Intel: “Good Job, AMD, but We Still Have the Highest-Performing CPUs”

[Tsing]

Intel may be facing a lot of pressure from AMD these days, but that won't stop its execs from throwing a little shade on the competition. During Gamescom, Sales Director of PC Gaming Troy Severson pointed out that while the Ryzen 9 3900X was a formidable adversary, the i9-9900K remains the fastest gaming CPU in the world.

“A year ago when we introduced the i9 9900K,” says Intel’s Troy Severson, “it was dubbed the fastest gaming CPU in the world. And I can honestly say nothing’s changed. It’s still the fastest gaming CPU in the world."

Severson insists that's been proven by real-world testing. Benchmarks that suggest otherwise are made up, evidently.

"I think you’ve heard a lot of press from the competition recently, but when we go out and actually do the real-world testing, not the synthetic benchmarks, but doing real-world testing of how these games perform on our platform, we stack the 9900K against the Ryzen 9 3900X. They’re running a 12-core part and we’re running an eight-core.”

He later hints that AMD will never take the gaming crown, but time will tell just how well Intel's 10 nm parts compare to later iterations of Zen.

“So, again, you are hearing a lot of stuff from our competition,” says Severson.” I’ll be very honest, very blunt, say, hey, they’ve done a great job closing the gap, but we still have the highest performing CPUs in the industry for gaming, and we’re going to maintain that edge.”

 

[5150 Joker]

He's right, its on average 5-6% faster at stock and probably more when overclocked but also has 4 less cores which makes it a less attractive option for new system builders. I have a 9900K @ 5 ghz currently but if I was building a new PC right now, it would be Ryzen 3900X with an X570 board.

 

[Brian_B]

also most expensive. That’s my favorite part

 

[Dan_D]

also most expensive. That’s my favorite part

No, it isn't. They can be had for $449.99. The Ryzen 9 3900X is $499.99. And before you try and say the Ryzen 7 3800X is cheaper, it's not the top of their stack and AMD **** sure markets it as the world's first 12c/24t gaming processor.

 

[Brian_B]

No, it isn't. They can be had for $449.99. The Ryzen 9 3900X is $499.99. And before you try and say the Ryzen 7 3800X is cheaper, it's not the top of their stack and AMD **** sure markets it as the world's first 12c/24t gaming processor.

I suppose you could look at it that way. I don’t share your point of view.

 

[Dan_D]

I suppose you could look at it that way. I don’t share your point of view.

Why not? A given product usually faces off against the one with the most similar price point. It's not all about specifications. Right now, the Core i9 9900K is actually sitting in between the 3800X and 3900X price wise, but again, the latter is still a gaming CPU according to AMD.

If all your doing is gaming, the Intel Core i9 9900K is almost a sure bet to hit 5GHz using a decent AIO. It's also the fastest gaming CPU right now. Therefore a slight price increase over the 3800X isn't all that unreasonable. On the other hand, it's still cheaper than the 3900X, and is a better gaming CPU. Granted, I'm not arguing that its the best value necessarily. Truth be told, I can actually argue for or against going either direction. Both options have pros and cons.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Why not? A given product usually faces off against the one with the most similar price point. It's not all about specifications. Right now, the Core i9 9900K is actually sitting in between the 3800X and 3900X price wise, but again, the latter is still a gaming CPU according to AMD.

If all your doing is gaming, the Intel Core i9 9900K is almost a sure bet to hit 5GHz using a decent AIO. It's also the fastest gaming CPU right now. Therefore a slight price increase over the 3800X isn't all that unreasonable. On the other hand, it's still cheaper than the 3900X, and is a better gaming CPU. Granted, I'm not arguing that its the best value necessarily. Truth be told, I can actually argue for or against going either direction. Both options have pros and cons.

I hadn't realized the price similarities. Performance wise they're so close to each other in gaming that for me the deciding factor will be PCIe 4.0. I usually build my rigs to last 5-10 years so investing in building something for 9900k would be a no-go for me. I don't know if it's possible but if MS could do a firmware/microcode update that allowed some future motherboard to use 4.0 then I might change my mind.

p.s. For those who don't know. Alec actually originally said his line as "Is it a fast chip".

