The Best CPUs in 2023

Dec 24, 2023

Intel, AMD, and now even ARM CPU's are competing for the best CPU spot in gaming. How you game and what your budget is will determine this decision.

AMD's Relaunched Ryzen 7000 X3D Processors have opened up the entire industry to a lot of turbulence as it struggles to define what is a gaming processor and what is a productivity-centric processor thanks to the efficient but somewhat less workload-heavy design of the X3D processors that excel at gaming but do not perform to par when it comes to productivity-related tasks.

While most modern CPUs are good at gaming with equal performance in most games in GPU-bound titles, some are more equal than others when the tables turn and CPU-intensive game engines come into play in titles such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Valorant, and others Esports titles for example. At the same time, some of the fastest CPUs for gaming right now are built specifically to maximize their gaming performance versus productivity, making them a tad slower when it comes to productivity-related benchmarks that concentrate on the raw power of a CPU running optimized multithreaded workloads.

Octa Core Gaming Supremacy

The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is AMD's latest and greatest CPU when it comes to gaming. With an excellent and highly efficient gaming performance that tops the charts currently, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is here to stay and has a crown to claim thanks to its 3D V-Cache-enabled prowess when it comes to gaming on a PC.

The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core 16-Thread processor is unapologetically designed to go for the jugular when it comes to gaming with AMD putting its 3D V-Cache technology to full use in order to push out a processor that makes the most of it for gaming this year as it aims to dethrone Intel's recent dominance when it comes to gaming-related benchmarks and real-world performance.

While the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D comes as the last of 3 announced AMD 7000 series X3D Processors, it isn't difficult to see why; it often outperforms its own larger sibling, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D in some gaming benchmarks, positioning itself as the new king of the hill for gaming thanks to its stacked V-cache offering. What is not surprising, but still a bit disappointing, is its lack of productivity-based software gains thanks to the added 3D V-Cache, but that can be reasoned away somewhat as AMD's last generation X3D processor, the capable 5800X3D also exhibited similar behavior.

RELATED: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D vs Intel Core i9 13900K

Overall, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is a solid performer that doesn't cost as much as its competitors when it comes to gaming while dominating the playing field with some of the best scores in multiple benchmarks that cement it as the best gaming CPU money can buy currently.

Number-Crunching Juggernaut

The Intel Core i9 is Intel's 13th generation Raptor Lake flagship processor. It promises exceptional gaming performance in addition to excellent benchmark results for a wide slew of tasks. The 24-Core, 32 Thread processor tends to handle these with ease while offering PCI-E 4.0/5.0 compatibility with the 700 series motherboards it works with in addition to working with 12th generation motherboards which share the same socket.

The Intel Core i9 13900K, until recently, was the fastest CPU money could buy for both gaming and productivity but the launch of a slightly better-binned version (the Intel Core i9 13900KS) and a complete overhaul of AMD's gaming CPUs thanks to 3D V-Cache enabled performance sees it dethroned comprehensively in gaming benchmarks. That doesn't mean it is bad for gaming, just that better, cheaper options do exist now that run much more efficiently when it comes to gaming performance.

However, for productivity-based requirements, the Intel Core i9 13900K remains king by a long margin. The competing Ryzen 9 7950X does not hold a candle to it in some benchmarks and comes quite close, but not better than the 24-core behemoth that is Intel's flagship 13th-generation processor.

RELATED: The Best Intel CPUs in 2023

To deliver the performance gains that it does, the Intel Core i9 13900K guzzles a lot of power, and with a rated TDP of 253 Watts when running in turbo, it is one of the most demanding consumer-grade CPUs there are in the market currently. At the same time, it requires a large and powerful cooling option to deal with the massive heat generation that the processor is capable of, making it a somewhat pricier option all things considered, but it is essentially the best CPU overall for productivity available right now.

