If you're looking for the best CPUs for Gaming or the best workstation CPU, there are only two choices to pick from – AMD and Intel. That fact has spawned an almost religious following for both camps, and the resulting AMD vs Intel flamewars, making it tricky to get unbiased advice about the best choice for your next processor. But in many cases, the answer is actually very clear. In fact, for most users, it's now a blowout win in Intel's favor, as you can see in our CPU Benchmarks Hierarchy. That's an amazing reversal of fortunes for the chipmaker after its decade of dominance was completely overturned by AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips.

This article covers the never-ending argument of AMD vs Intel desktop CPUs (we're not covering laptop or server chips). We judge the chips on seven criteria based on what you plan to do with your PC, pricing, performance, driver support, power consumption, and security, giving us a clear view of the state of the competition. We'll also discuss the lithographies and architectures that influence the moving goalposts. Overall, there's a clear winner, but which CPU brand you should buy depends mostly on what kind of features, price, and performance are important to you.

If you're looking for the fastest chip on the market, you should look to Intel's potent new Alder Lake series. Intel's Alder Lake chips take the gaming crown from AMD, and also rival or beat AMD in all meaningful performance metrics, like single- and multi-threaded productivity workloads. You can see the disruptive results in our Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K review, and we've also added both our Windows 10 and 11 testing to our CPU benchmark database. We've also thrown in results with both DDR4 and DDR5 memory for good measure. We're working to add in a more expansive update to some of the text below, but rest assured that Intel has retaken the lead in several of the categories.

You can see how all of these processors stack up in our AMD vs Intel CPU Benchmarks Hierarchy, but the landscape had changed in the wake of AMD's Ryzen 5000 launch. AMD's newest processors, the Ryzen 9 5950X and Ryzen 9 5900X, not to mention the Ryzen 5 5600X, upset Intel's entire mainstream desktop lineup, and they certainly remain competitive in a few key areas. For more info, you can head to our expansive in-depth coverage of the Ryzen 5000 series, including pricing, benchmarks, and availability. At their debut, the Ryzen 5000 series were the highest-performing chips on the market and beat Intel in every metric that matters, including gaming, application performance, power consumption, and thermals.

Intel's Alder Lake has completely redefined x86 desktop PC chips with a new hybrid architecture that delivers amazing levels of performance. Not to be upstaged, AMD has its new CPUs with 3D V-Cache headed to production later this year. Those chips will bring up to 15% more gaming performance courtesy of up to an almost-unthinkable 192MB of L3 cache bolted onto a souped-up Zen 3 processor. That means the AMD vs Intel battle could shift towards the tail end of the year, but this is the tale of the tape for the current state of the market.

AMD vs. Intel: Which CPU is Best?


Here are the results of our analysis and testing. Below, we'll go over the in-depth details of how we came to our conclusions for each category.

AMD's relentless onslaught with its Zen-based processors has redefined our expectations for both the mainstream desktop and the HEDT markets, originally catching Intel flatfooted as it remained mired on the 14nm process and Skylake architectures. The past several years have seen AMD CPUs go from value-focused and power hungry chips to leading-end designs that deliver more cores, more performance, and lower power requirements.

Intel fought back by slowly adding features and cores across its product stack, but that also resulted in negative side effects, like more power consumption and heat generation. That only served to highlight the company's struggles on the design and fabrication side of its operation.

The AMD vs Intel CPU conversation has changed entirely, though, as Intel has now undercut AMD's price-to-performance ratio entirely with the Alder Lake chips. Additionally, Alder Lake comes with the most disruptive change to Intel's CPU overall SoC design methodology, not to mention core architectures, that we've seen in a decade. They also come with the new 'Intel 7' process that has proven to be exceptionally competitive. That shifted our rankings from a 7-to-4 advantage for AMD to a 7-to-5 advantage in Intel's favor.

However, Intel still hasn't eased its draconian segmentation policies that limit features, like overclockability, to pricey chips and motherboards. Intel's tactic of squeezing every penny out of every feature had allowed AMD to offer a more compelling value story across the full breadth of the consumer desktop CPU market. Alder Lake's low chip pricing and performance advantages now offset those upcharges, but Intel's decision to only bring its pricey Z-series motherboards to market at first does mean those lower chip prices will still be hampered by a 'motherboard tax' — at least until the cheaper B- and H- 600-series boards launch in the coming months.

Given AMD's current mix of price, performance, and value, it will have to drop pricing on its Ryzen 5000 chips soon in order to remain competitive. AMD has its new CPUs with 3D V-Cache headed to production later this year, bringing up to 15% more gaming performance than the current Ryzen chips due to an almost-unthinkable 192MB of L3 cache bolted onto a souped-up Zen 3 processor. We'll have to wait and see how that works out in the real world, though, but be aware that AMD does have a response coming.

However, Intel wins the CPU war overall right now. An AMD processor could still be the better choice depending on your needs, like if you prize the lowest power consumption or less-expensive motherboards. For now, if you want the best in gaming or application performance, overclocking or software support, or if you want productivity performance without buying a discrete GPU, Team Blue deserves your hard-earned dollars.

