Posts in Category: logical increments updates

Intel Fumbles the Arrow into the Lake

Ultra 9 Underwater

CPUs are a duopoly. While some alternatives to AMD and Intel technically exist, their market share is so tiny that they do not appear on some statistics tracking pages. It is for this reason that we rarely talk about only Intel or only AMD. We instead compare them to one another, as they are both the only true competition to each other.

So, in today’s update article, as we turn our attention to whether there’s a place in our PC build chart for Intel’s strange new CPU release, named ‘Arrow Lake’—we also consider how this release fits into the history of the battle between two impressive (sometimes clumsy) tech giants.

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AMD Conquers the High-end CPU Tiers

AMD Ryzen 9000 CPU lineup

It has been a while, but here we are with AMD’s Ryzen 9000 series launched and ready for purchase!

AMD’s new CPU series starts with a serious set of excellent high-end CPUs. We are not going to analyze all of them individually in this post, but as a quick summary:

    • Ryzen 5 9600X: 6 cores and 12 threads for $250.
    • Ryzen 7 9700X: 8 cores and 16 threads for $320.
    • Ryzen 7 9800X3D: Also 8 cores and 16 threads, but with extra cache for $480.
    • Ryzen 9 9900X: 12 cores and 24 threads for $380.
    • Ryzen 9 9950X: 16 cores (!) and 32 threads (!!) for $550.

So, how do these new CPUs measure up? Do they belong in our chart?

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Updating CPU Performance Comparisons Nov. 18-19

Greetings.

We are updating the CPU performance information shown. Our current CPU descriptions compare performance to the old Ryzen 9 3900X. We are updating the performance numbers to be compiled from newer benchmarks, and showing performance relative to the new Ryzen 9 9900X.

As we update the CPU descriptions, you may see errors in the performance numbers, where some of the CPUs are still being compared to the older 3900X, making them look out of place. We are working on making sure that all CPU description are updated and standardized within a day or two of this post.

showing the cpu performance numbers in the cpu description that will be updated

Thank you!

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The Raptor Lake (is Barely a) Refresh

i9-14900K

I am always excited by hardware launches! The feeling of fresh, new, unexpected hardware! Progressing technology, things getting faster, or cooler, or cheaper, or all three at the same time. It is wonderful, and it is a feeling I look forward to with each launch…

Intel just launched its Raptor Lake refresh CPUs, adding a (hopefully) fresh coat of paint and renewing its Raptor Lake lineup from last year.

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The “A580 and Other Intel Graphics Cards” Update

Arc A580

One year ago (almost to the day) Intel presented its A770 and A750 cards to the world. These were reasonably priced cards with reasonable performance, but were not added to our build chart then because—in addition to other minor issues with them—they suffered from two major flaws:
 

    1. The performance in old titles was poor.
    2. The performance on old systems (without Resizable BAR) was poor.

It has been a year, and you still need a system that has Resizable BAR, but that is available on all modern platforms launched in the last ~3 years, so it is less of an issue. More importantly, Intel’s latest drivers have dramatically improved performance in older games, between 20%-40%! That is a huge improvement.

Today, Intel launched the A580, prompting a second look into Intel’s previous cards. Since all three are based on the same silicon, we will look at them together.

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