As AMD's most popular processor in recent years, AMD Ryzen™ 5000 series processors have been fighting with Intel for three generations, from Intel 10th generation Core to the current 12th generation Core, especially the 11th generation Core, which is overwhelmed by AMD's Ryzen™ 5000 processor. In the 12th generation of Core processors, Intel also won a round in the game field, especially the AAA field, with excellent single-threaded performance.
In the face of the 12th generation of Core processors led by the Core i9-12900K processor, AMD Ryzen™ 5000 series family is not afraid, please out of the flagship level Ryzen 9 5950X processor, and the Core i9-12900K processor in the field of productivity for real knife and real gun competition, now let's see, as the seed players of both sides, how is the productivity performance of the two processors?
Specification comparison
As the seed players of both sides, AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X and Intel Core i9-12900K processors are at the fever level in terms of specifications, of which the Ryzen 9 5950X still uses the old Zen 3 architecture, while Intel here for the first time uses a hybrid architecture, that is, P-core and E-core design, which has a good performance improvement performance on single-thread.
Among other specifications, the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X uses a 16-core, 32-thread specification with a reference frequency of 3.4GHz and a maximum frequency of 4.9GHz. As for Intel, due to the hybrid architecture, the two types of frequencies are different, for example, the reference frequency of the P core is 3.2GHz, which can reach a maximum of 5.2GHz, while the E core is a reference frequency of 2.4GHz, and the Boost frequency reaches 3.9GHz. More importantly, Intel finally abandoned the 14nm and switched to the Intel 7 process, which is far more energy-efficient than the previous 11th-generation Core processor, despite being based on 10nm. If the Ryzen 5000 series processor used to be crushed against the 11th generation Of Core processor, then the emergence of the 12th generation Intel Core processor is the real Mars crash into the earth.
Platform building
In terms of platform selection, we also used the latest hardware, such as ROG's Z690 Hero and DDR5 4800 memory, in addition to our choice of high wattage power supply and RTX 3080 Ti graphics card to ensure that the two CPUs can perform at the highest level. Considering that the memory bandwidth of DDR4-3600 and DDR5-4800 is relatively large, we did not test memory-sensitive software such as decompression.
Performance testing
We used three software: CPU-Z, CineBench R20, and CineBench R23 to test the amd Ryzen™ 9 5950X and Intel Core i9-12900K.
In actual tests, our AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X took the lead in CPU-Z, about 700 points higher than the Intel Core i9-12900K, and in the two test projects of CineBench R20 and CineBench R23, the Intel Core i9-12900K was better.
For video practitioners, V-Ray should be regarded as a more commonly used renderer, the current V-Ray organization also provides 4.0 and 5.0 versions for users to test, in the V-Ray test, we can see that the amD Ryzen™ 9 5950X performance is 11-20% higher than the Intel Core i9-129000K, or quite powerful.
In the rendering test of Corona 1.3, because the hybrid architecture optimization of the Intel Core i9-12900K was not very good, in the actual test, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X led by quite obvious, reaching 88.6%, which is quite terrifying.
We also tested Blender BenchMark's rendering test, and I believe blender is a very popular rendering software for many consumers engaged in 3D rendering. After testing, the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X processor leads by around 10%.
As can be seen from the above test software, compared with game testing, in fact, it is the video rendering software that can fully understand the performance of these processors, especially the popularity of 4K and 8K videos now, which also makes editors pay more attention to the multi-threaded performance of the processor, and is not very sensitive to single-threaded performance. Therefore, the intel core i9-12900K processor's relatively excellent single-threaded performance does not play much in the rendering software. Of these thread-count test software, the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X with 16 cores and 32 threads is clearly even better. The AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X with excellent multithreading performance can make rendering software more efficient, increasing the productivity of graphics and video workers.
Power consumption and temperature
We also used the AIDA 64 FPU to test the power consumption and temperature of the two processors, although it has a higher core and thread, but the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X has more advantages in power consumption and temperature, especially the temperature is only 84 degrees Celsius, compared to the Intel Core i9-12900K can reach 95 degrees Celsius.
Installed costs
In general, users who can buy amd Ryzen™ 9 5950X and Intel Core i9-12900K as rendering computers are generally not bad for money, at least the budget is much more generous than other user groups. We also take the 20,000 budget as an example to see what kind of hardware can be carried with the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X and Intel Core i9-12900K.
AMD host
Intel host
It can be seen that whether it is AMD or Intel platform, the biggest difference between them is the memory and CPU. Although the current Intel platform can install DDR4 memory, but as a host with a budget of 20,000 yuan, the use of DDR4 memory is inevitably small, and DDR5 memory, although it has been launched for half a year, but compared with DDR4 memory prices are still 70%. In addition, the Intel Core i9-12900K is a new CPU, not as good as the Ryzen™ 9 5950X in software optimization, and there are often P-core and E-core load imbalances in our tests, which is obviously not good news for rendering software. In addition, amD Ryzen™ 9 5950X has also undergone multiple price cuts, and the current price is still quite competitive.
In the recommended configuration, we mainly put the extra budget into the graphics card, for example, the AMD platform can choose the Radeon RX 6700 XT graphics card, and the Intel platform is the Radeon RX 6600 XT graphics card, of course, you can also choose a different configuration, such as the savings of the budget into other hardware, such as adding more memory or SSD, and choosing a better display. This will also allow you to improve the efficiency of your rendering. Obviously, for app creators, the AMD platform plays the icing on the cake, and this choice is also in line with AMD's concept of providing users with higher performance at the same price.
summary
Although the Intel Core i9-12900K processor is very successful in the gaming world with excellent single-threaded performance, once it encounters a test scenario like video rendering software that completely squeezes multi-threaded performance, it is natural that the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with more threads is dominant, after all, the Intel Core i9-12900K processor has a total of 16 cores of 8P+8E and has 24 threads, while the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X is a complete 16 cores. Has 32 threads. In the performance test of multi-core software, the leading margin reached 10-15%, and the mature 7nm process also gave AMD Ryzen 9 5950X a certain advantage in energy consumption and heat generation.
Different from the game, the degree of optimization of the professional software for the CPU determines the actual performance performance, if properly optimized, even if the CPU parameters are backward, you can get excellent performance, and at this point, it is obviously the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X optimization work is more outstanding, not to mention that if you want to let the Intel Core i9-12900K processor play the maximum performance, you need the Win11 system, and this system is far less stable than Win10. It is also slightly inconvenient for professional users. Whether it is platform building costs, software optimization or threading performance, the AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X, which has been playing for three generations, is obviously more worth buying.