In a fiery Geekbench 4 battle brought to your courtesy of an unverified test submission, the Ryzen 7 3800X appears to come out on top of the Core i9-9900KS in the multi-core test while Intel's part is still faster in single-core workloads. This certainly isn't the final word in the pending standoff between the two parts though, because there is a distinct possibility that the -9900KS's unverified Geekbench test was conducted with pre-release silicon that could undergo further tuning before it comes to market.
The Ryzen 7 3800X is one of AMD's latest Zen 2 processors that aims to take on Intel's Core i9-9900K in the octa-core market. On this occasion, famed chip detective TUM_APISAK posted two test results head-to-head with the Ryzen 7 3800X benchmark compared to results of the special edition Core i9-9900KS that Intel announced at Computex.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Price (USD) | Cores / Threads | TDP | Base Clock | Boost Clock | Total Cache | PCIe Lanes | Memory Support |
| Core i9-9900KS | ? | 8 / 16 | ? | 4.0 GHz | 5.0 GHz | 16MB | PCIe 3.0 x16 | DDR4-2666 |
| Core i9-9900K | $488 | 8 / 16 | 95W | 3.6 GHz | 5.0 GHz | 16MB | PCIe 3.0 x16 | DDR4-2666 |
| Ryzen 7 3800X | $399 | 8 / 16 | 105W | 3.9 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 32MB | PCIe 4.0 x24 | DDR4-3200 |
The Core i9-9900KS is an unreleased eight-core, 16-thread processor that features a 4 GHz base clock and 5 GHz all-core boost clock. Besides the chip's basic specifications, Intel hasn't revealed its TDP (thermal design power) or pricing. On the other side, the Ryzen 7 3800X also checks in with eight cores and 16 threads. The chip runs with a 3.9 GHz base clock and 4.5 GHz boost clock.
The Ryzen 7 3800X puts in a single-core and a multi-core score of 5,783 points and 36,748 points, respectively. The unverified Core i9-9900KS result scores 6,129 points in the single-core test and 34,003 points in the multi-core test. According to the submission, the Core i9-9900KS is roughly 5.98% faster than the Ryzen 7 3800X in single-core workloads while the Ryzen 7 3800X performs up to 8.07% faster in multi-core workloads.
The Geekbench benchmark benefits from faster memory. The Ryzen 7 3800X system was using memory clocked at 3,460 MHz while the Core i9-9900KS system was strangely utilizing memory running at 2,134 MHz. The significant difference in memory speeds clearly put the Core i9-9900KS at a disadvantage. Therefore, the difference in performance between both octa-core parts could be smaller than we think. We won't know until we test both processors under the same environment.
As always, you shouldn't pass judgment on a processor based on a single benchmark, especially an unverified submission uploaded to a public database. We already have a Ryzen 7 3800X in our lab for testing and can provide you with a full panorama of the processor's performance very soon.
