CPU Benchmark Hierarchy 2020: Intel and AMD Processors Ranked

Your CPU has a huge effect on overall performance and, to many, is a computer's most important component. But when it comes time to buying a CPU for your desktop, you'll find a dizzying collection of model numbers and specs from both Intel and AMD. We've listed our the best CPUs for gaming and best processors for work in other articles, but if you want to know how each chip stacks up against all the others and how we come to our decisions, this CPU Hierarchy is for you. 

Below, we've ranked all the consumer Intel 9th, 8th and 7th Gen processors, along with AMD's Ryzen and Threadripper chips from all three generations. We determined the order in the first table based on a geometric mean of gaming performance in four titles: Grand Theft Auto V, Hitman 2, Final Fantasy XV, and World of Tanks. 

We also include an application performance metric in our application score tables, which we've split up into single- and multi-core measurements (below gaming table). We generated the single-threaded metric via a geometric mean of performance in single-threaded LAME, Cinebench, POV-Ray and y-cruncher applications, giving you a good idea of performance in everyday desktop PC applications. The multi-threaded workload column is based on performance in Cinebench, POV-ray, vray, Blender, y-cruncher, and Handbrake x264 and x265 workloads represent performance in productivity-focused applications that tend to require more compute horsepower.

The most powerful chip gets a 100 and all others are scored relative to it. If you want our recommendations for specific price bands, please check out our Best CPUs for gaming page.

Intel's new Comet Lake processors recently cratered into the market and AMD responded with a quasi-refresh with the Ryzen XT series chips, leading to some changes to our hierarchy.

The Ryzen 7 Pro "Renoir" 4750G recently landed in our lab. This chip for professional users is functionally the same as the consumer Ryzen 7 4700G, so it gives us an accurate representation of the consumer chips. Unfortunately AMD hasn't brought these chips to the retail market, instead delivering them to OEMs and SIs for pre-built systems only. Like us, you can pick the chips up on the grey market, and they are now the uncontested king of the hill in terms of iGPU performance. We included the processor to our gaming and application hierarchy below, but be aware that we used a discrete graphics card to test gaming performance for the values listed below. Head here to see how the chip stacks up when you run games on the integrated graphics (which is the intended use-case for this chip). In either case, the 4750G beats the Core i5-9400/F when paired with a discrete GPU, which isn't too shabby at all. 

The Core i9-10900K now slots in as the fastest gaming processor on the market, while the capable Core i5-10600K slots in as a capable performer given its price point. Meanwhile, the Core i7-10700K lands as a particularly potent gaming chip that takes the shine off the Core i9-10900K for gaming - why pay that much more for the i9 when the i7 gives you 97.58% of the 10900K's performance? Our advice: Don't. 

We added the Core i7-10700 to the charts, and given that it provides nearly the same gaming performance as the Core i7-10700K, it represents a solid buy if you're chasing the utmost in frame rates without paying the upcharge for the K-series model (and if you're willing to tolerate lower performance than the 10700K in applications). Not to mention avoiding the the Core i9 tax.

The Ryzen XT models also came to market recently, and we've added them to the charts. As expected, the Ryzen 9 3900XT, Ryzen 7 3800XT, and Ryzen 5 3600XT land slightly above their X-series counterparts in our rankings. Pricing is still fluid on both the X-Series and XT-series models, so we're holding off on recommending the XT chips. They need to retail at much lower pricing to make any sense, especially given the lack of bundled coolers for the Ryzen 9 and 7 XT models. For now, go X-series for the best price-to-performance ratio - the performance deltas between chips are too small to justify the big pricing disparity. 

Finally, we added the Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-U6780A with the LuJiaZui architecture on the 16nm TSMC process. This is the debut of a China-designed chip to our hierarchy, but you'll have to scroll down a bit on the performance tables to find the chip. The big takeaway? AMD and Intel can rest easy, at least for now. 

Intel and AMD CPU Gaming Hierarchy 

*indicates an APU tested with a discrete GPU. Note: These types of processors are geared for performance with integrated graphics - please see individual reviews for those performance rankings.

We used the Nvidia GTX 2080 Ti GPU for our tests at HD resolution. 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.

You may be surprised to find that some less-expensive chips ranked above their upscale siblings. For example, the Core i7-9700K comes out ahead of the Core i9-9900K on this list because it offers better performance in some games due to its lack of hyperthreading, 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.

Intel and AMD CPU Single-Threaded Performance Hierarchy

Single-threaded performance is often tied directly to the responsiveness and snappiness of your PC in any number of daily applications, like loading an operating system or surfing the web. This metric largely depends upon a mixture of instruction per cycle (IPC) throughput (the number of operations the chip can execute in one clock cycle) and frequency, which is the speed at which the transistors switch between on and off states. However, a whole host of other considerations, such as cache, architecture, and interconnects (like rings, meshes, and infinity fabric) impact this measure of per-core performance, so these results do not align perfectly based upon clock frequency. Instead, performance varies with each application and how well it is tuned for the respective architectures.  

Intel and AMD CPU Multi-Threaded Performance

Like we see with single-threaded performance metrics, multi-threaded performance, which is a measure of a chips performance in applications that utilize multiple software threads, varies based upon a whole host of architectural factors. It also depends heavily upon how well the software scales with additional compute cores. As such, these results do not align perfectly based upon core/thread count, though it does serve as a decent litmus of multi-threaded performance. Be aware that architectures, caches, and interconnects also have a profound impact on these results, as all of these factors impact how well performance scales with additional threads. Performance rarely scales perfectly with the addition of more cores/threads, so the scaling factor of each processor architecture weighs in heavily on the value proposition of going with a higher core count processor for your specific application. 

These factors impact the Threadripper lineup in our charts. With an industry-leading slathering of core counts, these processors offer the utmost performance in many different threaded workloads, but can suffer in some less-demanding desktop PC-class applications that either don't utilize the cores and threads fully, or aren't optimized for the architecture. That reduces the gap separating the rankings in the mainstream applications we use for this list, but in many cases, you can see much larger deltas with specific applications. You should view individual reviews and our best processors for applications list for a better sense of how those processors fare in professional workloads.

Test System and 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).

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