Intel Core i9-12900K vs AMD Ryzen 9 7900

Compare Intel 12th Generation Core i9 16 core CPU vs AMD Ryzen 9 12 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

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Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 289.00
$ 118.55 significantly less expensive
$ 407.55

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

13335 points
1% slightly better overall score
13176 points

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

14237 points
7% slightly better gaming score
13264 points

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

13039 points
13138 points
0.76% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

12988 points
13122 points
1% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i9-12900K and the Ryzen 9 7900? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

11701 points
5% slightly higher 3DMark Physics score
11128 points
Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

364.47 points
394.92 points
8% slightly higher Blender score
Cinebench R23 score

Cinebench R23 score

Multi threaded benchmark

27005 points
8% slightly higher Cinebench R23 score
24776 points
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

15144 points
16762 points
10% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

2550 points
2797 points
9% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

15365 points
16768 points
9% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

2616 points
2868 points
9% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

16
33% slightly more cores
12

Threads

Number of logical processing units

24
Identical
24

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.2 GHz
3.70 GHz
15% slightly higher clock speed

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

5.2 GHz
5.4 GHz
3% slightly higher turbo speed

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

241 W
65 W
270% significantly lower TDP

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

2
Identical
2

L1 Cache

Smallest embedded memory, but the fastest

1280 KiB
66% significantly more L1 cache
768 KiB

L3 Cache

General memory pool for all cores

30 MiB
64 MiB
113% significantly more L3 cache

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

39th of 1,118
41st of 1,118

Family

The product line

12th Generation Core i9
Ryzen 9

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2021 November
2023 January

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR5-4800
DDR5

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

Yes
Yes

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Yes
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Core i9-12900K vs Ryzen 9 7900 benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i9-12900K beats the Ryzen 9 7900 in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Ryzen 9 7900 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-12900K has slightly more cores with 16 cores compared to the Ryzen 9 7900 that has 12 cores. But they both have the same number of threads. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Ryzen 9 7900 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i9-12900K. Also, the Ryzen 9 7900 has a slightly higher turbo speed. The Ryzen 9 7900 outputs less heat than Core i9-12900K thanks to a significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Modern CPUs generally have more logical cores than physical cores, this means that each core is split into multiple virtual cores, improving efficiency for parallel workloads. Indeed, the Core i9-12900K has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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