AMD Ryzen 2 vs. Intel 9th Gen Core: Which CPU Deserves Your Money?

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Uhm... I'm quite confused with your article:
1. The real cost of an i9 9900k is around 601-999 at the moment of writing this (if you can find it in stock).
2. The cost of Ryzen 7 2700X is around 310 at the moment, with lowest I have ever seen at 285.
3. The need to buy a water cool for i9 9900k (you won't be able to reach those maximum performance with low grade or air cooler)
4. You will also need a good (and expensive) Z390 MB to reach all those dizzying height for i9-9900K. There's no way you can use Z370 and get 5+ GHZ on all core.

With these four points, HOW IN THE WORLD can you give Intel win in value? Are Tomshardware has become so disconnected with the real world, that they can only think the price in MSRP? (And that is for 1K CPUs, remember)
 
As I understand it, AMD includes a cooler with the CPU, so do your price comparisons include the added cost of a cooler for each Intel processor?
 


1. Yes, I remember read an article from digital trends (if correct) that around 76% gamers on steam are gaming in 1080p or lower resolution.

2. The i9-9900k MSRP is for 1K unit, it's not the "real" MSRP.
 
Unless you have a 2080 Ti, there is literally no nonsensical argument for having a 9900K lol. $50 more expensive motherboard + $100 CPU cooler + $300 more for the i9 = $450 extra to go from a 2700X to a 9900K system.

That's almost the difference between being able to afford a 1080 Ti/2080 and a 2080 Ti!!! Thus again - unless you have a 2080 Ti, there is no reason to waste money on the 9900K.
 


As just posted in my above post the author didn't even put the real prices in the price comparisons... And no he surely didn't include the extra costs of buying aftermarket cooling for all the Intel processors. In the case of the 9900K and 9700K the cheapest cooling to run on stock without thermal issues would be something like the ~$100 Noctua air coolers.
 


1. We aren't talking about the average gamer when talking about the i9 9900K. No one is going to buy a $600+ processor, and that $600 literally only buys you the processor, and then game on 1080p. Anyone buying the 9900K has money to burn and is going to be using at the very least 1080 TI (or maybe more than one) and will be gaming at 1440p or 4K. If someone is buying for 1080p gaming and nothing more than gaming they will be going for the i5 9600K or the even much better buy Ryzen 7 2600.

2. The MSRP for 1K units in not fair to even list in an article such as this as its not what the average consumer is going to be shelling out. I find it odd/ extremely biased that all the price listing for the Intel processors were way under what you will actually pay and the price listings for the AMD Ryzen processors were all over what you can easily Google.
 
MSRP and retail prices almost never line up, in anything. Due to low yields, high demand everybody selling the Intels is gouging the hell out of prices and will continue to so so until sales start declining. Once sales drop off and stock starts accumulating, then prices will plummet to at or below MSRP.
 


Price "plummet" from a absurd $600 doesn't mean much. The simple fact of the matter is that Intel's "superiority" isn't there anymore. They are still pricing their product today as if they were going up against a rival that only had half the performance they do, ie Haswell vs FX. Ryzen processors today are very close in IPC and scale so well with multitasking that their multicore performance is better than Intel's who has to make up for that with pure clock speed. In the case of the i9 9900K the Ryzen 7 2700X is around 16 - 20% slower on average which can largely be accounted for with clock speed, while costing 100% more as of this date.

If the R7 2700X with its $309 price tag is priced fairly then the fair cast of the i9 9900K should be no more than $420. If the i9 9900K with its $601 price tag is priced fairly then the R7 2700X should be priced at $500. That would bring it right between the cost of the i9 9900K and i9 9700K which is were it belongs. It is outperformed by the 9900K by a small margin in overall computing (gaming and productivity) and while it is outperformed by a small margin in gaming by the 9700K it easily outperforms it in overall productivity.

I would have to go with the Ryzen 7 2700X is priced fairly and as usual Intel is gouging the customer and their own faithful with high pricing. Even with retail markup on these processors due to shortages which just by "happenstance" are controlled by Intel and their weak "we can't make enough 14nm" excuse the MSRP at nearly $500 was set too high to being with considering AMD's pricing and very good overall performance. The fact is Intel has always and will always set their prices higher than they should just because they can.
 
As I stated in a previous post, Intel knows they no longer have a real advantage over AMD with Ryzen. It is this knowledge that has driven them to go back to the old play dirty playbook. Fake announcements (28 core 56 thread 5Ghz all core workstation) and fake paid for reviews to kick off there "9th gen Core" launch. By the way, I've lost count... how many "gens" has Intel had now all on 14nm?? And yet they still can't get 14nm in high enough yields, you would have thought they would have had enough practice and time by now after all they have been on 14nm for many years. Just one more excuse so they can set absurdly high prices.

