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The AMD RX 7900 XTX and Nvidia RTX 4090 are the fastest video cards on the planet. In other words, the Ryzen 9 7950X and the Intel Core i9 13900K are flagship-grade, high-end CPUs that deliver performance like no other chips.
When we take the offerings from Team Red, Team Blue, and Team Green to build the best PC possible, things get interesting. AMD has several built-in unique features that can only be accessed when pairing a Ryzen and Radeon product.
Although no such features can be accessed in an Intel and Nvidia build, these companies have locked out certain optimizations that make a build focused on this hardware a better idea.
However, which platform is the better choice for gamers? Answering this question might be difficult because of the high prices of hardware of this caliber. Nevertheless, let's check what each company has to offer and find out which of them is the better deal.
Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the opinions of the writer
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X+RX 7900 XTX vs Intel Core i9 13900K+Nvidia RTX 4090: How do the performance kings compare?
Before learning about the performance differences in either system, readers should check out the spec sheet.
Specs
The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Intel Core i9 13900K are decked-out processors. The Team Red chip comes with a whopping 16 cores and 32 threads. It reaches turbo speeds of up to 5.7 GHz, making it one of the fastest-boosting chips ever.
The processor has been built to utilize the new features supported by the AM5 socket, including higher power draw, faster memory, and expansion slot bus width.
The Intel Core i9 13900K is a better option for many gamers, as we discovered in our comparison between the flagship chips from either company. It packs 24 cores and 32 threads and can boost up to 5.8 GHz.
In addition to the 13900K, Team Blue also sells the Core i9 13900KF, which is the same processor, but without the iGPU. It is a few bucks cheaper.
Coming to the graphics cards, they are based on a similar DNA as the processors. Both the RTX 4090 and the RX 7900 XTX are high-end flagship offerings from GPU manufacturers.
Nvidia went all-out with their 90-class GPU. The card packs over 16,000 CUDA cores, 512 Tensor cores, and 128 RT cores. It also supports some of the latest innovations in the graphics card computing space, like frame generation.
The RX 7900 XTX's specs are not directly comparable to that of the RTX 4090. This is because these GPUs are based on completely different architectures. However, with 6,144 shading units, 96 RT cores, and 96 Compute Units (CUs), this card is a rendering powerhouse.
Pricing
Before delving into the performance variances between the two systems, it's important to check out their price differences. These high-end CPUs and GPUs will set gamers back by thousands of dollars, which makes this field an important one.
Given below is a rough estimate of the total cost of a PC build powered by the flagship hardware on the market.
Thus, it is evident that the Core i9 13900K and RTX 4090-powered devices are much costlier than all-AMD PCs. This is primarily due to the much higher price of the 4090 graphics card.
Performance differences
It is well known that the Core i9 13900K is faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X, and the RTX 4090 beats the RX 7900 XTX by a solid margin. Thus, it is no surprise that the Intel and Nvidia systems beat the all-AMD PC in terms of performance in video games and productivity software.
YouTuber Testing Games compared these combinations in multiple video games running at 4K resolution. 32 GB of DDR5 memory was used with high-end Z790 and X670E motherboards for either platform. The results are listed below:
It is evident that the Core i9 13900K and RTX 4090-based system delivers about 20% more performance than those powered by AMD hardware for about 18% more money. Thus, gamers are paying a dollar for every extra frame they are getting.
Thus, although the Intel and Nvidia-powered systems are more capable, they are not necessarily the most efficient option. The Ryzen 9 7950X and the RX 7900 XTX can hit 60 FPS in almost every video game while running them at 4K. Thus, it does not come off as a bad deal.
Conclusion
For gamers who want a solid high-end experience in UHD resolution, the AMD-based system is the way to go because it is cheaper and fairly capable. However, those chasing the performance crown must spend $700 more for the Core i9 13900K and RTX 4090-powered PC.
