Home > CPU Comparison > Core i9 9900K or Ryzen 5 9600X: what's better?

Intel Core i9 9900K vs AMD Ryzen 5 9600X

41 out of 100
Intel Core i9 9900K
VS
71 out of 100
AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
Intel Core i9 9900K
AMD Ryzen 5 9600X

We compared two desktop CPUs: the 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9 9900K with 8-cores against the 3.9 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 9600X with 6-cores. On this page, you'll find out which processor has better performance in benchmarks, games and other useful information.

  1. Review
  2. Differences
  3. Performance
  4. Specs
  5. Comments

Review

General overview and comparison of the processors
Single-Core Performance
Performance in single-threaded apps and benchmarks
Multi-Core Performance
Measure performance when all cores are involved
Power Efficiency
The efficiency score of power consumption
Integrated Graphics
iGPU capabilities for gaming and 3D-intensive tasks
The "iGPU" and "Power Efficiency" have a minor impact on the NanoReview Score for desktop CPU.
NanoReview Final Score
Choose your main usage scenario to recalculate the Final Score and see which CPU suits your needs.
๐Ÿ”Œ Usage Scenario:

Value for money (Beta)

Global average CPU prices are used by default! For better accuracy, enter your current prices and click โ€œCalculate".
Currency
VS
11.7
(Bad)
Value Index
120.5
(Excellent)

Key Differences

What are the key differences between 9600X and 9900K
Advantages of Intel Core i9 9900K
  • Has 2 more physical cores
Advantages of AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
  • Newer - released 5 years and 9 months later
  • More modern manufacturing process โ€“ 4 versus 14 nanometers
  • Around 48 GB/s (115%) higher theoretical memory bandwidth
  • 2.1x faster in a single-core Geekbench v6 test - 3334 vs 1621 points
  • Has 16 MB larger L3 cache size, helping fully utilize a high-end GPU in gaming
  • Newer PCI Express version โ€“ 5.0
  • Supports up to 192 GB DDR5-5600 RAM
  • More powerful Radeon 610M integrated graphics: 0.6 vs 0.5 TFLOPS
  • 8% higher Turbo Boost frequency (5.4 GHz vs 5 GHz)

Test in Benchmarks

Comparing the performance of CPUs across various tasks
CPU:
Core i9 9900K
vs
Ryzen 5 9600X

Cinebench

Reputable cross-platform benchmark for high-performance processors
Cinebench 2024 (Single)
Cinebench 2024 (Multi)
Cinebench 2026 (Single) - 720
Cinebench 2026 (Multi) - 3701
Cinebench Scores (#147th place)
Submit your benchmark results

GeekBench v6

The new version of this benchmark emulates common operations often used in real-world apps
Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)
Core i9 9900K
1621
Ryzen 5 9600X +106%
3334
Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)
Core i9 9900K
8151
Ryzen 5 9600X +84%
15031
File compression 545.7 MB/sec 1550 MB/sec
Clang compilation 67.7 Klines/sec 102.2 Klines/sec
HTML 5 Browser 175.1 pages/sec 299.1 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 275.6 Mpixels/sec 375.3 Mpixels/sec
Text processing 159 pages/sec 353.7 pages/sec
Background blur 40.4 images/sec 77.1 images/sec
Photo processing 68.6 images/sec 123.4 images/sec
Ray tracing 14.5 Mpixels/sec 21.6 Mpixels/sec
Sources: GeekBench [1], [2] โ€“ 610 & 2 samples

PassMark

Synthetic test that focuses on raw computational performance for low-level functions
Passmark CPU (Single-Core)
Core i9 9900K
2911
Ryzen 5 9600X +57%
4571
Passmark CPU (Multi-Core)
Core i9 9900K
18059
Ryzen 5 9600X +67%
30080
Integer math 66.1 GOps/sec 89.9 GOps/sec
Floating point math 41 GOps/sec 60.2 GOps/sec
Find prime numbers 46M Primes/sec 233M Primes/sec
Random string sorting 36.1M Strings/sec 36.1M Strings/sec
Data encryption 6.3 GBytes/sec 16.7 GBytes/sec
Data compression 282.6 MBytes/sec 343.1 MBytes/sec
Physics 929 Frames/sec 1978 Frames/sec
Extended instructions 19B Matrices/sec 28.2B Matrices/sec
Sources: PassMark [3], [4] โ€“ 17571 & 8962 samples

Blender

3D rendering test that measures CPU performance in 3D modeling tasks (uses all cores)
Blender CPU
Core i9 9900K
178.22
Ryzen 5 9600X +22%
218.13

Performance Per Watt

Shows the score you get per each watt of PL1 TDP
Cinebench 2024 / Watt 7.4 PPW 15.9 PPW
Geekbench 6 Multi / Watt 85.8 PPW 231.2 PPW
Passmark CPU Mark / Watt 190.1 PPW 462.8 PPW
Blender / Watt 1.88 PPW 3.36 PPW
These are rough calculations, as most CPUs surpass PL1 TDP wattage even in multicore workloads.

