AMD vs. Intel: which makes the best CPUs?

When it comes to desktop and laptop processors, the two biggest names in town are Intel and AMD. Qualcomm is making inroads, but if you want peak performance, Intel and AMD make the best processors for gaming and serious productivity.

Still, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows for these industry titans. AMD’s most recent Ryzen 9000 CPUs were met with a lukewarm reception, but then Intel’s Core Ultra 200-series were even less impressive. It may be up to X3D CPUs and turbo modes to save the day.

Even with a few missteps, though, there’s a lot going on in the rivalry between Intel and AMD, and we’re here to break it all down for you. From desktop to laptops, we have all of the details on the most recent chips from AMD and Intel, and how to pick your next upgrade.

AMD vs. Intel: a brief history

AMD and Intel are two of the most iconic names in PC building, and for good reason. For decades, they’ve been duking it out to offer the fastest, most capable, and most feature-rich processors for gamers, casual web browsers, and professionals alike. They’ve gone back and forth a few times over the years, with AMD launching groundbreaking designs and Intel responding with revolutionary chips of its own, but where Intel maintained a strong grasp on flagship performance between 2005 and 2015, AMD really turned things around with the launch of its Ryzen processors.

Debuting in 2017, these chips brought the fight to Intel in a more dramatic fashion than AMD had managed in over a decade, and ever since then, the competition has only increased. Today, Intel and AMD are neck and neck with their latest designs, offering the greatest CPU performance we’ve ever seen in mainstream components. The latest generation CPUs from both camps scaled back on performance leaps in favor of efficiency improvements, lowering power requirements dramatically across the board.

Desktop processors: a price comparison

AMD and Intel both have wide ranges of processors that are all well worth considering when it comes to your next upgrade. The latest mainstream models are AMD’s Ryzen 9000 and Intel’s 14th-generation Raptor Lake.

These processors offer up to 24 cores, clock speeds that have finally reached 6GHz, and more cache than even some of the fastest CPUs of previous generations could dream of. They’re not dramatically faster than the previous, 13th-generation, though, keeping Intel’s last-gen parts still very relevant.

Here are all the latest mainstream CPUs from AMD and Intel:

AMD

Intel

We’re focusing on the highlights here. AMD and Intel have multiple other CPU models, but these are the main touchstones. For instance, AMD has non-X versions of the processors listed about, while Intel sells KF models that cut the integrated graphics for a slightly lower price.

AMD also offers a unique offshoot of its main processors designed specifically for gaming, known as 3D V-Cache CPUs. These include the 7950X3D and 7800X3D. These processors have additional cache bolted on to one of the core complex dies inside the chip, giving them a big boost in gaming power. It does mean lowering clock speeds, though, which impacts productivity performance in turn. AMD hasn’t released 3D V-Cache versions of its Ryzen 9000 CPUs yet, so the 7800X3D remains the king of gaming for now. Look out for its replacement in November 2024.

Intel and AMD also offer credible options with their last-generation Ryzen 7000 and 13th/14th generation, although those aren’t as fast and don’t support all of the latest features. Both also have very cheap budget options that can cost as little as $50, but they’re only recommendable for those building the most lightweight of PCs.

Intel will expand its latest Arrow Lake Core Ultra 200 processors in the months to come, while AMD is expected to debut a new-generation of X3D CPUs in the very near future.

Which company makes the fastest processors?

Intel and AMD have excellent processors for gaming and productivity tasks like video editing and transcoding, but it’s a little bit complicated about which ones are “the best.” At the time of writing, AMD’s best productivity CPUs are the latest-generation 9950X and 9900X, but its best CPU for gaming are the last-generation 7800X3D and 7950X3D. While for Intel, its latest-generation Core Ultra 200 CPUs, like the 285K and 265K, are very efficient, but they lose out in gaming performance to most of Intel’s last-generation counterparts, and they don’t even beat the last generation in productivity across the board.

Intel and AMD CPUs achieve their respective results in quite different ways, too. AMD’s processors use a single architecture and feature simultaneous multi-threading to double the supported thread count. So its top CPU, the 9950X, has 16 cores and supports 32 threads. Intel’s latest, on the other hand, use dual architectures and have no simultaneous multithreading. So the 285K has eight performance cores, 16 efficiency cores, for a total core count of 24, and a maximum thread count of 24.

The last-generation (and still somewhat relevant) Intel Core i9-14900K has 24 cores (8 + 16) and supports up to 32 threads. AMD also has powerful last-gen chips, especially the X3D models with their additional cache, for gaming.

Benchmarks for Intel’s 285K and 265K were much more underwhelming and our latest review found them impressive, but far from recommendable — especially in gaming and when pitted against top CPUs from the last-generation.

The Core Ultra 265K and 245K aren’t much better. Though more efficient again, they just don’t deliver generational performance uplifts and often fall behind their last-gen counterparts from either company.

If this makes you more interested in Intel’s older CPUs, that’s a fair idea, but you should also be aware of the instability issues on Intel’s 13th-gen and 14th-gen CPUs. Intel has mostly solved the problem, which was focused on the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K mainly, through a microcode update. However, if you’re interested in buying one of these CPUs, it’s worth keeping the instability in mind.

You don’t need to buy the best to get a great CPU for gaming or work, though. At a more affordable price, Intel’s Core i5-13600K and 14600K are some of the best bang for the buck CPUs of their generations, offering amazing gaming and productivity performance for a much lower price. AMD can compete on performance, and recent price drops have made its 9600X and 9700X much more attractive alternatives, especially after recent performance patches gave them a big boost.

