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The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X and Intel i9 14900KS are two flagship processors in the market. The Ryzen 9 9950X belongs to AMD's 9000 series, which will be released at the end of July 2024. The lineup is AMD's next-generation release, which will come with newer advancements and improvements over the previous 7000 series.
The i9 14900KS is a recent release from Intel, launched in March 2024. It belongs to the Intel Raptor Lake Refresh series and came with minor improvements over the i9 14900K.
Both AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X and Intel's i9 14900KS are decked up in specs and performance. However, which CPU is the gaming champion between them? This article answers that question after comparing the two chipsets.
Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the writer's opinion.
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How does the upcoming Ryzen 9 9950X fare against the Intel 14900KS?
AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X is based on the new Zen 5 architecture manufactured using the 4nm process, compared to the 10 nm used for Intel's i9 14900KS. This means the Ryzen 9 9950X will be more efficient and draw less power than the i9 14900KS.
Specs comparison
The Intel 14900KS comes with eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, with a base clock of 3.2 GHz and a boost clock of 6.2 GHz. Despite having 16 efficiency cores, this CPU still consumes a lot of power as it is manufactured using the 10 nm process.
The i9 14900KS suffers from an overvoltage issue that kills it eight to 12 weeks after being installed in the system. The default profile of the motherboard is the prime cause behind this problem. When under heavy loads, the motherboard profile pushes the CPU so hard that it reaches extremely high temperatures and voltage.
The i9 14900KS faced frequent crashes when gaming. The heat generated was so massive that it exponentially deteriorated the CPU materials, thus rendering it unusable. Intel released a statement asking motherboard manufacturers to use their default profiles to fix this issue. However, the damage was already done.
Those who bought i9 CPUs started returning them and placed requests through Intel support. After being flooded with so many requests, the Intel system glitched, and consumers found their return requests automatically getting canceled. This created a massive fiasco in the gaming community.
AMD hasn't faced such a massive issue yet. The Ryzen 9 9950X comes with 16 cores and 32 threads, which clock up to 5.7 GHz. This means it has eight more cores dedicated to performance while also being rated at only 170 watts.
The AMD chip wins in every aspect over its Intel counterpart in terms of specs. It also uses the AM5 socket, which will be supported beyond 2027, future-proofing the system. The socket will be supported by all upcoming PC tech releases, including future graphics and RAM.
Performance comparison
The performance of the Intel i9 14900KS declined following the overvoltage fixes. As a consequence, it is now nowhere near its previous peak. The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X easily beats it in terms of overall performance.
The Intel performance benchmarks featured below are the pre-fix default results using the Ryzen 9 9950X engineering sample. These scores were fetched from Nanoreview.
According to the results, it is pretty clear that the Ryzen 9 9950X is more powerful than the i9 14900KS. This disparity has grown even further since the i9 14900KS had to be underclocked.
The gaming performance of the Ryzen 9 9950X is also expected to be great. We don't have any official benchmarks yet, but courtesy of TechpowerUP, there is an image doing the rounds on the internet demonstrating the benchmark results of the Ryzen 9 9900X, paired with the Radeon 7900XTX, in a game called Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
TechpowerUP reportedly managed to get this shot at Computex 2024 when AMD demoed its new chip. The results are jaw-dropping. The Ryzen 9 9950X pulls off a massive 229 FPS average, reaching a peak of 283 FPS in 1080p high settings. This means the CPU will pull off even higher numbers upon release.
According to Tom's Hardware, the benchmark leaks indicate a massive 40-45% performance improvement over the last-gen Ryzen 9 7950X. These are massive numbers, indicative of the Ryzen 9 chip's place as a better gaming CPU than the Intel i9 14900KS.
Ryzen 9 9950X vs i9 14900KS: Final Verdict
In this battle, the Ryzen 9 9950X wins in every category by a long shot. It looks set to be the best desktop processor in the market.
It would be prudent to avoid the Intel i9 14900KS as of now because of the overvolt fiasco. Going for the AMD chip as soon as it launches is the smarter decision.
