Ryzen 9 7950X vs Core i9-12900KS
Compare the Ryzen 9 7950X and Core i9-12900KS on real gaming and productivity benchmarks, full specifications, live retailer prices and performance-per-dollar, then jump straight to the cheapest in-stock option.
The short answer
The Ryzen 9 7950X is the faster chip for gaming, with the two closely matched on price-to-performance.
- Ryzen 9 7950X is about 5% faster for gaming at 1080p (gaming index 71.0 vs 67.4).
- Ryzen 9 7950X is roughly 43% faster in multi-core work, an edge in rendering, encoding and compiling.
- Core i9-12900KS is the cheaper chip right now, by roughly 7%.
- Core i9-12900KS delivers about 1% more gaming performance per dollar.
- Core i9-12900KS has a lower TDP (150W vs 170W), so it runs cooler and is easier to cool quietly.
Gaming performance
CPU-bound gaming score: a geometric mean of in-game frame rates at 1080p, normalized so the fastest gaming CPU we track = 100.
Does the CPU matter at 1440p or 4K? Much less. At higher resolutions the graphics card sets the frame rate, so the gap between two CPUs shrinks — often to nothing. The 1080p figure above is the demanding case, where the CPU is stressed and the difference actually shows.
Performance per dollar
Gaming index divided by the current lowest price — higher is better value. This moves with the market as prices change day to day.
The Core i9-12900KS gives about 1% more gaming performance per dollar at today’s prices.
Full platform cost
A CPU’s real cost includes the cheapest in-stock motherboard that can run it and, when the chip doesn’t bundle one, a cooler that can handle it. Here is the lowest-priced complete platform for each, and the gaming performance you get per platform dollar.
- Platform total
- $636.58
- Platform total
- $637.47
Cheapest complete platform (lower is better)
Gaming performance per platform dollar (higher is better)
Specs head-to-head
Productivity & compute
Efficiency
Gaming performance per watt (gaming index per 100W of TDP) — higher means more frames for the heat and power.
Where to buy
Core i9-12900KSfrom $469.99
| Retailer | Availability | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | In stock | $469.99 |  |
Ryzen 9 7950Xfrom $501.00
| Retailer | Availability | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | In stock | $501.00 | |
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