Gaming Performance
Now we come to the interesting testing we are sure you all can’t wait for, we were also anxious to get to this part and see how it all ends up for gaming performance. We are going to include 1080p, 1440p, and 4K performance to see the overall big picture of performance. That said, you’ll want to focus on the 1080p results primarily to gain a sense of the level of framerate each CPU is able to provide to the GPU, it is the best predictor of potential performance. In addition, we think you’ll see some interesting scaling starting to happen in the 1440p area as well in some games between the CPUs, so look for that.
For testing, we are using an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition video card with driver version 560.70. All games are being run in their “Ultra” game settings, at native resolution, and with no ray tracing. Each graph is first sorted by 1080p performance, and then second by 1440p performance. In this way, you’ll see which is the fastest CPU with a 1080p resolution. For games with a built-in benchmark, the benchmark is used, in games that do not have a benchmark we do a manual run-through.
Horizon Forbidden West
In Horizon Forbidden West the top performing CPU is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 179.7 FPS at 1080p. However, right below that are two CPUs, you’ll find both the Intel Core i7-14700K and the new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X matching performance at 173.9 FPS. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D also has a slight lead in 1440p performance at 149.8 FPS, of which the brand new Ryzen 7 9700X is also trailing very close to the Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 1440p with 148.9 FPS. Both the 14600K and 14700K are below the 9700X even at 1440p.
The new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X provides a 1% performance uplift from the Ryzen 7 7700X, so in this game, the two perform very similarly. At this performance level, the Ryzen 7 9700X is performing 2.4% faster than the Intel Core i5-14600K. We find that the Ryzen 7 9700X is just 3% behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The Ryzen 7 9700X is also 4% faster than the Ryzen 5 9600X.
Alan Wake 2
In Alan Wake 2 the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D leads in performance at 178.7 FPS at 1080p, and then right under it falls the brand new Zen 5 AMD Ryzen 9000 CPUs, with the 9700X and 9600X. Every other CPU, including the 14600K and 14700K falls beneath the new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X on performance.
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X ends up being 6% faster than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X at 1080p, and 2% faster than the 14700K and 14600K. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is just 3% behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The Ryzen 7 9700X is also within 1% of the Ryzen 5 9600X.
Returnal
In Returnal the fastest CPU is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D at 215 FPS at 1080p, but then it is immediately followed by the new AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and 9600X in performance, which also matches the 14700K. Then the 14600K falls below that, and the previous generations below that. Interestingly also, the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X has the highest 1440p result.
The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is 4% faster than the Ryzen 7 7700X and 2.4% faster than the 14600K. The Ryzen 7 9700X falls behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D by only 1%.
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora
We wanted to include Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for two reasons, it is an Unreal Engine 5 game which are increasing in number, and we also experienced no performance differences to speak of between the CPUs, even at 1080p. This game utilizes Ray Tracing which is “always on.” In this scenario, even on an RTX 4090 at 1080p no CPU really has a noteworthy advantage. This example is relevant just to show that some games may still be bound by the GPU, even at 1080p and CPU performance differences may not show depending on the game and settings. It’s just an example of how game-dependent CPU performance can end up being, but let’s move to the next page.