Make no mistake, I have respect for the product that Intel has put on the market for the past decade. I've built many systems for customers utilizing Intel processors and never felt like I wasn't giving them a very good product. But Intel's marketing department plays extremely dirty and I have no respect for how they market their product. They should let the products performance market itself and not make false claims. Instead they try to make their product better than is actually is by playing dirty and I have no respect for that.
 
Your pricing is wrong. You have retail box prices for AMD, and 1000 quantity tray pricing for intel...

Even if you had the right pricing. There is very little 9 series stock out there, pushing prices up to an insane level. AMD offers a better chip at every price point right now, EXCEPT the money is no object price point. Intel has a clear lead at the money is no object price point. Almost everyone else would be better served by an AMD ryzen based chip right now. For the same money you can get a lot more chip.

The gaming difference in the real world is practically zero between AMD and intel right now for anyone on a budget. The vast majority of gamers are GPU limited, not CPU limited. Unless you are doing low resolution high end gpu gaming, intel has a clear win in that category. But 1440p, or 4k there is no real diff, in 1080p there is no real diff for midrange cards, there is a win for intel for high end cards on 1080p.

That said, the same dollars into an AMD based system would likely be a faster gaming system due to the fact you could save 100-200 on a cpu, and get a higher tier gpu. A higher tier gpu is going to win every time.

With prices the way they are right now on intel cpus....i don't see how anyone could recommend one for anyone on a budget. Money is no object....absolutely cant beat the 9900k.

If you want an i5, get an r5...save $100-150 and buy a better gpu, enjoy the extra fps.

If you want a i7, get an r7...save $150-200 and buy a better gpu, enjoy the extra fps.

Want an i9, get an i9, you'll have the fastest system, as long as you don't mind paying a lot more for that 10%ish extra fps. And there is nothing wrong with that, just not the best advice for most people.
 
Someone stole his New Clothes? That's a shame, his New Clothes were very nice, fit like a second skin, but were just a little too expensive for something that really didn't offer much in the way of gains. Shoulda just stuck with what he had, even switching to Geico wouldn't have saved him as much money...
 
Other than some chastisement from a moderator (where he still did not actually comment on the veracity of the article) Toms has not responded to this articles seemingly clear bias in any way that I have seen.
Are all of these people wrong and you are the only one that is right ? Clearly that is not the case here. Waiting....
 


Again it isn't yields so much as too many products on the same process. They have every CPU on the same 14nm process and only so many FABs, FAB 42 is being tooled for 7nm. They have 3 in Oregon that are 14nm but also do other process tech (32nm, 22nm and/or 10nm) and one in Ireland that does 14/65/95nm. They make more than just CPUs as well which goes into account. They really need to retool more FABs for 14nm but at this point it most likely will be pointless as by the time it becomes financially fiscal they might have 10nm worked out or another superior process.

And marketing is marketing. No enthusiast ever takes it for truth. If we did we people would have bought up the FX 9590 like it was candy because the marketing said it was the best.
 


Everyone likes to beat the FX 9590 dead horse over and over and over and over.... Yes the FX 9590 was horribly overpriced at its time of release. AMD really thought if they pushed the clock high enough on their best binned silicone that they could go toe to toe with Intel. In some areas of productivity where multiple cores could be utilized the FX 9590 held its own, although at insanely high heat and power consumption. But it has gone down in history as a failure and a horribly overpriced processor due to its poor single core performance. Was it a really bad processor though, really no as my nephew is still gaming on a FX 9590 with a R9 290X and plays even modern titles like Kingdom Come Deliverance at high settings with no difficulty. No your not going to play on Ultra and your not going to get insane FPS and he only games at 1080p but for a really old system its still totally playable.

