Intel’s 13th gen. Raptor Lake CPUs offer around 10% faster gaming and 45% faster multi-core performance than their predecessors. The new CPUs are compatible with DDR4 memory and Z690/B660 ($150) motherboards. New high-end gaming builders need look no further than the 13600K. The 13600K beats AMD’s flagship 7950X in gaming and almost matches the 7900X in multi-core performance. Extreme workstation users may find value in the 13700K or 13900K. Gamers on a tight budget can save $40 USD with a 13600KF which is a 13600K without integrated graphics. Although Ryzen 7000 has weaker multi-core, weaker single-core, higher platform costs and higher unit prices AMD have a 3D joker up their sleeve (7800X3D est. 2023). Via “Advanced Marketing” on youtube, forums, reddit, and twitter AMD will demonstrate that their upcoming CPU is the “best in the world” and offer “proof” by way of a small handful of obscure workloads. Games that few people play e.g. (Factorio, SotTR) will be cherry picked, video footage of the gameplay/settings won’t be provided and frame drops will be conveniently ignored. This playbook has easily outsold Intel in recent years but with every overhyped release, consumers lose trust in AMD. Based on social media/press coverage, you would never guess that the combined market share for all of AMD’s Radeon 5000 and 6000 GPUs amongst PC gamers is just 2.12% (Steam stats). Meanwhile Nvidia’s RTX 2060 alone accounts for a whopping 5.03%. Largely thanks to marketing incompetence, Intel is existentially motivated to deliver material annual performance improvements. Consumers can look forward to Meteor Lake (14th gen) in less than a years time. [Oct '22CPUPro]
The hex-core i5-9600K is third in Intel’s line-up of 9th generation Coffee Lake CPUs. It has a TDP of 95W and requires an aftermarket cooler (such as the $20 GAMMAXX 400). The 9600K was designed to be overclocked. Once this is enabled in the BIOS (requires a Z-series motherboard), the 9600K runs 10% faster. In terms of performance, the i5-9600K is almost unbeatable for desktop users and it has sufficient multi-core performance to handle all but the most demanding workstation tasks. For CPU encoding (Cinebench, Blender, Handbrake etc.) the Ryzen 3000 series offers great 64-core performance. For example the overclocked Ryzen 3600 is approximately 13% worse for gaming, desktop and normal consumer workloads but it is 27% faster for 64-core processing. CPU encoding is akin to using hair clippers on a lawn, encoding tasks are far better performed by dedicated hardware such an NVENC or QuickSync. At stock clocks the i5-9600K is around 8% slower than Intel’s flagship i9-9900K but when both are overclocked, the 9600K closes the gaming gap to within two or three percent. Considering that the 9900K is the fastest gaming processor available, and almost twice the price of the 9600K, this is no small feat. The i5-9600K is aimed squarely at gamers who are not willing to compromise on performance but don't want to pay more than they need to. [Oct '18CPUPro]
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.