AMD vs Intel CPU Pricing and Value

Pricing is the most important consideration for almost everyone, and AMD has generally been hard to beat in the value department. The company's Ryzen 5000 series processors mark an across-the-board $50 price hike, but the faster chips earn their higher price tags. The company offers a plethora of advantages, like full overclockability on most models, not to mention complimentary software that includes the innovative Precision Boost Overdrive auto-overclocking feature.

You also benefit from the broad compatibility of motherboards with the AM4 CPU socket that supports both forward and backward compatibility, ensuring that not only do you get the most bang for your processor buck, but also your motherboard investment (there are caveats with the 5000 series). AMD also allows overclocking on all but its A-Series motherboards (see our article on how to overclock AMD Ryzen), which is a boon for enthusiasts. And, in this battle of AMD vs Intel CPUs, we haven't even discussed the actual silicon yet.


The arrival of Intel's Comet Lake-S models has found the company adding more cores, threads, and features to its mainstream lineup, but without increased gen-on-gen pricing. That equated to a substantial reduction in price-per-core and price-per-thread metrics, but AMD reduced pricing in response to keep Intel on its toes. AMD currently holds the price-per-core advantage in the Ryzen 9 and 7 range (compared to Core i9 and i7), while Intel holds the lead in the Core i5 and i3 range (vs Ryzen 5 and 3).

Intel includes bundled coolers with its non-overclocking SKUs (you have to pay more to overclock), but they are flimsy and 'good enough,' at best. We've even seen cases where Intel's stock coolers don't provide full performance at stock settings. Intel did slightly bulk up its bundled coolers for several Rocket Lake-S models, but the aesthetic and slight thermal improvements aren't enough to match AMD's competent coolers, and they aren't available on all models. However, the company reportedly has newer coolers in the works for its next line of chips, including models with RGB.

Intel also doesn't throw in a cooler at all for its pricey overclockable K-series SKUs (see our article on how to overclock an Intel CPU). Be sure to budget in a cooler (and a beefy one at that) if you plan on overclocking an Intel processor. Meanwhile, most of AMD's bundled coolers are suitable for at least moderate overclocking. Still, those only came as a standard add-in with the previous-gen Ryzen 3000 series, most of which haven't been supplanted with new Ryzen 5000 equivalents yet. Only three of the first seven AMD Ryzen 5000 processors, the Ryzen 5 5600X, Ryzen 7 5700G, and Ryzen 5 5600G comes with a bundled cooler.

Intel not only charges a premium for its overclockable K-Series chips, but you'll also need to shell out for a pricey Z-Series motherboard for the privilege of overclocking your processor—Intel doesn't allow full overclocking on B- or H-series motherboards. Intel has now enabled memory overclocking on its B560 and H570 chipsets, and that works with any chip that is compatible with the platform, meaning all 10th-Gen Comet Lake, 11th-Gen Rocket Lake, and 11th-Gen Comet Lake Refresh processors. However, these changes only apply to 500-series models.

Intel also has a long history of rapid socket transitions, meaning the odds of dropping a new chip into your existing motherboard, or taking the older processor over to a newer board, aren't as high. Plan for limited forward and backward compatibility on the Intel side. Intel's Rocket Lake does finally bring support for PCIe 4.0 connectivity, but Intel's 500 series chipset doesn't support PCIe 4.0 like AMD's chipsets. That means you get 20 lanes from the processor only — 16 lanes for graphics and four lanes for a single M.2 port, limiting connectivity options.

While AMD offers the most bang for your hard-earned dollar, as with any product, you can expect to pay a premium for the utmost performance, particularly the Ryzen 9 5950X. AMD's Ryzen 5000 series is the end of the line for the tried-and-true AM4 socket, so you shouldn't expect those chips to work in future AMD platforms.

However, AMD has its new CPUs with 3D V-Cache headed to production later this year. Those chips will bring up to 15% more gaming performance courtesy of up to an almost-unthinkable 192MB of L3 cache bolted onto a souped-up Zen 3 processor, and that means they may come to the AM4 socket. Only time will tell.

AMD's new Ryzen 5000 processors also come without bundled coolers for the Ryzen 9 and 7 families, but AMD says the increased performance offsets the lack of coolers and higher pricing. Our reviews back up that assertion - the Ryzen 5000 chips still offer a compelling blend of pricing and performance, provided you can find them at retail near their recommended pricing.

Win: AMD. When you're comparing Intel vs AMD CPUs, Team Red has a compelling value story across the full breadth of its product stack, especially when we take performance-per-dollar into account. However, if you're looking for integrated graphics paired with a processor with more than four cores, Intel is currently your only choice for chips at retail, though AMD does have its Cezanne APUs coming in August. Not that we'd recommend integrated graphics for most users, particularly if you're interested in gaming—check out our recent comparison of integrated graphics on AMD and Intel processors for more detail.