Compare AMD's flub of the 9590 to what Intel has done in its past of dirty tricks. Way back in the Athlon days when AMD was actually superior and cheaper than their Intel rivals Intel found a way to make themselves appear superior even though the weren't. They made in house a custom compiler that wound its way into all the benchmark software that had a true cripple AMD command buried inside it. The compiler would read what processor you were running and if it wasn't Intel it would give it the poorest path possible, if it was Intel it was given the fastest path possible. Its a matter of legal history as AMD sued Intel over it, but of course Intel only had to pay a fraction of what they made by gaining 90% of the computer market due to rigged benchmark tests. Compare that to what has happened in the last couple months with Intel lying outright about a 28 core processor running at 5Ghz all core clock because AMD was actually releasing a real 32 core processor. Intel's processor turned out to be a selected golden chip that they were able to overclock to 5Ghz using a huge server motherboard and an industrial chiller that they never intended to tell anyone about, they never once mentioned overclocking in their demo. Just weeks ago Intel paid a firm to run biased benchmarks pitting its i9 9900K against the R7 2700X in gaming. The test could have been run fairly and Intel would have won, but only by around 16% so to make their massively overpriced processor look better they had the firm cripple the 2700X. They kept the memory clocked low and timings loose, but that wasn't enough, they also set game mode on which was made for the Threadripper processors in gaming and turned half the 2700X's cores off making it a 4 core 8 thread processor with horribly configured RAM. They then fully and carefully set the RAM timings for the 9900K and gave it a premium Noctua cooler. Confident they had crippled the 2700X enough they benchmarked it against the carefully tuned i9 9900K and came up with a bullsh*t 50% better in gaming conclusion.

I think that comparing what Intel has done against AMD betting wrong on the FX 9590... there is no comparison of who plays as dirty as they possibly can.
 



I see a lot of comments that don't accurately reflect the content of the article. There are a lot of mentions of 9900K vs. the 2700X, but perhaps we should go back and revisit what we actually said about the 9900K and the 2700X:


The Intel Core i9-9900K ($499/£432.59) isn’t going to win any value awards any time soon, but Intel’s Core i5-9600K ($263/£229.99) is a great buy for gamers. The new Core i5 can regularly outpace AMD’s Ryzen 7 2700X ($329/£299.99) in gaming workloads, for quite a bit less money. If you’re not worried about obtaining maximum performance in rendering, encoding, compression, and other workstation tasks, the i5-9600K is fantastic bang for the buck.

Ryzen 7 2700X remains a formidable option for heavily-threaded workloads, such as rendering and encoding. Intel’s i7-9700K ($374/£336.04) is faster at single-threaded tasks and gaming, but it will cost you an extra $50 to $60 for the extra performance that the i7 has to offer--and you'll need to bring your own cooler. If you primarily work with Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite or other photo editing software, the Core i7-9700K would be a good purchase, as it outpaces the Ryzen 7 2700X by a significant margin in those tasks.
Click to expand...

If you’re looking for the best home-use processor that money can buy, and the price tag is of no concern to you, then Intel’s Core i9-9900K is the obvious answer. No other processor exists today in the mainstream market that offers the same level of performance as Intel’s new i9. But you must pay a significant sum for the privilege of sporting the fastest CPU on the market. Not only are the new i9 and i7 CPUs pricey, so are the supporting components, like the motherboards and coolers you'll need if you want to overclock.

For the rest of us mortals who are restricted by limited budgets, it really depends what you want to do with your PC. Both AMD and Intel offer compelling processor options for consumers. If you want gaming performance above all else, go with an Intel Core processor. If you want a mixture of gaming and productivity, Ryzen 7 2700X is a good jack-of-all-trades option.
Click to expand...

Gaming:

In our tests, Intel’s 9th Generation offerings routinely outpaced our Ryzen 7 2700X. But keep in mind Intel's gaming advantage is most prominent at lower resolutions like 1080p. Once you start stepping above that, graphics tends to be more of a bottleneck, evening out performance. And once you get to 4K, performance is pretty much even between comparable AMD and Intel chips.
Click to expand...


Also, perhaps we should rehash what the article says about pricing for the 9th gen processors:

If Intel's new chips remain at their current high prices and AMD continues to offer its chips below their launch prices--and particularly if that divide increases rather than decreases--that could tip the balance back in AMD's favor--particularly for those who place more importance on build budgets rather than absolute performance regardless of cost.
Click to expand...


Now, I know as well as you do that it is kinda silly just to copy/paste what is written in the article already, but it seems that a few of us haven't bothered to read the content.
 
The only things I don't like in the article is the value conclusion and the prices used. I'm an AMD guy but like it or not the 9900k is a fast little sucker (a huge power sucker too but that's a different story). I just had to comment because on someone's post they mentioned the article saying to just buy it for the Nvidia rtx cards was the review and I wanted to point out it was an opinion piece and not the review. The actual review was very fair I thought. That opinion piece was a counter to another opinion piece about why you should wait to buy but it seems that was missed in the heat of the ensuing backlash.
 
