We doubt few buyers interested in one of these two CPU’s will be interested in the other… but we have included it just for clarity sake. As you can see 2 additional cores will indeed net you noticeably higher results but will also put a big ol’ hurtin’ on your budget. In other words, much like Ryzen 7, Intel is behind the curve when it comes to value in their HEDT series.
Summary: Ryzen 5 vs Intel 6850K
In real world applications, the 6850K and its 6c/12t core design is the biggest competitor for AMD’s Ryzen 5. Overall these results are still pretty darn good for AMD as while Intel’s option is indeed faster it is also costlier. Only you can decide if the double (or more) asking price of Intel’s 6 core beast is worth it or not. We suspect many will find the relatively small increase in performance is not justifiable given the rather large difference in price.
Summary: Ryzen 5 vs Intel 7700K
There is no doubt that the Intel 7700K is the undisputed king of gaming right now. Its nosebleed speeds just plow through the relatively low demands modern PC games place upon the CPU. It is however a one tick pony and the tables quickly get turned once your attention focuses on overall system performance. When you then factor in the 7700K is a lot more expensive than the Ryzen 5 series the 7700K does come out of the encounter the worse for wear. Equally important to note is that lower cost i5 versions will do even worse when compared to the Ryzen 5… and it is only the 7700K can that can even remotely justify its asking price. This is because AMD is offering ‘HEDT’ (High-End DeskTop in Intel parlance) performance for the mainstream asking price.
Summary: Ryzen 5 vs Ryzen 7
This is where things get really interesting. On the one hand the Ryzen 7 series does offer a lot more horsepower than the Ryzen 5 series… but those two (or four in the case of the 1500X) cores come at one heck of a price boost. So much so a lot of average consumers are going to have to ask themselves if six cores are enough. Put another way AMD is AMD’s worst enemy when it comes to value… with Intel lagging way behind. That is rather impressive when you think about it.
