AMD’s new Ryzen 9 9950X is the latest flagship processor, but Intel’s Core i9-14900K is proving to be a tough competitor. Both CPUs offer incredible performance, but the Core i9-14900K takes the lead in gaming and is significantly cheaper. While the Ryzen 9 9950X dominates in productivity tasks, its higher price and potential for future competition from Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs make it a less compelling option for most users.
Early benchmarks for AMD’s upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X show impressive performance gains over Intel’s Core i9-14900KS. The Ryzen 9 9950X outperforms the Core i9-14900KS in Cinebench R23 at 160 watts, with a multi-core score of 42,336 compared to 41,285 for the Intel CPU. While the Core i9-14900KS takes the lead in its Extreme power mode, it consumes double the power at 320 watts. The Ryzen 9 9950X also reached a peak clock speed of 5.2GHz in these tests, while AMD claims the retail chip will be able to boost up to 5.7GHz. However, the real competition will come from Intel’s 15th-gen Arrow Lake CPUs later in the year, making the launch of the Ryzen 9 9950X on July 31st a significant moment for AMD.
