Core i9-12900K vs Ryzen 9 5950X

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Aggregated performance score

Ryzen 9 5950X
2020
16 cores / 32 threads
29.54
+10.4%
Core i9-12900K
2021
16 cores / 24 threads
26.75

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 10% based on our aggregated benchmark results.

General info

Comparing Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and price.

Place in performance ranking134156
Place by popularitynot in top-10036
Value for money60.4056.53
Market segmentDesktop processorDesktop processor
SeriesAMD Ryzen 9Intel Core i9
Architecture codenameVermeer (Zen 3)Alder Lake-S (2022)
Release date5 November 2020 (3 years ago)4 November 2021 (2 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$799$589
Current price$484 (0.6x MSRP)$478 (0.8x MSRP)

Value for money

Performance per price, higher is better.

Ryzen 9 5950X has 7% better value for money than i9-12900K.

Technical specs

Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters indirectly say of CPU speed, though for more precise assessment you have to consider their test results.

Physical cores16 (Hexadeca-Core)16 (Hexadeca-Core)
Threads3224
Base clock speed3.4 GHz3.2 GHz
Boost clock speed4.9 GHz5.2 GHz
L1 cache64K (per core)80K (per core)
L2 cache512K (per core)1.25 MB (per core)
L3 cache64 MB30 MB (shared)
Chip lithography7 nm10 nm
Die sizeCPU cores: 2x 80.7 sq. mm., I/O: 125 mm2215.25 mm2"20.5 mm × 10.5 mm
Maximum core temperatureno data100 °C
Maximum case temperature (TCase)95 °C72 °C
64 bit support++
Windows 11 compatibility++
Unlocked multiplierYesYes

Compatibility

Information on Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K compatibility with other computer components: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration11
SocketAM4FCLGA1700
Power consumption (TDP)105 Watt125 Watt

Technologies and extensions

Technological solutions and additional instructions supported by Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsDDR4-3200 RAM, PCIe 4, MMX (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, SSE4A, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3, SHAIntel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2
AES-NI++
AVX++
vProno data+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)no data+
Speed Shiftno data+
Turbo Boost Technologyno data2.0
Hyper-Threading Technologyno data+
Idle Statesno data+
Thermal Monitoringno data+
SIPPno data+
Turbo Boost Max 3.0no data+
Statusno dataLaunched

Security technologies

Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXTno data+
EDBno data+
Secure Keyno data+
OS Guardno data+

Virtualization technologies

Virtual machine speed-up technologies supported by Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K are enumerated here.

AMD-V+no data
VT-dno data+
VT-xno data+
EPTno data+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel quantity of RAM supported by Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequencies may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR4DDR4, DDR5
Maximum memory size128 GB128 GB
Max memory channels22
Maximum memory bandwidth51.196 GB/s76.8 GB/s
ECC memory support-+

Graphics specifications

General parameters of integrated GPUs, if any.

Integrated graphics card-Intel UHD Graphics 770
Quick Sync Video-+
Clear Video HD-+
Graphics max frequency-1.55 GHz
Execution Units-32

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K integrated GPUs.

Number of displays supported-4

Graphics image quality

Maximum display resolutions supported by Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K integrated GPUs, including resolutions over different interfaces.

Max resolution over HDMI 1.4-4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz
Max resolution over eDP-5120 x 3200 @ 120Hz
Max resolution over DisplayPort-7680 x 4320 @ 60Hz

Graphics API support

APIs supported by Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K integrated GPUs, sometimes API versions are included.

DirectX-12
OpenGL-4.5

Peripherals

Specifications and connection of peripherals supported by Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K.

PCIe version4.05.0 and 4.0
PCI Express lanesno data20

Synthetic benchmark performance

Various benchmark results of the processors in comparison. Overall score is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

Ryzen 9 5950X 29.54
+10.4%
i9-12900K 26.75

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 10% based on our aggregated benchmark results.


Passmark

Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.

Benchmark coverage: 68%

Ryzen 9 5950X 45682
+10.4%
i9-12900K 41364

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 10% in Passmark.

