50 PCWorld DECEMBER 2020REVIEWS AMD RYZEN 5000
compared to the Core i9. It doesn’t matter if
it’s a light load or heavy load--Ryzen simply
crushes the Core i9.
AMD fans may be a little disappointed the
Ryzen 9 5900X “only” has a 41-percent
advantage when every core is stressed out, but
the Ryzen 9 5900X isn’t the top-end Ryzen 9.
We did the same test using the 16-core Ryzen 9
5950X, and you can see an even higher
22-percent advantage on a single-thread,
extending out to an obscene 71-percent lead
when all threads and cores are used.
You may say it’s not fair to put an $800
Ryzen 9 5950X against a $488 Core
i9-10900K. Normally we’d agree, but for much
of the year, the Core i9-10900K was in such
short supply that it regularly sold for $650 and
higher. In fact, as of October 30, the street
price of the Core i9-10900K was well above its
expected retail price at most stores.
Pricing has been one complaint since
AMD unveiled its Zen 3 chips. Indeed,
the stupidly good value that AMD has
offered previously has gotten less stupid.
To present that visually, we took the
expected retail price of current CPUs and
calculated how much the company
charges per thread. You can see the
breakdown in the chart at go.pcworld.
com/cha.
This is an overly simplistic look at CPU
pricing, but it does give you an easy way to
visualize how they compare. Overall, the four
new Ryzen 5000 chips have increased inprice over previous models, likely because
AMD knows it can finally charge premium
pricing for the chips.
It doesn’t help that Intel’s CPUs generally
haven’t been a great value, and they tend to sell
well above their list prices on the street. On the
chart, you can see a few spot-checks on current
AMD chips and Intel chips. A green highlight
indicates they’re selling at or below the list price,
while red is selling above its list price.
So yes, there’s been a definite price hike.
But with the performance we’re seeing, we
think it’s wholly justified, especially when
you consider that Intel CPUs continue to be
the premium-priced chip despite not
offering the premium performance.BOTTOM LINE
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been only three
years since the original Zen-based Ryzen
CPUs were introduced (go.pcworld.com/
orzn). The original Ryzen reset our
expectations of how many cores you could
get in a consumer CPU, and it put the world
on notice that AMD was back.
With the Ryzen 5000 we’re simply
floored by its performance. It’s the best CPU
for heavy multi-core loads. It’s the best CPU
for single-core loads. It’s the best CPU for
gaming. Add to it support for PCIe 4.0,
compatibility with many existing AM4
motherboards, and actually reasonable
prices, and you get what is undoubtedly the
best CPU we’ve ever seen.