KITGURU SHORTLISTS: THE BEST PROCESSOR OF 2024

AMD has carefully chosen a niche for the Ryzen 7 7800X3D as 'The Perfect Gaming Processor' and we struggle to argue with their thinking as it is very good indeed at its job. By contrast the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is described by AMD as 'The Ultimate Processor for Gamers and Creators' and we feel that is also a fair description.

Intel's Core i5-14600K is another solid option for those looking for a relatively affordable CPU that still delivers excellent gaming performance. With six P-cores and twelve E-cores, it's often available below £300, and while it may not deliver much (if any) extra performance over the 13th Gen model, it's still a very solid option to have.

Over the past few generations of AMD Zen technology the various 12-core Ryzen 9s have sometimes done well and other times pretty much been ignored. Thankfully with Ryzen 9 9900X AMD has seen sense and prices the CPU in a rational manner. With Zen 5 the CPUs we have seen appear to be high quality and that closes the gap between the two versions of Ryzen 9 and swings us firmly in favour of the new Ryzen 9 9900X.

Adding a 64MB chunk of extra L3 cache to the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D delivers some astonishing results in gaming, while also delivering solid performance in Cinebench and Blender.The downside is that AMD has had to work hard on the software stack for the chipset drivers to ensure your PC understands which tasks should be sent to which CCD. As we show in our video, it's a rather complex process with a number of variables, any of which could cause complications.

The fact is that against all expectations Raptor Lake feels like a brand new CPU that absolutely stomps Alder Lake and ends up in a dead heat with AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X. We found the Core i9-13900K made more sense with power capped at 253W or even lower. While you will lose a few percentage points of performance, the end result is a gaming PC that delivers plenty of stomp but with considerably less fuss and drama.