AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Intel Core i9-12900K
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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X vs Intel Core i9-12900K. Specifications, performance, tests

User rating
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Released
2022-09-27
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Released
Q4/2021
User rating
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Intel Core i9-12900K
Intel Core i9-12900K

What's the best choice AMD Ryzen 9 7950X or Intel Core i9-12900K? Which processor is faster?

Compare the available specifications of these models.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X has a base frequency of 4.5 GHz. 16 / 32 CPU Cores / Threads. Stated TDP / base power 170 W. Released in 2022-09-27.

Intel Core i9-12900K has a base frequency of 3.70 GHz. 16 / 24 CPU Cores / Threads. Stated TDP / base power 125 W. Released in Q4/2021.

Differences

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Reasons to consider
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Report a bug
  • Place in the overall ranking

    (based on several benchmarks)

    11 left arrow place
  • Higher clock speed

    Around 22% better clock speed

    4.5 GHz left arrow 3.70 GHz
  • Higher turbo clock speed

    Around 10% higher specified turbo frequency

    5.7 GHz left arrow 5.20 GHz

Positions in all rankings

Common positions AMD Ryzen 9 7950X CPU in popular benchmarks, for comparison with other models.

  • Cinebench R23 (Single-Core)
    17 place
  • Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core)
    12 place
  • Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)
    14 place
  • Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)
    20 place
  • Lower stated TDP / base power

    Power limits alone do not measure performance per watt.

    125 W left arrow 170 W

Specifications

Technical data
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Intel Core i9-12900K Intel Core i9-12900K
CPU family and group

Background information about the processors being compared, series, generation and market segment.

  • CPU group
    AMD Ryzen 7000 left arrow Intel Core i 12000
  • Family
    Ryzen left arrow 12th Generation Intel Core i9 Processors
  • Form Factor
    Desktops / Boxed Processor left arrow -
  • Generation
    5 left arrow 12
  • Predecessor
    AMD Ryzen 9 5950X left arrow Intel Core i9-11900K
  • Segment
    Desktop left arrow Desktop
  • Series
    Ryzen 7000 Series left arrow -
  • Successor
    - left arrow Intel Core i9-13900K
  • Processor Number
    - left arrow i9-12900K
CPU Technical specs

Core counts, threads, cache and clock modes describe the CPU configuration. Performance depends on the workload and comparable measured results.

  • Base Frequency
    4.5 GHz left arrow 3.7 GHz
  • Core architecture
    normal left arrow hybrid (big.LITTLE)
  • Core Configuration
    16x left arrow -
  • CPU Cores
    16 left arrow 16
  • CPU Threads
    32 left arrow 24
  • Hyperthreading / SMT
    Yes left arrow Yes
  • Max. Boost Clock
    5.7 GHz left arrow 5.2 GHz
  • Overclocking
    Yes left arrow Yes
  • Turbo Frequency (1 Core)
    5.5 GHz left arrow 5.3 GHz
  • Turbo Frequency (16 Cores)
    5.2 GHz left arrow 5 GHz
  • A-Core
    - left arrow 8x Golden Cove
  • B-Core
    - left arrow 8x Gracemont
  • E-core Base Clock
    - left arrow 2.4 GHz
  • E-core Max Turbo
    - left arrow 3.9 GHz
  • Efficient Cores
    - left arrow 8
  • P-core Base Clock
    - left arrow 3.2 GHz
  • P-core Max Turbo
    - left arrow 5.1 GHz
  • Performance Cores
    - left arrow 8
IGPU

Internal Graphics does not affect the performance of the CPU, performs the work of the graphics card in its absence or on mobile devices.