If you’re focused mainly on gaming, AMD’s 3D V-Cache processors are arguably still the best of the bunch. You can see how they perform in our Ryzen 7 7800X3D review and Ryzen 9 7950X3D review.

There are also older-generation CPUs worth considering, too. AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series are still very capable processors, with its 5800X3D being amazingly competitive with even the latest and greatest in games. It is a dead end for upgrades, though, as the Ryzen 7000 and 9000 need a whole new motherboard and memory configuration. The Intel 12th-generation CPUs are great picks, too, with the 12600K being another great standout in the midrange and a clear upgrade path to the 13th or 14th generation when you want it.

Both companies also offer extensive ranges of budget CPUs, though you’ll be stuck with the previous generation for now. On Intel’s side, there’s the excellent quad-core Core i3-12100F for around $80, while AMD’s six-core Ryzen 5 5500 is about $85 and offers comparable performance in games.

Intel is probably your best option if you build a cheap system with no discrete graphics. Although AMD’s Ryzen 7000 and 9000 CPUs have onboard graphics and AMD’s previous-generation APUs are relatively capable, they aren’t as affordable. You’d spend $120 on a Ryzen 5 5600G or about $90 on an Intel Core i3-12100.

As it stands now, the Core i9-14900K is the fastest Intel CPU you can buy, particularly when it comes to gaming, while the 285K is arguably the better CPU for productivity However, the Ryzen 9 9950X stands as potent competition if you need more powerful individual cores.

High-end desktop processors

If you want to use your PC for heavy video editing at high resolutions or perform intensive video transcoding or CAD work, you need heaps of processing power across plenty of cores. The best mainstream CPUs are great options for that, but if you need even more than the 24 cores of the 285K, you might want to consider a high-end desktop (HEDT) CPU.

Although Intel does have HEDT CPUs, like the 18-core Core i9-10980XE, they’re all severely outdated and easily beaten by the latest high-end mainstream CPUs. Instead, if you need extra cores and CPU power, AMD’s Threadripper Pro range of Ryzen 7000 CPUs is your best bet.

AMD’s Threadripper CPUs offer 24, 32, 64, and even 96 cores with support for double that number of simultaneous threads, all while maintaining clock speeds as high as 5.1GHz. If your software can make use of all those extra cores, AMD’s Threadripper CPUs offer unparalleled performance outside of obscenely expensive server CPUs, easily outstripping the Intel competition. They also support a greater number of PCI-Express lanes — 144 versus just 44 on the Intel alternatives — making them more suited to larger storage arrays.

You’ll pay up to $10,000 for the 96-core 7995WX, but if you can accelerate your work and, therefore, earn more money by using one of these CPUs, it could be well worth it. You’ll get 64 cores for half that, though, so make sure your application can use whatever core count you’re considering.

Laptop processors

The laptop market is a different story. Most notebooks you’ll find are based on an Intel processor of various generations and integrated graphics, but AMD CPUs are growing more common.

In the face of Copilot+ laptops developed on Snapdragon CPUs, AMD and Intel both have new generations of processors in laptops. AMD has its Ryzen AI 300 CPUs, which you can see in action in our ZenBook S 16 review. They’re based on the Zen 5 architecture just like Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs, but AMD has a strong focus on efficiency and AI performance.

Compared to last-gen Ryzen 7000 and 8000 chips, new Ryzen AI 300 CPUs don’t offer a massive performance bump. And compared to high-end chips found in laptops like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17, the new Ryzen AI 300 CPUs are actually slower. However, they can reach nearly a full day of battery life in a thin and light laptop, all while providing solid performance.

Intel’s Lunar Lake CPUs take a similar approach. They adopt a hybrid architecture like Intel’s desktop CPUs, but Intel says the efficient cores are the main driver of performance. Intel also ditched Hyper-Threading on its Lunar Lake chips, instead focusing on an eight-core design that it carries across its entire range of chips.

Based on our early testing of these chips, they aren’t quite as powerful as we expected. They lose out compared to Ryzen AI 300 in raw performance, but Intel takes a massive lead when it comes to battery life, sometimes even beating the M3 MacBook Pro. Both Lunar Lake and Ryzen AI 300 deliver solid performance, but Intel’s latest CPUs are better for longer battery life while AMD has a slight edge in overall performance.

Should you buy AMD or Intel?

For everyday web browsing, watching Netflix, and answering emails, Intel and AMD CPUs will give you excellent performance right out of the box. There are certain tasks, though, where one company’s options perform better than the others.

If you’re looking to work with your processor performing intensive multithreaded tasks like video editing or transcoding or heavy multitasking activities with tons of browser tabs open, AMD’s laptop CPUs are the fastest, but Intel’s are close behind and often offer better battery life.

On desktop, things are a bit different. AMD’s latest Ryzen 9000 CPUs reign supreme in performance, and offer more uniform performance than Intel’s 14th generation or its latest Core Ultra 200 range. Although Intel has some compelling alternatives, you need a good reason to pick them over AMD at the time of writing.

If you’re looking to game on your desktop, AMD’s Ryzen 7800X3D is the king of the hill, offering flagship gaming performance at an affordable price and incredible efficiency. The 7950X3D is worth considering if you use your gaming machine for work too. Intel’s best gaming chips are its last-generation 13th and 14th generation designs, like the 14600K, 14700K, and 13900K, but they rarely beat AMD’s 3D V-Cache alternatives. When the Ryzen 9000X3D chips debut, they’re likely to become the new performance kings.

If you’re still unsure which chip is best for you, check out our guide on buying a CPU for more help.