AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Glides Past Intel Core i9-9900K In Leaked Geekbench Numbers

(Image credit: AMD)

Geekbench 4 results for AMD's soon-to-be-released Ryzen 7 3800X processor have been unearthed, giving us some performance numbers to to compare against the Intel Core i9-9900K, with a grain of salt, of course.

A well-known tech hardware leaker known as TUM_APISAK on Twitter, spotted the benchmark numbers. 

Both the Ryzen 7 3800X and i9-9900K are octa-core processors with 16 threads, making them natural rivals. However, that's where the similarities end. The Ryzen 7 3800X has a 3.8 GHz base clock speed and 4.5 GHz boost clock, while the i9-9900K runs with a 3.6 GHz base clock and 5 GHz boost clock. On paper, the i9-9900K should have the upperhand, but we know that's not always the case in the hardware world.

Intel Core i9-9900K vs. AMD Ryzen 7 3800X

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Row 0 - Cell 0 Price (USD)Cores / ThreadsTDPBase Clock Boost Clock Total CachePCIe LanesMemory Support
Core i9-9900K$4888 / 1695W3.6 GHz5.0 GHz16MBPCIe 3.0 x16DDR4-2666
Ryzen 7 3800X$3998 / 16105W3.9 GHz4.5 GHz32MBPCIe 4.0 x24DDR4-3200

As always, performance leaks should be taken with a bit of salt. For starters, we don't know under what conditions the tests were performed, or if this is Engineering Sample (ES) silicon. Sometimes it's hard to find a comparable result where both test system's specifications match.

Photo Credits: Geekbench

One important aspect to note about the Ryzen 7 3800X result is that the test system was using DDR4-2133 memory. As third-generation Ryzen parts support DDR4-3200 memory out of the box, running slower memory will limit the chip's performance. With the aim of making this a fair fight, we set out to find a Geekbench 4 entry where the Core i9-9900K is paired with DDR4-2133 memory as well.

With both processors running with DDR4-2133 memory, it seems that AMD is catching up to Intel in single-core performance. Nevertheless, the Core i9-9900K is still around 1.09% faster here, according to the leaked numbers.

The multi-core results, on the other hand, are in AMD's favor. The Ryzen 7 3800X beats the Core i9-9900K by up to 4.95% in multi-core workloads.

The Core i9-9900K surpasses the Ryzen 7 3800X when it's combined with DDR4-2666 memory, Intel's official supported memory speed. The Core i9-9900K performs roughly 14.48% and 0.56% faster in the single-core and multi-core tests, respectively. Basically, what this tells us is that Geekbench 4 is sensitive to memory speeds, and the Ryzen 7 3800X's performance is gimped with DDR4-2133 memory.

It's too early to declare the Ryzen 7 3800X as the winner. We'll have to wait for our in-depth review of the Ryzen 7 3800X to properly judge its performance. Rest assured that we won't be using DDR4-2133 memory in our tests.

Zhiye Liu
RAM Reviewer and News Editor

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • MrN1ce9uy
    So.. the single-core results are assumed to be at the maximum boost clock of each CPU? 5.0GHz single core for 9900K and 4.5GHz single-core for the 3800X?

    *Nevermind, I think it's that we simply don't know yet.
    Reply
  • JamesSneed
    I think I will wait until TH tests the chips and not worry about this rumor mill stuff.
    Reply
  • notea
    they are surely gimping the 9900K because even my 8700K @4.8 ghz all core boost and 5.0 ghz single core boost scores much higher.. AMD cheating?


    Reply
  • knowom
    Ryzen 7 3800X chip has twice as much L2 & L3 cache overall per core than the Intel i9-9900K. For single thread workloads the the clock speed frequency is probably a more important factor, but in multi-thread workloads at least heavily multi-core ones that extra L2/L3 cache size per core probably adds up to a bigger overall difference . There is also the thermal throttling to consider on Intel side under heavy multi-core load.
    Reply
  • silverblue
    notea said:
    they are surely gimping the 9900K because even my 8700K @4.8 ghz all core boost and 5.0 ghz single core boost scores much higher.. AMD cheating?

    How does this constitute AMD cheating? In any case, the 9900K still beats your CPU in the single thread score.
    Reply
  • blader15sk8
    notea said:
    they are surely gimping the 9900K because even my 8700K @4.8 ghz all core boost and 5.0 ghz single core boost scores much higher.. AMD cheating?

    The benchmark shows the 9900K beating your processor, what are you looking at? These are scores directly from Geekbench, AMD has nothing to do with the intel benchmark. The one image that is lower than your processor is because they are using 2133Mhz memory to match what the AMD score is using.
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    notea said:
    they are surely gimping the 9900K because even my 8700K @4.8 ghz all core boost and 5.0 ghz single core boost scores much higher.. AMD cheating?


    The huge drop in multicore performance implies that the MDS and Meltdown patches were applied and enabled. One of the problems with the Intel vs AMD benchmarks is that most Intel benchmarks don't apply the patches and leave the Intel chip running in a vulnerable state to artificially boost benchmark scores.
    Reply
  • ffleader1
    notea said:
    they are surely gimping the 9900K because even my 8700K @4.8 ghz all core boost and 5.0 ghz single core boost scores much higher.. AMD cheating?


    Fanboyism at its best.
    A benchmark not even published by AMD => AMD cheating.
    What next? Intel cannot release 10nm Desktop CPU this year => AMD cheating?
    GLobal warming => AMD cheating
    Reply
  • Exia00
    ffleader1 said:
    Fanboyism at its best.
    A benchmark not even published by AMD => AMD cheating.
    What next? Intel cannot release 10nm Desktop CPU this year => AMD cheating?
    GLobal warming => AMD cheating

    You forgot to add in "girlfriend leaving you => AMD Cheating" lol
    Reply
  • notea
    bigdragon said:
    The huge drop in multicore performance implies that the MDS and Meltdown patches were applied and enabled. One of the problems with the Intel vs AMD benchmarks is that most Intel benchmarks don't apply the patches and leave the Intel chip running in a vulnerable state to artificially boost benchmark scores.
    im just pointing out the fact that my 8700k with all the latest bios and patches scores higher than the 9900k in the test, im not a fanboy by anymeans but ther testing is wrong.. and the rest are a bunch of AMD fanbois
    Exia00 said:
    You forgot to add in "girlfriend leaving you => AMD Cheating" lol
    ffleader1 said:
    Fanboyism at its best.
    A benchmark not even published by AMD => AMD cheating.
    What next? Intel cannot release 10nm Desktop CPU this year => AMD cheating?
    GLobal warming => AMD cheating
    blader15sk8 said:
    The benchmark shows the 9900K beating your processor, what are you looking at? These are scores directly from Geekbench, AMD has nothing to do with the intel benchmark. The one image that is lower than your processor is because they are using 2133Mhz memory to match what the AMD score is using.

    THIS IMAGE .. you blind??
    Reply