GeekBench 5 Single-Core

GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.

Benchmark coverage: 42%

Ryzen 9 5950X 2189
i9-12900K 2623
+19.8%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 20% in GeekBench 5 Single-Core.

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.

Benchmark coverage: 42%

Ryzen 9 5950X 12161
i9-12900K 15460
+27.1%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 27% in GeekBench 5 Multi-Core.

Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core

Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.

Benchmark coverage: 20%

Ryzen 9 5950X 6690
i9-12900K 9859
+47.4%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 47% in Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core.

Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.

Benchmark coverage: 19%

Ryzen 9 5950X 56641
i9-12900K 71819
+26.8%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 27% in Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core.

3DMark06 CPU

3DMark06 is a discontinued DirectX 9 benchmark suite from Futuremark. Its CPU part contains two scenarios, one dedicated to artificial intelligence pathfinding, another to game physics using PhysX package.

Benchmark coverage: 19%

Ryzen 9 5950X 17657
i9-12900K 18753
+6.2%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 6% in 3DMark06 CPU.

wPrime 32

wPrime 32M is a math multi-thread processor test, which calculates square roots of first 32 million integer numbers. Its result is measured in seconds, so that the less is benchmark result, the faster the processor.

Benchmark coverage: 18%

Ryzen 9 5950X 4.23
i9-12900K 3.66
+15.6%

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 16% in wPrime 32.

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.

Benchmark coverage: 17%

Ryzen 9 5950X 48
+4.8%
i9-12900K 46

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 5% in Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core.

Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 15 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R15 which uses all the processor threads.

Benchmark coverage: 15%

Ryzen 9 5950X 4324
+6.6%
i9-12900K 4057

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 7% in Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core.

Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R15 (standing for Release 15) is a benchmark made by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version (sometimes called Single-Thread) only uses a single processor thread to render a room full of reflective spheres and light sources.

Benchmark coverage: 15%

Ryzen 9 5950X 267
i9-12900K 289
+8.4%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 8% in Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core.

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R11.5 is an old benchmark by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version loads a single thread with ray tracing to render a glossy room full of crystal spheres and light sources.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

Ryzen 9 5950X 3.08
i9-12900K 3.5
+13.6%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 14% in Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core.

TrueCrypt AES

TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.

Benchmark coverage: 13%

Ryzen 9 5950X 26
+35.1%
i9-12900K 19.3

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 35% in TrueCrypt AES.

WinRAR 4.0

WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.

Benchmark coverage: 13%

Ryzen 9 5950X 12736
+7.6%
i9-12900K 11834

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 8% in WinRAR 4.0.

x264 encoding pass 1

x264 version 4.0 is a video encoding benchmark uses MPEG 4 x264 compression method to compress a sample HD (720p) video. Pass 1 is a faster variant that produces a constant bit rate output file. Its result is measured in frames per second, which means how many frames of the source video file were encoded per second.  

Benchmark coverage: 13%

Ryzen 9 5950X 330
i9-12900K 367
+11.1%

Core i9-12900K outperforms Ryzen 9 5950X by 11% in x264 encoding pass 1.

x264 encoding pass 2

x264 Pass 2 is a slower variant of x264 video compression that produces a variable bit rate output file, which results in better quality since the higher bit rate is used when it is needed more. Benchmark result is still measured in frames per second.  

Benchmark coverage: 13%

Ryzen 9 5950X 212
+5.5%
i9-12900K 201

Ryzen 9 5950X outperforms Core i9-12900K by 5% in x264 encoding pass 2.

Gaming performance

Advantages and disadvantages


Performance score 29.54 26.75
Recency 5 November 2020 4 November 2021
Threads 32 24
Cost $799 $589
Chip lithography 7 nm 10 nm
Power consumption (TDP) 105 Watt 125 Watt

The Ryzen 9 5950X is our recommended choice as it beats the Core i9-12900K in performance tests.


Should you still have questions on choice between Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-12900K, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

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AMD Ryzen 9 5950X
Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel Core i9-12900K
Core i9-12900K

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