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AMD’s 7800X3D and 9800X3D CPUs, priced over $400 USD, are widely marketed as “the best gaming CPUs in the world”. This is demonstrated at low resolutions with a 4090-class GPU, whilst conveniently ignoring 0.1% lows (frame drops). Under cherry-picked cache-bound conditions the X3D chips do excel, but there’s a trade-off: the additional cache results in 6% lower boost clocks and 50% to 80% higher prices than their regular counterparts (9700X and 7700X). As with their Radeon GPUs, AMD is looking to drive demand through advanced marketing rather than delivering real-world performance. While Nvidia has effectively countered AMD’s marketing in the GPU space, Intel's marketers remain asleep (terminally?) at the wheel. Nevertheless, the 13600K and 14600K still deliver almost unparalleled real-world gaming performance for around $200 USD. Spending more on a gaming CPU is often pointless, as games are normally limited by the GPU. Without significant improvements in social media marketing: forums, reddit, youtube etc., Intel now face the very real risk of bankruptcy (third worst-performing S&P500 stock from Jan to Aug 2024). Since this summary was published just two days ago, hundreds of twitter threads, thousands of “pcmasterrace” reddit posts, multiple magazine articles, and several youtube videos have emerged in unanimous support for the $480 USD 9800X3D. All of these supposedly disinterested actors are working the weekend to convince you to pay their favourite billion-dollar brand an extra $280 USD this holiday season. ^{[Nov '24 CPUPro]}

These early benchmarks, which were probably leaked by marketers, indicate the best-case scenario for Intel’s new Arrow Lake desktop processors. The new chiplet-based design results in around 90 ns of memory latency, compared to around 60 ns on Intel’s 12th, 13th and 14th generations. Consequently, gaming performance on the 200 series (like AMD Ryzen) is susceptible to frame drops. Meanwhile, Intel’s 13600K and 14600K continue to offer almost unparalleled real-world gaming performance for around $200 USD. Spending more money on a gaming CPU is normally a waste of money as games are rarely CPU bound under real-world conditions. Without significant improvements in social media marketing: forums, reddit, youtube etc., Intel now faces the very real risk of bankruptcy (third worst-performing S&P500 stock from Jan to Aug 2024). ^{[Oct '24 CPUPro]}

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 '22 CPUPro]}

The Ryzen 9000 CPUs have the same integrated graphics, PCIe lanes, USB support and DRAM controller as the Ryzen 7000 series. The only difference is improved cores which have moved from TSMC's 5 nm process to 4 nm. The new cores offer 15% more performance under cherry-picked conditions but for latency-sensitive workloads, like gaming, they are just few percent faster. The 9600X, 9700X, 9900X, and 9950X are priced at $280, $360, $500, and $650, respectively, making them $80-$200 USD more expensive than the 7000 series. Since the 7000 series flopped (7800X3D somewhat excluded) due to unrealistic pricing, slow boot times, high platform costs and windows gamebar requirements etc., the 9000 series is more or less DOA. When the 9000X3D variants launch (expected in early 2025) gamers who play cache sensitive games such as SoTTR or Factorio with a 4090 and don’t mind frame drops, may find value in the 9800X3D. Meanwhile, Intel’s 12th and 13th gen CPUs continue to offer the best value for money in today’s market. Furthermore, Intel is scheduled to launch Arrow-Lake (est. +10% performance vs 14th gen) and Lunar-Lake (snapdragon competitive x86 battery life) this year, but they face serious challenges due to reliance on marketers who are mostly funded by AMD. Even if Arrow and Lunar Lake deliver stellar performance, without significant improvements in social media marketing: forums, reddit, youtube etc., Intel now face the very real risk of bankruptcy (third worst-performing S&P500 stock from Jan to Aug 2024). ^{[Aug '24 CPUPro]}

The RTX 4090 is based on Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace architecture. It features 16,384 cores with base / boost clocks of 2.2 / 2.5 GHz, 24 GB of memory, a 384-bit memory bus, 128 3rd gen RT cores, 512 4th gen Tensor cores, DLSS 3 and a TDP of 450W. Performance gains will vary depending on the specific game and resolution. With a 4090 tier card 1080p in-game fps will often get CPU bottlenecked which prevents the GPU from delivering higher fps. At higher (often sub-optimal) resolutions (1440p, 4K etc) the 4090 will show increasing improvements compared to lesser cards. When fps are not CPU bottlenecked at all, such as during GPU benchmarks, the 4090 is around 75% faster than the 3090 and 60% faster than the 3090-Ti, these figures are approximate upper bounds for in-game fps improvements. The fact that the 4090 is currently the fastest performing graphics card available is reflected in its jaw-dropping MSRP of $1,600. Since PC gamers rarely buy AMD GPUs, Nvidia only have themselves to compete with. Surprisingly, $1,600 is actually reasonable value for money, when compared to previous gen. flagship cards. Prospective buyers will need a top of the line system to extract maximum performance from the 4090 and because of its monstrous dimensions, many will also need a new PC case. Consumers that demand value for money, should wait a few more months for the 4060 / 4070 models by which time AMD's 7900 series will also probably be heavily discounted. Alternatively, shoppers looking to buy in the near term should consider the last gen. 3060-Ti, which offers excellent real-world (1080p) performance at a fraction of the price ($400 USD). ^{[Oct '22 GPUPro]}

The RTX 4060 is based on Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace architecture. It features 3,072 cores with base / boost clocks of 1.8 / 2.5 GHz, 8 GB of memory, a 128-bit memory bus, 24 3rd gen RT cores, 96 4th gen Tensor cores, DLSS 3 (with frame generation), a TDP of 115W and a launch price of $300 USD. The 4060 is around 20% faster than the 3060 at a 10% lower MSRP and offers similar performance to the 3060-Ti at a 30% lower MSRP. 8GB of memory is more than enough for most gamers, who are best off playing at 1080p. First time buyers tempted to consider the RX 7600 by AMD’s army of Advanced Marketing scammers (youtube, reddit, twitter, forums etc.) should be aware that AMD have a history of releasing benchmark busting, heavily marketed, sub standard products. The 4060 is more power efficient (quieter), has a broader feature set (RT/DLSS 3.0) and offers far better game compatibility (drivers). PC gamers looking to join AMD’s “2%” GPU club (Steam stats: 5000/6000/7000 series combined mkt share) need to work on their critical thinking skills: Influencers (posing as reviewers) are paid handsomely to scam users into buying inferior products. ^{[Jun '23 GPUPro]}

The WD Black SN850X has a superb consumer performance profile. As well as offering solid burst speeds of 5 GB/s, the SN850X also offers respectable out of cache performance. At current prices (1TB $90 USD, 2TB $145 USD and 4TB $290 USD) the WD Black SN850X is our top value pick at every capacity. ^{[Jun '24 SSDrivePro]}

The Samsung 990 Pro has a strong consumer performance profile. It offers burst read speeds of 3 GB/s and burst write speeds of 5 GB/s. The 990 Pro also offers respectable out of cache performance. At current prices (1TB $120 USD, 2TB $165 USD and 4TB $320 USD) the Samsung 990 Pro offers worse value for money than the WD Black SN850X. Samsung’s superior SSD technology allowed them to dominate the consumer market since SSDs became mainstream in 2010. However, in today’s market, their technology no longer justifies a price premium. ^{[Jun '24 SSDrivePro]}