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Intel Core i9 9900K
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-01-01 (Mr Scare)Cinebench 202479 / 662
๐Ÿ“˜ 2025-08-09 (EndOfTheWorld77)Cinebench 202478 / 591
๐Ÿ“˜ 2024-03-28 (Gribbstar)Cinebench 202479 / 706
Add View all (3)
AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
DateBenchmarkResult
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-08-06 (Byrno5263)Cinebench 2026720 / 3701
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-07-08 (JUANCHO)Cinebench 2026524 / 3801
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-04-16 (StarSophia)Cinebench 2024131 / 909
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-02-03 (awolution)Cinebench 2024137 / 1000
๐Ÿ“˜ 2026-02-01 (Gandลพi)Cinebench 2024134 / 954
Add View all (17)

Specifications

Full technical specification of Intel Core i9 9900K and AMD Ryzen 5 9600X

General

Vendor Intel Amd
Released October 8, 2018 June 3, 2024
Type Desktop Desktop
Instruction Set x86-64 x86-64
Codename Coffee Lake Zen 5 (Granite Ridge)
Model number i9-9900K -
Integrated GPU UHD Graphics 630 Radeon 610M
Rival Equivalent - AMD Ryzen 9 3900X - Intel Core i5 14600K
Successor - Intel Core Ultra 9 285K -
AMD Ryzen CPU ranking (#33rd place)

CPU

Performance Cores
P-Cores 8 6
P-Threads 16 12
Base Frequency (P) 3.6 GHz 3.9 GHz
Turbo Boost Frequency (P) 5 GHz 5.4 GHz
Total
Total Cores 8 6
Total Threads 16 12
Bus Frequency 100 MHz 100 MHz
Multiplier 36x 39x
Bus Bandwidth 8 GT/s -
L1 Cache 64K (per core) 80K (per core)
L2 Cache 256K (per core) 1MB (per core)
L3 Cache 16MB (shared) 32MB (shared)
Unlocked Multiplier Yes Yes

Package

Transistors - 8.3 billions
Fabrication Process 14 nm 4 nm
TDP (PL1) 95 W 65 W
Max. Boost TDP (PL2) - 142 W
Socket LGA-1151 AM5
Peak Temperature 100ยฐC 95ยฐC
Desktop CPU ranking (145th and 49th place)

iGPU

Integrated Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 630 Radeon 610M
GPU Base Clock 350 MHz 400 MHz
GPU Boost Clock 1200 MHz 2200 MHz
Shading Units 192 128
TMUs 24 8
ROPs 3 4
Execution Units 24 2
TGP 15 W 15 W
iGPU FLOPS
Core i9 9900K
0.5 TFLOPS
Ryzen 5 9600X +20%
0.6 TFLOPS
More info: Radeon 610M compared to UHD Graphics 630

Memory Support

Memory Types - DDR4-2666 - DDR5-5600
Max. Memory Size 128 GB 192 GB
Memory Channels 2 2
Max. Memory Bandwidth 41.6 GB/s 89.6 GB/s
ECC Support No Yes

Misc

Official Site Intel Core i9 9900K official page AMD Ryzen 5 9600X official page
PCI Express Version 3.0 5.0
PCI Express Lanes 16 28

Cast your vote

Choose between two processors
2 (22.2%)
7 (77.8%)
Total votes: 9

Competitors

1. AMD Ryzen 5 9600X vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
2. AMD Ryzen 5 9600X vs AMD Ryzen 7 9700X (2)
3. AMD Ryzen 5 9600X vs Intel Core i5 14600K
4. AMD Ryzen 5 9600X vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
5. AMD Ryzen 5 9600X vs AMD Ryzen 7 5700X
6. Intel Core i9 9900K vs Apple M1 (1)
7. Intel Core i9 9900K vs Apple M3
8. Intel Core i9 9900K vs AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
9. Intel Core i9 9900K vs Intel Core i9 14900K
10. Intel Core i9 9900K vs AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
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Comments

So which CPU will you choose: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X or Intel Core i9 9900K?
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