AMD and Intel are the two long-standing processor competitors. Which of these PC must-haves should you put in your machine? We examine both brands to find out.
If you’re building your own PC, there’s plenty of criteria to consider when molding your machine. What operating system do you plan on using? What graphics card will be best for gaming? And where exactly can one buy all these components? There’s a lot to think about, but one important decision you can’t forget is whether you’ll be using an AMD or Intel processor for your new machine.
A war of chips and cores that shows no sign of stopping, the age-old battle of AMD vs Intel is a classic competition, but is one processor brand better than the other? That’s where we come in.
Between AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs and Intel’s 14th-generation Meteor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors, there are plenty of great features to look at. So let’s get this side-by-side comparison started!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. With more cores, higher clocks, and new features, the best processors from Intel and AMD are something to get very excited about.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 7000 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:AMDIntel
AMD also has a new limited-generation Ryzen 8000 APUs, which offer the same Zen 4 architecture as the Ryzen 7000 series but with more onboard graphics cores. They’re designed for all-in-one gaming, but their processor performance is notably weaker.
AMD and Intel also offer credible options with their last-generation Ryzen 5000 and 12th-gen Alder Lake, 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.
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.Which company makes the fastest processors?
Intel and AMD have excellent processors for gaming and productivity tasks like video editing and transcoding. While you will find the best bang for your buck around the midrange of both camps (Intel’s Core i5-14600K and AMD’s Ryzen 7700X are particular standouts), the flagship CPUs from both AMD and Intel offer the best performance in gaming and more demanding multithreaded workloads.