16-Core Efficiency Play

The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is the flagship processor of AMD's Ryzen 7000 series. It can boost up to 5.7Ghz and delivers unheard-of efficiency while taking the multi-threading performance crown for a 16-core processor

If gaming is not your only play when using a processor, the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is now trading at a decent discount, $100 off its Ryzen 9 7950X3D sibling that is, as AMD puts it, "For gamers and creators". This makes it a much more viable choice than its earlier MSRP of $700.

It has the highest boost clocks for an AMD processor to date out of the box which allows it to retain a workload-based performance crown, replacing AMD's previous 16-core offering in the same space, the Ryzen 9 5950X, offering more performance on tap while trading at a decent discount over its previous MSRP.

When all is said and done, the Ryzen 9 7950X is a 16-core, 32-thread processor at its core and a very capable one at that. It can also harness some of the latest tech that comes bundled as part of its tech offerings: PCI-Express 5.0 and DDR5 memory support. It is also much more efficient than the competing Intel Core i9 13900K when it comes to multithreaded performance.

Better-Binned Performer

The Intel Core i9-13900KS is the latest CPU to launch in Intel's 13th generation, and it's the top-performing CPU to date. It manages to hit the 6 GHz benchmark and as consumers learn more about this Raptor Lake bulldozer, you can expect to see some crazy numbers in terms of FPS and synthetic benchmark rankings.

The Intel Core i9 13900KS is Intel's fastest processor across the board and the only retail processor currently that pushes 6GHz single-core frequencies making for the fastest single-core performing processor in the market. It isn't a new processor altogether, but a rather well-binned (read: cherry-picked) version of the Core i9 13900K that can maintain higher clocks in a relatively stable manner.

RELATED: Best CPU For Gaming: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D vs Intel Core i9 13900KS

It does offer considerable clout in multithreaded applications with 8 of its performance-centric P-cores and 16 efficiency-centric E-cores that make up the 24-core chip. With support for DDR5 and PCI-E 5.0 as part of both the Intel Z690 and Z790 chipsets that it works well with, the 13900KS is excellent for productivity uses if you can absorb the somewhat high price it trades at and account for the thermal needs of the processor that consumes power like no other in consumer-grade CPUs.

Outstanding Value For Money

The Intel Core i5-13500 Processor is a slight step up from the entry-level Core i5-13400 Processor and adds 4 more efficiency cores into the mix, enabling it to drive as many as 20 threads to its smaller siblings while boosting slightly higher at 4.8GHz vs 4.6Ghz.

The Intel Core i5 13500 is a 14-core processor (6 P-Cores, 8 E-Cores) that is essentially a locked version of the higher-priced Intel Core i5 13600K that sports higher clocks in tow. Unlike its higher-end version, the 13500 comes with a stock cooler in the box that should save significant costs for users looking to game or be productive on a budget; the higher-end 13600K is not a cool customer in terms of power draw and thermal requirements.

The 13500 offers excellent single-core performance at 4.8GHz and acceptable multicore performance while adhering to a much stricter power limit regimen than the 13600K with the processor designed to operate around 65W during prolonged periods of time which makes it an excellent efficiency play.

It does offer an excellent price-performance ratio while edging out both, the last generation 12600K processor and its direct AMD-based competitor, the Ryzen 7 7600X, in both gaming and productivity benchmarks. While the differences in performance are slight, they are present and given the tight price range all 3 processors compete in, the Intel Core i5 13500 is our winner for the best budget-centric Intel CPU.

Hexacore Value Play

Gamers interested in upgrading to a newer CPU from Team Red will find the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X to be of spectacular value thanks to its high single-core performance, efficient hexacore architecture, and compatibility with newer technology such as PCI-E 5.0 and DDR5 memory. It also abandons AMD's AM4 design, going for a pin-less processor offering by moving them to the motherboard instead.

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is an excellent hexacore CPU that is AMD's mid-range play for a gaming processor that offers overclockability, decent gaming performance, and excellent efficiency in a sub $200 package that allows you to experience the socket AM5 platform without having to spend an arm and a leg in the process making it an excellent, well-rounded offering from Team Red.