  • DirectX Version
    - left arrow 12
  • Execution units
    - left arrow 32
  • Generation
    - left arrow 12
  • GPU Frequency
    2200 MHz left arrow 400 MHz
  • GPU name
    AMD Radeon Graphics left arrow Intel UHD Graphics 770
  • GPU Turbo
    No turbo left arrow 1550 MHz
  • Graphics Cores
    2 left arrow -
  • Max. displays
    - left arrow 4
  • Max. GPU Memory
    - left arrow 16 GB
  • Release date
    - left arrow Q4/2021
  • Shader
    - left arrow 256
  • Technology
    - left arrow 10 nm
  • Graphics Base Frequency
    - left arrow 300 MHz
  • Graphics Output
    - left arrow eDP 1.4b, DP 1.4a, HDMI 2.1
Hardware codec support

Built-in codecs used to encode and decode content. Significantly speeds up the required operations.

  • AV1
    No left arrow Decode
  • H.264 / AVC
    No left arrow Decode / Encode
  • h265 / HEVC (8 bit)
    No left arrow Decode / Encode
  • h265 / HEVC (10 bit)
    No left arrow Decode / Encode
  • JPEG
    No left arrow Decode / Encode
  • VC-1
    No left arrow Decode
  • VP8
    No left arrow Decode
  • VP9
    No left arrow Decode / Encode
Memory specs & PCI

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by Intel Core i9-12900K and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

  • ECC
    Yes left arrow Yes
  • Max. Memory
    256 GB left arrow 128 GB
  • Memory Bandwidth
    83.2 GB/s left arrow -
  • Memory channels
    2 left arrow 2
  • Memory type
    DDR5 left arrow Up to DDR5 4800 MT/s Up to DDR4 3200 MT/s
  • PCIe
    PCIe 5.0 left arrow -
  • PCIe lanes
    - left arrow 20
  • PCIe version
    - left arrow 5.0 and 4.0
Encryption
  • AES-NI
    Yes left arrow Yes
Thermal Management

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Intel Core i9-12900K Power specifications describe different manufacturer limits. TDP, base power and maximum turbo power are separate values; they do not establish measured system consumption.

  • Default TDP
    170 W left arrow -
  • Maximum Operating Temperature
    95 °C left arrow 100 °C
  • TDP (PL1, legacy label)
    170 W left arrow 125 W
  • TDP (PL2)
    230 W left arrow 228 W / 56 s
  • Maximum Turbo Power
    - left arrow 241 W
  • Processor Base Power (PBP)
    - left arrow 125 W
Technologies and extensions

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Intel Core i9-12900K, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

  • Architecture
    Raphael (Zen 4) left arrow Alder Lake S
  • Codename
    Raphael AM5 left arrow Products formerly Alder Lake
  • Instruction set (ISA)
    x86-64 (64 bit) left arrow x86-64 (64 bit)
  • ISA extensions
    SSE4a, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, FMA3 left arrow SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2, AVX2+
  • L2-Cache
    16 MB left arrow Conflicting source values: 14 MB (Total cache capacity) | 3.75 MB
  • L3-Cache
    64 MB left arrow 30 MB
  • Part Number
    - left arrow BX8071512900K
  • Release date
    2022-09-27 left arrow Q4/2021
  • Socket
    AM5 left arrow FCLGA1700
  • Technology
    TSMC 5nm FinFET left arrow Intel 7 (Manufacturer process designation)
  • Virtualization
    AMD-V, SVM left arrow VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
  • Cache (manufacturer label)
    - left arrow 30 MB Intel Smart Cache
  • Marketing Status (manufacturer label)
    - left arrow Launched
  • Use Conditions
    - left arrow PC/Client/Tablet, Workstation

Benchmarks

Performance tests CPUs

Shared tests with results for both models: 11

Blender Cycles

Each row uses one Blender version, operating system and compute backend.

