CPU Hierarchy 2019: Intel and AMD Processors Ranked

Your CPU has a huge effect on overall performance and, to many, is a computer's most important component. However, when it comes time to buy a CPU for your desktop, you'll find a dizzying morass of model numbers and specs from both Intel and AMD. Which is faster: the Intel Core i7-9700K or a Intel Core i9-7960X. And where does AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X fit in?

To help you pick a processor, we've ranked all the consumer Intel 9th, 8th and 7th Gen processors, along with AMD's Ryzen and Ryzen 2 chips. We determined the order based on average gaming performance across our test suite, but we also include an application performance metric in the application score column. We generate this metric via a geometric mean of application performance in compression, decompression, HandBrake, Blender and the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite.

Unfortunately, recent updates to our application testing suite, along with performance-altering updates to a few of our game titles, have forced us to recalculate our scoring metrics. We've left our historical data, in which the most powerful chip gets a 100 and all others are scored relative to it, but we're working to update to the new metric and will include it in a future update. If you want our recommendations, please check out our Best CPUs page.

Intel's Xeon W-3175X barreled onto the scene recently with 28-cores and 56-threads in tow. As you'll see in our review, Intel's per-core performance advantage places the W-3175X ahead of the competition in lightly-threaded applications, but it also serves up brutally competitive performance in multi-threaded apps. Support for ECC memory and six channels of RAM make this processor uniquely well-suited for the workstation market, provided you can stomach the eye-watering $2,999 price tag. The chip also requires expensive motherboards to accommodate the unique socket and a beefy cooling solution to dissipate the 255W+ thermal generation. All told, the W-3175X slots in as the most powerful processor on the market, though the Threadripper 2990WX remains a great value option.

AMD's new Athlon 220GE and 240GE are next on our list of chips to test as the sub-$100 (£100, $150 AU) market becomes more competitive, so we'll also have updates to our Best CPUs Under $130 article soon.

You may be surprised to find that some less-expensive chips ranked above their upscale siblings. For example, the AMD Ryzen 5 2600X comes out ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X on this list because it offers better sustained performance, which was enough to help it do better on the overall suite of tests. However, depending on the application, you may see stronger results from the higher-end chip.

How We Tested

Unfortunately, the Spectre and Meltdown patches found us updating our testing image after the Ryzen 2000-series launch, which has left us with two distinct groups of test results. We have numerous entries in both databases, but neither is entirely complete (yet). As such, we've combined the test pools based upon relative results to the leading processors.

The numbers above represent gaming performance using eight game titles. We're using a geometric mean of the 99th percentile frame rate data, which we convert to an frames per second (FPS) metric, as our overall measure of gaming performance over the entirety of our gaming test suite. We used the Nvidia GTX 1080 GPU for our tests at HD resolution.

We compare a geometric mean of application performance in compression, decompression, HandBrake, Blender and the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite to generate an application performance score.

We have also included several newer processors that we haven't tested yet, but we've assigned them basic positions in our hierarchy based on their capabilities. Naturally, this list will grow as we add more processors.

Test System & Configuration

Legacy Desktop Processor Hierarchy

Recognizing that a lot of older platforms are going to be paired with graphics subsystems multiple generations old, we wanted to define the top of our range to encourage balance between host processing and complementary GPUs. At this point, anyone with a Sandy Bridge-based Core i7 would realize a gain from stepping up to Coffee Lake or Kaby Lake, for example. And putting AMD's top FX CPUs next to a handful of Core i7s and those older Core i5s represents an upgrade to their status.

Currently, our hierarchy consists of 13 total tiers. The bottom half of the chart is largely outdated; you'll notice those CPUs dragging down performance in the latest games, regardless of the graphics card installed in your PC. If you own a CPU in that range, an upgrade could really take your experience to another level.

Really, it's the top five tiers or so that remain viable. And in that top half of the chart, an upgrade is typically worthwhile if it's a least a couple of tiers higher. Otherwise, there's just not enough improvement to warrant the expense of a fresh CPU, motherboard and RAM (not to mention the graphics card and storage solution you'd be considering as well).