Processors

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K offers decent performance at a considerable price range. It is equipped with the latest architecture and has great power efficiency. Moreover, it delivers satisfactory performance in multi-core tasks and handles everyday applications smoothly. However, its gaming performance, while adequate, doesn’t quite match up to competitors in the same price range. Therefore, users seeking balanced productivity can consider this an option. However, gamers should look elsewhere for better performance in highly demanding games.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the new gaming champ, outclassing AMD's own Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU in our gaming charts. With its improved 3D V-cache design, combined with the Zen 5 architecture, the CPU improves gaming and productivity performance while becoming more efficient than its predecessor.

The Ryzen 9 9900X is AMD’s new flagship 12-core gaming chip but with lower base frequencies and a 120-watt rating. It impressed us in most benchmarks outside of gaming, and in gaming, the chip couldn’t even outperform the Ryzen 7 9700X. Its $449 price tag makes it compete with the 7800X3D and 13900K, but the former is a far better gaming CPU, while the latter is much better for both multi-threaded workloads AND gaming.

The best CPU for the AMD Radeon RX 7600 should cause the least amount of bottleneck while providing the most performance possible.

In this guide, I will walk you through the best CPU for RX 7900 XTX and RX 7900 XT based on performance, efficiency, and value.

In this guide, I will walk you through our selection of the best CPU for RX 7700 XT based on performance, features, efficiency, and value.

The Ryzen 7 9700X is AMD's new mid-to-high ranger, only with $40 off the price tag and reduced power consumption numbers. With its 65W TDP, the CPU is also limited in clock speeds and could not perform up to the mark in most tests, including gaming. Single-core performance is incredible, though, and you get full AVX-512 support, but maximizing its performance will require you to remove its power limits through PBO.

The Ryzen 5 9600X emerges as the new mid-ranger from AMD's lineup, but not as the ideal one. It shows great single-core performance numbers and supports AVX-512 but is limited heavily by reduced power targets and clock speeds. This does mean that power and thermal efficiency are great, but gaming performance numbers have barely improved over the last gen, and AMD continues to trail Intel in multi-threaded performance.

The Ryzen 7 7800X3D is the best gaming processor of this generation, which not only delivers top-notch gaming performance but performs decently in rendering and productive workloads as well. Meanwhile, it's also one of the most efficient processors out there with a TDP of less than 150W in boost mode.

The Core i7-14700KF delivers a compelling upgrade for content creators and multi-taskers. Its additional E-cores and higher boost clocks translate to significant performance gains in demanding workloads compared to the previous generation. However, gamers on a budget might be better served by the more affordable Core i7-13700KF, which offers near-identical gaming performance.

The best CPU for the RTX 4080 Super should have outstanding gaming performance, long-lasting future-proofing, and good value for performance.

After testing several processors, we have found the best CPU for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super graphics card.