Test and settingsAMD Ryzen 9 7950X Intel Core i9-12900KResult difference¹
Blender 5.2.0 / CPU / Windows 555.135698 samples/min Submissions: 14 330.848277 samples/min Submissions: 9 -40.4 %
Blender 5.1.1 / CPU / Windows 577.564381 samples/min Submissions: 26 371.614153 samples/min Submissions: 10 -35.7 %
Blender 5.1.0 / CPU / Windows 599.189804 samples/min Submissions: 15 364.623081 samples/min Submissions: 5 -39.1 %
Blender 4.5.0 / CPU / Linux 640.195415 samples/min Submissions: 60 405.81974 samples/min Submissions: 17 -36.6 %
Blender 4.5.0 / CPU / Windows 539.85203 samples/min Submissions: 186 347.867139 samples/min Submissions: 51 -35.6 %
Blender 4.4.0 / CPU / Windows 533.737601 samples/min Submissions: 202 334.608444 samples/min Submissions: 40 -37.3 %
Blender 4.3.0 / CPU / Windows 521.842157 samples/min Submissions: 504 331.433386 samples/min Submissions: 51 -36.5 %
Blender 4.2.0 / CPU / Windows 527.799756 samples/min Submissions: 470 348.527563 samples/min Submissions: 101 -34.0 %
Blender 4.1.0 / CPU / Windows 550.882976 samples/min Submissions: 294 341.86517 samples/min Submissions: 51 -37.9 %
Blender 4.0.0 / CPU / Linux 658.852208 samples/min Submissions: 132 387.437158 samples/min Submissions: 8 -41.2 %
Blender 4.0.0 / CPU / Windows 546.570676 samples/min Submissions: 593 342.220842 samples/min Submissions: 83 -37.4 %

¹ Difference of the second result relative to the first in that row. No percentage is calculated for different upscaling algorithms. This compares published results, not a universal performance index.

Individual model tests

These results have no shared test of both models with the same version and settings. They are shown separately without a percentage difference.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

Intel Core i9-12900K

Results with primary test sources

Published measurements are separate from the archived index. Incomplete conditions and unknown run counts do not support ranking positions or calculated performance differences.

Model TestResultReported conditions
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Cinebench R15 / multi-core 6236 points Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3090
System RAM: 32 GB
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Cinebench R15 / single-core 317 points Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3090
System RAM: 32 GB
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Cinebench R20 / multi-core 14891 points Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3090
System RAM: 32 GB
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Cinebench R20 / single-core 783 points Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3090
System RAM: 32 GB
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Cinebench R23 / multi-core 38248 points Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3090
System RAM: 32 GB
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X Cinebench R23 / single-core 2017 points Graphics card: GeForce RTX 3090
System RAM: 32 GB

Individual system tests

Results were obtained on the reported systems. Test versions and settings remain separate; incomplete conditions do not support calculated model performance differences.

Cinebench 2024 / multiple threads

Model ResultReported conditions
Intel Core i9-12900K 1387 points System: Core i9-12900K, 16 GB
CPU / power label: Core i9-12900K, 16 GB
Source minimum runtime: 0 minutes.
Exact test build and complete conditions are unreported; no ranking position.

Cinebench 2024 / single thread

Model ResultReported conditions
Intel Core i9-12900K 120 points System: Core i9-12900K, 16 GB
CPU / power label: Core i9-12900K, 16 GB
Source minimum runtime: 0 minutes.
Exact test build and complete conditions are unreported; no ranking position.

RandomX / XMRig 6.26.0 / 1M / 32 threads / windows

Model ResultReported conditions
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 20335.53635 H/s RandomX / XMRig 6.26.0 / 1M / 32 threads / windows
System RAM: 32 GB
OS: Windows NT 10.0
Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. / PRIME B650-PLUS
Duration: 49.175 s
User-submitted run; tuning and power settings are incomplete.

Cinebench R23 / multiple threads

Model ResultReported conditions
Intel Core i9-12900K 27485 points System: CB: Core i9-12900K @ Stock
CPU / power label: CB: Core i9-12900K @ Stock
Exact test build and complete conditions are unreported; no ranking position.

Cinebench R23 / single thread

Model ResultReported conditions
Intel Core i9-12900K 2032 points System: CB: Core i9-12900K @ Stock
CPU / power label: CB: Core i9-12900K @ Stock
Exact test build and complete conditions are unreported; no ranking position.

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