AMD vs Intel – The Eternal Battle!
If you follow the tech scene just a little bit it should not be a surprise that ever since AMD has launched Ryzen, Intel, the company that has dominated the CPU market for years has been struggling.
It also seems that each year Ryzen increases its margin of dominance making the AMD vs Intel rivalry looking more like a one-sided fight with Intel punching itself in the face.
When Intel announced the 11th gen of CPUs people were not exactly excited since they knew that this generation will once again be a refresh of the same architecture Intel has been using for what it feels like the past millennia.
So, what do you as a gamer or power user need to know about CPUs if you want to build or refresh your PC? What do things look like when you pit AMD vs Intel in gaming? What about productivity work?
AMD vs Intel – General Specs
For this comparison, we will be looking at the newest generations of CPUs available from both companies: the Ryzen 5000 series, and Intel’s 11th generation.
From Intel, we have the i9-11900K, i7-11700K, and the i5-11600K. Meanwhile, representing AMD Ryzen the latest CPU models are Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 7 5800X, and Ryzen 5 5600X.
The hierarchy of these CPUs is in order of their names in their own stack, and against their competition (ex: 5600X vs i5-11600K).
Looking from a pure spec perspective the Intel CPUs are described as “worthless” by many competent tech reviewers out there. The biggest issue stems from the fact that Intel was forced into using a 2019 micro-architecture, with an ancient 14nm process.
This situation was described by many as a complete mess of a roadmap from Intel, failing to deliver any form of IPC improvements. In practical terms what we are describing here is the fact that Intel has been using the same ancient technology for years failing to innovate which led to an absolute dumpster fire of a CPU release.
The official TDP of all 3 Intel CPUs is 125W which is pretty much a joke to anybody that knows a bit about Intel CPUs. ALL of the reviews of the highest tier Intel CPU the i9-11900K indicate that it gets so hot trying to reach the advertised 5.3GHZ in speed that it cannot be cooled by conventional means.
This extreme heat also caused the intel line-up to go down to 8 cores 16 threads on the i7 and the i9 chip, simply because they could not keep the CPU cool enough to run.
Moreover, the only advantage the Intel CPUs currently have is sheer speed in GHz but since there are no IPC improvements on the chip itself, this is the only way Intel can keep up with lower clocked but overall better built AMD Ryzen CPUs.
The reason why this comparison of AMD vs Intel processors is more of a joke currently is because meanwhile, AMD Ryzen CPUs are absolutely crushing the competition.
Before the 5000 series CPUs AMD was slightly behind Intel but had better prices, now though the 5000 chips crush Intel in terms of overall performance. More cores/threads on their top-end CPU, WAY better TDP, and heat, a 7nm process which means increased efficiency, etc.
The most amusing part is that in terms of performance the 11th gen CPUs from Intel do not only lose to AMD, but also to their own 10th generation which performs better in certain tasks.
It would be funny if this would be a joke, but unfortunately, this is the truth Intel is facing currently.
AMD VS Intel – Gaming
Let us leave specs and manufacturing processes aside and look at some real-life performance metrics. Numbers and spec sheets can’t tell you the entire truth, right?
Well in the case of the AMD Ryzen vs Intel competition in terms of gaming the specs were a foreshadowing of what is to come. Even though Intel was ALWAYS considered a better gaming CPU, that is not the case anymore.
In most cases, AMD’s top-end CPUs, the 5900X (5950X) will always be better for gaming. Ok then what about the next step of the CPU chain, how does the i7-11700K fare vs the AMD Ryzen 5800X?
Well, no surprise here either. The 5800X dominates in gaming and this is mostly due to the lower TDP/ better IPC, etc. The i5 follows the same fate versus the 5600X losing in gaming, solidifying AMD as the better gaming CPU.
The funny bit is that the 5600X is also faster than the i7 CPU in a lot of gaming scenarios which paints just how bad Intel has fallen off its throne.
This major difference was even more noticeable in eSports titles like CS:GO or Valorant where the AMD CPUs won with margins of hundreds of FPS.
In short, for gaming, you definitely want a 5000 series Ryzen CPU and not an Intel 11 gen processor.
AMD VS Intel – Productivity
On the productivity side, it should be no surprise that Intel loses squarely simply because of fewer cores/threads in the 11th gen CPUs vs Ryzen CPUs. This is also not a big surprise since Intel was always losing the productivity battles, even with the 3000 and 2000 Ryzen CPUs.
Beforehand at least Intel had the gaming market, but as indicated above, Intel loses squarely in all aspects of computational performance when comparing the entire line of AMD Ryzen 5000 processors vs the Intel 11th gen.
So if your main usage of the PC will be to work with video editing, or photo editing, or any other type of heavy CPU loads, just buy a Ryzen CPU and spare yourself the troubles.
AMD vs Intel Processors – Overclocking
An important method of how Intel was always able to keep their dominance over AMD Ryzen CPUs, was the ability to achieve high overclocks on their processors. This was partly due to their 14nm process which is very sturdy and can sustain high voltages.
Unfortunately, to even keep up with AMD, the 11th gen Intel CPUs are already pushing voltages to the very maximum potential from the factory. This means that the overclocking headroom on the Intel newest generation is abysmal.
By comparison, the 5000 AMD Ryzen series are known to be good overclockers since they are so thermally efficient. This works better with lower core CPUs like the 5600X which can go from a 4.6Ghz boost to 4.85 GHz with a basic PBO2 or manual overclock!
Do not be frustrated that the AMD clocks are still lower than the Intel ones since not all clock speeds carry the same weight. Considering the IPC improvements of AMD the 5600X 4.85 GHz overclock will push more FPS in games than the i7-11700K going at 5+GHz.
Another sound win for AMD.
AMD vs Intel Processors – One Exception
The only exception to this absolute massacre where AMD stomps Intel is the i5-11600K and for probably different reasons than you think.
The 11600K still loses in terms of performance vs the entire AMD stack but it is priced lower than the 5600X, making it a sound budget option. Because of its lower performance and lower core/thread count, the 11600K also does not suffer from heating issue to the same extent as its bigger brothers, making the chip a worthwhile buy.
If you cannot buy a Ryzen 5600X, then our advice is to save some money and get the 11600K while investing the saved money into a possible better GPU purchase.
Conclusions
The conclusion that you should all make when it comes to the age-old AMD vs Intel battle is that currently, it makes no sense to purchase an Intel CPU, as their 11th gen lineup is a complete jump backward with higher prices but lower performance.
If you want a better overall experience just buy a Ryzen CPU and enjoy your time. Simple as that.