IMHO, I would invite everyone to look at some of the various videos posted on YouTube of the difference between 30 frames per second and 60 frames per second in gaming. Once you hit 60 FPS, anything higher than that is almost meaningless to the human eye. Yes, there are a few people that can notice a difference higher than that, but very, very few, so anything above 60 FPS is only meaningful in bragging rights, but of little to no value whatsoever to the human eye, and BOTH AMD and Intel lagged at times considerably below 60 FPS in 'AotS: Escalation 1920X1080'. The rest of all the gaming benchmarks had both AMD and Intel above 60 FPS. So, to sum it up, it's like going to watch two guns fire at the same time-a .38 special and a .22 swift, and then asking the crowd "did you see the bullets come out?" And they say no, not all, but we know by velocity tests that a .22 swift travels at 4000 feet per second and the .38 special only at 600 feet per second!!" So,above 60 FPS in gaming it's just like the bullets. Your eye can't see them come out of the gun, so the only bragging here is how fast they travel. So, if you want to pay more money for a difference your eye can't notice and you want to think in your mind you really have it over on people in gaming performance, that's your call and your money, but watch some of the videos on 'FPS and the human eye' and make the decision. Is it really worth it to buy something that your eye can't notice anyway??
 


+1 I totally agree. I got kind of side tracked with the unsavory aftertaste that Intel's marketing leaves, but my main issues were the prices and the value section. The prices listed for the Intel processors were less than what every retailer has them listed for, with the possible exception of the 9600K, however all the AMD processors were listed higher than what retailers are charging. As far as value goes, the only processor that could be listed as a "good bang for your buck" is the i5 9600K and its only a good "bang for your buck" if all you are doing is gaming. Using that train of thought though then it would follow if you are going to buy a processor and do nothing but gaming on it your not going to buy a R7 2700X, your going to buy a R5 2600. The R5 2600 can easily be overclocked to 4.2Ghz and match the R7 2700X in almost all game titles because most won't require more than 6 cores. Now comparing the two "gaming only" go to processors of Intel and AMD your comparing the R5 2600 (overclocked) and the i5 9600K. In most titles the 9600K will slightly edge out the 2600 without overclocking the 9600K, however the 2600 is only $159.99 and the i9 9600K is $279.99. The slight edge you get again isn't worth the 80% mark up in price which negates the "value" of the i9 9600K. It's not such a good bang for the buck when compared to the correct Ryzen option. As an added bonus if your doing any productivity you will get better performance with the R5 2600 because unlike the i5 9600 that has had its hyperthreading disabled the R5 2600 has 6 cores and 12 threads.

One can't deny the pure performance and power of the i9 lineup, however in each case there is a much better priced Ryzen option that is nipping on its heals in performance. Intel has secured the "performance crown" with the i9 series but none of them can be considered a value or a "good bang for your buck" when compared against their true Ryzen competition.
 
I don't think anyone ever really debated that Intel didn't technically perform better, but it just doesn't seem like a good deal unless you are playing AAA games at 120fps 1080p. If money is no issue at all then Intel all the way, sure. The problem is that it scales horribly past a point.

Compared a 2700x to 9700k or 2600/x to 9600k you have to decide if it's worth 200 to 300$ or more total system cost so you can play at 87fps vs 100fps or 113fps vs 133fps. For pro players or streamers with large followers ok I can see it making sense, but for the average person you can make better use of that 300$

Another key thing is that AMD goes on sale way way way more often than Intel. You can get a 2600 for only 150 and it's that way for a while and 2600x on sale for 190. Sure, when you don't account for actual selling prices and compare only the retail then Intel looks better, but

Compare a 2600 at 150$ to a 9600k for 280$ and it requires a more expensive motherboard and cooler. Add another 25$ for equal cooler and an extra 50$ for equal motherboard of a z390 vs b450. Now we are comparing 355$ 9600k vs 150$ 2600. For the large amount of people using a GPU equal to or less than a gtx 1070ti then this is a fantastic way to go. Maybe you can make a case with a 1070ti at 1080p for Intel with small bottleneck on 2600, but it would be close

You can actually buy a 2600 with a gtx 1060 or rx580 for the price of a 9600k once we account for the other things I mentioned above. The msi A-pro board cost 65 to 70$ with b450 chipset and 130$ for a z390. Same VRM cooling and all. You can get low budget 390s for the price of upper mid range 450s. If you spent 100 to 130$ on a b450 it's going to have great cooling and lots of features.
 
The Ryzen 5 2600x overclocks ok, why isn't it benchmarked overclocked? Tom's actually did an article on overclocking the 2600 a few months back and posted the benchmarks with a 4.2 overclock on this very sight.
 
While Tom's gives a 5 to 4 score in favor of Intel, Amazon's top CPU sellers meanwhile reveals: 1st: Ryzen 2600, 2nd: Ryzen 2700X, 3rd: i7 9700K and the 9600K at 10th place. The 9900K isn't even on the top 50 list. Good to see that people are becoming more conscious towards basing purchasing decisions on value these days.
 
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