Also included with the 7600X is an entry-level 2-core integrated graphics chip that allows you to use it for productivity without needing a secondary display option like its predecessor. While AMD's offering is somewhat limited in terms of core count thanks to its hexacore offerings, it does offer significantly more leeway in terms of efficiency even if it comes considerably short for production workloads.

All in all, if you are going AMD and are on a budget, the 7600X has you covered when it comes to delivering an efficient, gaming-centric performance that doesn't break the bank while offering considerable value to the end user.

Single-Core Performance in a CPU is often touted, and rightly so as an important metric to track when it comes to ascertaining a CPU's performance potential. This is because of how video games work in general, a practice that stems from older video game engines being primarily single-threaded or not handling most of their logic across multiple threads. Most current video games also tend to be exceptionally reliant on a single thread (even those built on modern game engines at times) which also gives credence to this notion.

It is true that faster single-core performance more often than not does translate to significant performance uplifts for most modern titles. This is both due to a speedier single-core somewhat limiting the performance bottleneck that game engines experience where threads 'wait' on the primary thread to proceed before they can move to the next frame or render more objects; As a result faster single-core performance allows for less resource 'locks' on a processor. At the same time, this is not the complete story.

Modern games attempt to increasingly leverage the extra horsepower that multicore CPUs give us. This is due to a multitude of factors but can be condensed down to a few simple factors;

While it isn't incorrect to say that multicore performance is a secondary factor to performance, it has increasingly become more relevant since the turn of the century and will continue to grow in terms of relevance as new titles continue to be released. Single-core performance in a way can be seen as the maximum cap of what potential a CPU can exhibit in modern games that otherwise have their multicore requirements met, making it a crucial benchmark for most modern games.

This also is why Intel & AMD focus on single-core performance for gaming-centric CPU offerings with higher clocks offered at the higher, multicore CPU tiers which are normally reserved for enthusiast-tier gamers and creators such as the Intel Core i9 13900K.

More cores and higher clocks do not always equate to more performance and 16-core processors like the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X have a far smaller gap in terms of productivity workloads with the 13900K/13900KS than raw core counts would suggest. At the same time, the current king of the hill for gaming is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D which decimates all of its competition with ease.

If you wish to get the best value for money, both Intel's Core i5 and AMD's Ryzen 5 are where you need to look in terms of an excellent price-to-performance ratio. If your plans are more centric on getting the best of the best, AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X/7950X3D and Intel's Core i9 13900K/13900KS are excellent options. At the same time, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D makes its case for the best gaming CPU available despite being an octa-core processor in a segment that has plenty of cores to go around for high-end processors.

A: The Fastest CPU for gaming currently is the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with an octa-core layout that is backed by AMD's 3D V-Cache with AMD's own Ryzen 9 7950X3D and Intel's Core i9 13900KS coming in a close 2nd and 3rd place respectively.|

Q: What is the Fastest AMD CPU For Productivity?

A: The fastest consumer-grade AMD CPU for productivity is the 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 7950X which is slightly faster in most productivity benchmarks compared to its more expensive Ryzen 9 7950X3D sibling due to a higher clock speed and TDP rating that help it perform better in non-gaming benchmarks.

A: As of April 2023, the fastest CPU for work is currently the Intel Core i9-13900KS which can do 6000MHz on single-core clocks while having 24 cores handling 32 threads that allows it to crunch numbers beyond most of its competitors.

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A lover of all things PC related, Matt has been building and testing computer parts since he could afford them. He also spends his free time building and collecting keyboards.

Rahim is a Senior Tech/Commerce Writer at Valnet and builds PCs & networking solutions on demand. Whether It's your GPU, CPU, Display, or just an SSD upgrade, expect him to have a well-researched opinion on offer. When he's not helping with tech hardware or writing about it, you can find him playing the latest single-player titles or toying around with Unreal Engine with friends.Interests: PC Hardware, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Game Development, The Witcher (not necessarily in that order)