 

[Dan_D]

I hadn't realized the price similarities. Performance wise they're so close to each other in gaming that for me the deciding factor will be PCIe 4.0. I usually build my rigs to last 5-10 years so investing in building something for 9900k would be a no-go for me. I don't know if it's possible but if MS could do a firmware/microcode update that allowed some future motherboard to use 4.0 then I might change my mind.

p.s. For those who don't know. Alec actually originally said his line as "Is it a fast chip".View attachment 104

As I said, I could easily argue either direction for either CPU. However, I agree with you. If your building your rig to last, the 9900K is on a dated platform and the upgrade path is at its end. Your only option will be the Core i9 9900KS, which wouldn't be all that much of an upgrade. In other words, if you have a 9900K today, its a dead end.

For longevity, only X570 makes sense today. You could even argue for a cheap X470 solution and an upgrade to X570 later if your strapped for cash and want the CPU now.

That said, everyone I know that's built machines with Ryzen 3000 series CPU's has experienced serious pains with those platforms. These issues are going to be mitigated given time, but will probably always exist to some degree. If you go Intel, you won't have to put up with any of that. Z390 is a derivative platform from earlier chipsets and has been around awhile now. It's mature, its solid. You can run 4x DIMMs, clock your RAM at whatever, and not have to update BIOS and drivers every week in the hopes of solving little quirks of the platform. You can also be virtually guaranteed of a 5.0GHz overclock on all cores. On that front, it's ugly on the AMD side. Thankfully, AMD's performance is excellent with Intel only catching up in rare instances outside of gaming. As my IPC test showed, AMD is only slower at times because Ryzen 3000 doesn't clock like Intel's Core i9 9900K can.

 

[Grimlakin]

We live in a great time as Computer builders and enthusiasts. If someone came to me for a system build today it would be AMD all the way. (Especially for gamers) Why you might ask?

1. People who are not building their own in large part don't understand the IPC difference and what it means to performance.
2. If someone is coming into the gaming arena and spending money on a real Gaming PC they are going to want them to be able to stream and game and browse with a dozen tabs and everything else all at once.
3. I don't care that the single thread performance difference is 3-5% That will change as games mature (and it is happening VERY quickly) as well as the fact that once you throw in a great video card and a sync capable monitor (and 1 non sync for the second screen.) you won't notice.

And lastly.. I can't remember the last time I ONLY gamed. I always have a few applications open, if I'm in an MMO I'm checking sites and researching where what is or even looking up tactics. If I'm in a Driving game I might have another window open with browser info on the game, discord open for the group I'm running with, and who the eff knows how many gaming clients... Lets see.. xbox, Steam, Epic, Uplay, Origin, Twitch, Video card overclocking tool, Nvidia Experience, Corsair CUe, MSI tools for various things... and other sundry crap.

I honestly can't remember the last time I just gamed.

 

[Dan_D]

Actually, I just game. I don't run too much stuff in the background while playing games. I don't stream ever. Basically, aside from the background tasks you pointed out, Discord and a web browser with a couple of tabs open is generally the extent of my multitasking which any of your six core and higher Intel CPU's can do just fine. It's when you get into streaming or content creation type applications where AMD truly shines.

 

[THUMPer]

I just game. And I went with a 1700, then a 3800x. No regrets.

 

[Dogsofjune]

While Intel holds the crown, budget gamers can achieve a good gaming experience for less than what Intel costs.

My own systems have been dominantly Intel, but I can get a good bang for my buck right now with AMD. Intel will answer I'm sure, just as I hope AMD has more to keep pace.

Things will change with new and upcoming products. It's a good time for us. New tech while being affordable. I have said it many times, competition is good.

 

[Brian_B]

Truth be told, I can actually argue for or against going either direction. Both options have pros and cons.

That is my point, you can make a case in either direction. Intel obviously goes one way, and that is what the OP is presenting. I'm just presenting a single point in the other direction. To clarify my original post, I was referring to "per core", and the comparison to the Ryzen 7. But I didn't make that clear.

I'm not saying either is wrong - They are both opinions, and both opinions are based on facts.

 

[Zarathustra]

Sure, it's faster in games...

...if you play at unrealistically low resolutions that take the GPU out of th eequation.

And then AMD is faster at just about everything else.