Ryzen 7 7800X3D Smashes Core i9-14900K in Factorio Gaming Benchmark

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D continues to show why it's one of the best CPUs for gaming. German news outlet Computerbase reported that the Ryzen 7 7800X3D annihilated the upcoming Core i9-14900K by a hefty 64% margin in the Factorio gaming benchmark.

As its name implies, Factorio is a 2D simulation game where you construct and manage factories. It features a built-in benchmark with different maps to measure processor performance. Factorio is one of the few games that aren't graphics card-bound, so its usage has slowly become more mainstream. It's essential to mention that Factorio loves cache, which gives the Ryzen 7 7800X3D and other chips with AMD's 3D V-cache a massive advantage over Intel's parts.

Unlike other games where performance is measured in frames per second (FPS), Factorio results are expressed in updates per second (UPS). The higher the number, the better because it indicates that the processor can perform the calculations faster, so the game runs faster. The person who benchmarks the Core i9-19400K, most likely a reviewer, used the flame_Sla 10k - 10x1000spm Belt Module map, one of the most popular maps for measuring processor performance on Factorio.

Intel Core i9-14900K Benchmarks

Because Factorio is cache-intensive, it shouldn't be surprising that AMD's Ryzen 3D V-Cache parts dominate the leaderboards. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D led the rankings 64% faster than the Core i9-14900K. Even the last-generation Ryzen 7 5800X3D outperformed the Core i9-14900K by 23%. The vanilla Ryzen models are no match for the Core i9-14900K. The forthcoming Raptor Lake Refresh flagship delivered up to 12% higher performance than the Ryzen 7 7700X, the fastest Ryzen chip without 3D V-Cache on the Factorio leaderboard.

The Core i9-14900K wasn't the only unreleased Raptor Lake Refresh chip in the database. Someone also benchmarked the Core i7-14700K under the same settings. The Core i9-14900K was only 3% faster than the Core i7-14700K, which is not a shock since the latter is the only Raptor Lake Refresh chip that received a minor E-core upgrade. 

Compared to the existing Core i9-13900K, the Core i9-14900K was only 5% faster. Again, this is within expectation since Raptor Lake Refresh mostly features somewhat higher clock speeds than the regular counterparts. The Core i5-14600K, on the other hand, performed similarly to the Ryzen 5 5600X from AMD's previous generation of Ryzen 5000 lineup powered by Zen 3 cores.

Raptor Lake Refresh will reportedly launch on October 17, a few days from today. The new 10nm processors won't disrupt the market, but they should keep Intel afloat until Arrow Lake is ready in 2024.