AMD Ryzen 9 5900X vs Intel Core i9-12900K (2024)

66,991 User Benchmarks

Best Bench: 124% Base clock 3.2 GHz, turbo 5.1 GHz (avg)
Worst Bench: 107% Base clock 3.2 GHz, turbo 3.9 GHz (avg)

Poor: 107%Great: 124%

SPEED RANK: 85th / 1452

Intel’s 16-core flagship Alder Lake i9-12900K processor delivers a staggering performance improvement over it's predecessor (+70% 64-core). It features a new hybrid architecture which combines eight hyper-threaded performance cores with eight efficiency cores for a total of 24 threads. Alder Lake CPUs will require a new Z690 chipset which supports DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0. At an MRSP of $590 USD, the i9-12900K is aimed at power users who demand the best of the best. That said, Intel’s 10-core 12600K matches the 12900K’s performance for the majority of consumer use cases at a 50% price discount.^{[Nov '21CPUPro]}

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The Ryzen 9 5900X is second in AMD’s line-up of new Zen 3 CPUs. The 12-core hyper-threaded processor has base/boost clock speeds of 3.7/4.8 GHz, a 70 MB cache and a TDP of 105W. The 5900X took center stage in the 5000 series launch presentation where AMD gunned for Intel’s “best gaming CPU” crown. They showed the 5900X as being 26% better for gaming than the previous generation’s Ryzen 9 3900XT, attributing this to the new architecture’s faster single core speeds and lower latency. AMD also stated that the 5900X achieves, on average, 6.8% faster gaming performance than Intel’s 10-core i9-10900K. The details around AMD’s testing were not disclosed but it is safe to assume that 6.8% is the highest average lead that AMD are willing to stand by. Our benchmarks show that the 5900X’s slightly faster cores and the 10900K’s slightly lower memory latency balance out to yield similar performance. Whilst presenting their figures, AMD admitted that their 3000 series CPUs were far from “best for gaming” and conceded that the 10900K is approximately 19% faster than the 3900XT (our effective speed marks the gap at just 14%). Despite this clear performance deficiency, AMD supported 3000 series sales with an aggressive and successful marketing campaign to easily outsell Intel over the last 12 months. Given the real performance uplift observed in the 5000 series, and the absence of any meaningful marketing from Intel, we expect CPU sales to shift even further in AMD’s favour. Gamers that do not wish to pay “marketing fees” should investigate Intel’s $175 USD 11400F, the $660 USD savings would be far better spent on a higher tier GPU.^{[Nov '20CPUPro]}

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