AMD is slowly turning into Intel of yesteryear as $501 32-thread Ryzen 9 7950X is just enough to beat 20-thread $270 Core Ultra 7 265KF — so what's going on?
Intel’s Core Ultra 7 pricing exposes how AMD’s high end desktop CPUs now offer smaller performance gains despite far higher prices and power requirements.
(Image credit: Future)
- Intel’s cheaper CPUs now challenge AMD’s high end pricing logic
- Performance gaps shrink as AMD charges more for modest desktop gains
- Power efficiency and cost pressure reshape high end CPU value
I’ve already written about Intel quietly taking control of the low end of the desktop CPU market, where chips priced around $200 now offer performance that used to sit far higher up the stack.
However, making things even more uncomfortable for AMD is the fact that a similar pattern is creeping into the high end, where Team Red’s pricing no longer stretches as far as it once did.
A comparison between AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X and Intel’s Core Ultra 7 265KF shows why. On paper, the Ryzen part looks comfortably dominant with 16 cores and 32 threads, while Intel’s chip tops out at 20 threads using a mix of performance and efficiency cores. Benchmark results, however, tell a less dramatic - and far more interesting - story.
AMD ahead... marginally
The Ryzen 9 7950X scores around 62,260 in PassMark’s CPU Mark, while the Core Ultra 7 265KF lands at roughly 58,734. That puts AMD ahead, but not by much, especially considering the hardware and pricing differences.
Single-thread performance narrows the gap far further. Intel’s processor scores about 4,926, slightly ahead of the Ryzen 9 7950X at roughly 4,876, which matters for everyday desktop workloads that don’t scale cleanly across dozens of threads.
Pricing makes the situation harder to defend. The Core Ultra 7 265KF sells for about $270 on Amazon, while the Ryzen 9 7950X can be found selling for a far pricier $501 over on B&H.
Paying almost twice as much for a single-digit percentage lead in aggregate benchmarks shifts the value argument away from core counts and toward efficiency.
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