.
I’ve used 7-Zip to test compression and decompression speeds,
and this is an area where AMD has traditionally beat Intel, and that’s still the case here,
though in compression the win isn’t very big, however when it came to decompression
the i9 was about 33% slower, it’s worst loss out of all applications that I’ve tested.
AES encryption and decryption on the other hand were significantly faster with the 12900K, and
this is something I’ve found with the other 12th gen processors that I’ve tested so far as well.
I don’t personally rely on Geekbench scores at all, but you guys ask for
it and the i9 was reaching a 14% higher single core score and an 11% higher multi core score,
which again I find interesting that the i9 can pull off in some of these tests
given the 5950X is meant to have 8 more threads.
Here’s how Intel’s newer 12th gen Core i9-12900K compares against AMD’s Ryzen 9
5950X processor with both running at stock speeds. The results could vary a fair bit
depending on the specific workload, but the i9 was winning in more tests than it’s losing,
even if we choose to ignore the AES workloads which are huge outliers in
favor of it. Generally the most thread heavy tests such as 3D rendering like Blender,
V-Ray and Corona were ahead with Ryzen, while most others did better with Intel.
The performance increase with the i9 isn’t for nothing though, we can see
here in blender it’s using 64% more power as measured from the wall, a huge difference.
It’s particularly bad when we remember that the i9 was also 6% slower than the
5950X in this particular test too, so it’s chewing a load more power only to do worse,
again at least in this test, as we saw in most other tests the i9 was faster.
More power generally equals more heat, and that was the case here. I’ve split the temperatures
for both the P and E cores, and we can see the P cores are running warmer than the E cores,
which makes sense as they’re larger, offer better performance, and have hyperthreading. These aren’t
directly comparable as the way both processors measure and report thermals are different,
and hardware info was reporting 81 degrees Celsius for the CPU package,
so that was warmer than when looking at the P and E cores individually.
These are the clock speeds being hit during the same Blender test,
again not directly comparable, but we can see the E cores were running at around 3.7GHz while
the P cores were closer to 4.9GHz, but yeah don’t forget this was while using 350 watts.
I haven’t bothered with overclocking as results are always going to vary based on silicon lottery.
I also want to note that I usually test Adobe Photoshop, but unfortunately I
couldn’t test that due to a known issue that currently exists with Intel 12th gen,
so just goes to show that there are some early platform problems out there,
but I’m sure popular apps like this will probably be patched pretty quick.
Alright now for some gaming, let’s find out how both processors compare
in 10 different games at 3 different resolutions.
Far Cry 6 was tested with the game’s benchmark. I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom,
1440p in the middle, and 4K up the top. At 1080p the 12900K was reaching a 12%
higher average frame rate, though there was a larger 20% boost to the 1% lows,
so a more stable experience on the Intel system. The i9 was clearly ahead here,
though this was one of the best performing games on it, so let’s look at the opposite next.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was also tested with the game’s benchmark,
and this was the worst result for the i9-12900K out of all 10 games tested, which is kind of
foreshadowing considering that the 5950X is only about 2 FPS ahead of the 12900K at 1080p,
otherwise they’re about the same at 1440p and 4K.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little china and was just 3% higher on the i9 at the lower 1080p
resolution, at least in terms of average FPS, again like Far Cry there’s a larger 15% boost
seen in the 1% lows, so fewer dips on the Intel system. Again the difference is much closer
together at 1440p, and then at 4K you’re not going to be able to tell them apart while playing.
Watch Dogs Legion was tested with the game’s benchmark. The i9 had its biggest
lead over the Ryzen 9 in this one with a 12% higher average frame rate at 1080p,
but again a larger 17% boost to the 1% lows. There’s still a 3% gain at the highest 4K
resolution in this one, which while small was the largest difference at this resolution.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge, and the 12900K
was ahead again, but in most cases it’s a very small difference. Again 4K is essentially the
same with either CPU which is the case in most games. There wasn’t really a point in testing
4K but I like to illustrate that processor selection basically doesn’t matter there.
Likewise I like to test Control as it’s a GPU heavy game, so just goes to show that some titles
aren’t going to see much of a difference with different processors even at the lower 1080p
resolution, making CPU selection less important in such games compared to say the graphics card.
Speaking of small differences, Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the game’s benchmark,
and again not a difference you’re going to actually notice when
comparing both side by side, so let’s move on.
More small differences in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. The i9 has slightly more of a lead,
but yeah we’re talking a couple of FPS difference best case in the averages, nothing major.
F1 2021 wasn’t too different in terms of average FPS with the game’s benchmark,
hardly any difference at all, though like some of the other games tested,
the i9 had notably higher 1% lows compared to Ryzen 9.
For a bit of an older game I’ve tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the game’s benchmark. Again
only small differences here with the i9 slightly ahead at lower resolutions.
When comparing all 10 games tested at 1080p,
the Intel i9-12900K was around 4% faster than the Ryzen 9 5950X on average. Games like Watch
Dogs Legion and Far Cry 6 at the top had the biggest gains at more than 10% higher FPS,
but for the most part the differences were otherwise small, with only Red Dead Redemption
2 down the bottom doing better on the 5950X, and if you recall it was only a 2 FPS lead.
Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution and the differences get a bit smaller. The i9 was
now 2% ahead on average, but Far Cry 6 still had a well above average 10% lead over the 5950X.
Generally speaking though, in most games the difference isn’t big enough that you’re likely
to notice. I’m sure some of the Intel gains will be a result of DDR5 memory,
so make sure you’re subscribed for when I compare these results to 12th gen plus DDR4 in the future.
The differences get even smaller at the higher 4K resolution, which is to be expected because
when you’re pushing this many pixels the GPU is taking on most of the work,
so the processor selection matters far less. Honestly for 4K gaming you could
go for a cheaper CPU than either of these and it’d perform about the same.
If we factor in current processor pricing at Newegg then the 12900KF is the better
option for gaming. It both performs better in most games, as we just saw,
but it’s also cheaper, so no surprises there. The 12900K with integrated graphics is $20
more, but even with that it’s still about $100 cheaper than the 5950X.
This isn’t quite the full story as DDR5 memory costs more than DDR4 and Z690 motherboards
aren’t exactly cheap, but I’d argue that when you’re looking to spend $600 to 750
on a processor that’s less of a concern, and if you’re going top end Ryzen you
might want to spend more money on stuff like a board anyway, though you could
save money by using DDR4 memory on the i9, though that may change the results a bit.
Purely in terms of raw CPU performance, Intel’s i9-12900K is doing quite impressively. I mean
the fact that it’s technically a 24 thread part while the 5950X is a 32 thread part
but it’s also winning most of the tests is just, yeah, straight up impressive I think.
Granted this wasn’t always the case and as we did see many of those 3D rendering style workloads
did better on the 5950X. But as mentioned earlier, the 5950X is around $100 to $120
more expensive compared to the i9, though as we did see the i9 was sucking back a lot more power.
The i9 was also technically better when it came to gaming, but the difference
was so small there I don’t think it matters. Considering that the 5950X is a year old now,
maybe AMD might lower the prices to keep it competitive with the i9, but even if they don’t
I suppose AMD has already said that their new 3D V-Cache options will be out in early 2022, so
make sure you’re subscribed for all of my upcoming comparisons once those are available for testing.
While you wait for that content, come and find out how Intel’s i5-12600K compares against AMD’s Ryzen
5 5600X. The price difference is very small, but the performance difference honestly shocked me!