Whether you favour AMD or Intel at the head of your PC, there’s no denying that competition in the CPU space is good for the consumer. Keep an eye on product pricing and you’ll often find these semiconductor giants jostling for position across various market segments.
A perfect example is AMD Ryzen 9 9900X vs. Intel Core i7-14700K. The latter has routinely snapped at the heels of the AMD chip, to the extent that our August 2024 launch review stated 9900X needs to drop to $439 / £399 to boost attractiveness.
Well, those price cuts have been swift, as the very same 12-core AMD CPU is now available from Amazon for $359. A spectacular 28% decrease in less than a year marks the lowest price we’ve ever seen, and there’s good reason why. Across the aisle, Intel Core i7-14700K has dropped even lower.
AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
“Generational performance gains emanate from improvements in architecture and caching than from a boost derived from pumping more cores.” Read our review.
There are pros and cons on both sides of this silicon coin. The Intel route will be more affordable, owing to lower CPU and platform pricing. On the other hand, AMD Ryzen 9 9900X offers latest-generation smarts and an AM5 platform that ought to be good for at least one upgrade further down the line.
The 12-core CPU has struggled to live up to the expectations of the 5900X – a favourite from a few generations ago – yet at $359 it makes a convincing case for a powerful all-round build. 9900X is nearly a hundred bucks cheaper than the gamer-specific 9800X3D, making it a noteworthy choice if you favour more cores and more productivity over maximum framerate.
A top speed of 5.6GHz is wrapped inside a 120W TDP, and while there’s no cooler inside the box, you won’t need a mahoosive AIO to tame this particular beast. Better many-core processors are few and far between, and if you’ve been waiting for the opportune moment to switch to AM5, now might be the moment to jump in.
