AMD’s 7800X3D and 9800X3D CPUs, priced over $400 USD, are widely marketed as “the best gaming CPUs in the world”. This is demonstrated at low resolutions with a 4090-class GPU, whilst conveniently ignoring 0.1% lows (frame drops). Under cherry-picked cache-bound conditions the X3D chips do excel, but there’s a trade-off: the additional cache results in 6% lower boost clocks and 50% to 80% higher prices than their regular counterparts (9700X and 7700X). As with their Radeon GPUs, AMD is looking to drive demand through advanced marketing rather than delivering real-world performance. While Nvidia has effectively countered AMD’s marketing in the GPU space, Intel's marketers remain asleep (terminally?) at the wheel. Nevertheless, the 13600K and 14600K still deliver almost unparalleled real-world gaming performance for around $200 USD. Spending more on a gaming CPU is often pointless, as games are normally limited by the GPU. Without significant improvements in social media marketing: forums, reddit, youtube etc., Intel now face the very real risk of bankruptcy (third worst-performing S&P500 stock from Jan to Aug 2024). Since this summary was published just two days ago, hundreds of twitter threads, thousands of “pcmasterrace” reddit posts, multiple magazine articles, and several youtube videos have emerged in unanimous support for the $480 USD 9800X3D. All of these supposedly disinterested actors are working the weekend to convince you to pay their favourite billion-dollar brand an extra $280 USD this holiday season. [Nov '24CPUPro]
The AMD 7000X3D CPUs have the same core architecture as the rest of the 7000 series but they have one group of eight "3D" cores with extra cache. The “3D” cores are priced higher but run at 10% lower clocks. For most real-world tasks performance is comparable to the 7000X variant. Cache sensitive scenarios such as low res. canned game benchmarks with an RTX 4090 ($2,000) benefit at the cost of everything else. Be wary of sponsored reviews with cherry picked games that showcase the wins, ignore frame drops and gloss over the losses. Also watch out for AMD’s army of Neanderthal social media accounts on reddit, forums and youtube, they will be singing their own praises as usual. AMD continue to develop “Advanced Marketing” relationships with select youtubers with the obvious aim of compensating for second tier products with first tier marketing. PC gamers considering a 7000X3D CPU need to work on their critical thinking skills: Influencers are paid handsomely to promote overpriced niche products (X3D, EPYC, Threadripper etc.). Rational gamers have little reason to look further than the $300 13600K which offers comparable real-world gaming and better desktop performance at a fraction of the price. Workstation users (and RTX 4080+ gamers) may find value in higher core CPUs such as the 16-core $400 13700K. Despite offering better performance at lower prices, as long as Intel continues to sample and sponsor marketers that are mostly funded by AMD, they will struggle to win market share. [Apr '23CPUPro]
We calculate effective speed which measures real world performance for typical users. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top CPUs. [CPUPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.