Our CPU performance benchmark performance hierarchy ranks current and previous-generation Intel and AMD processors based on performance, including the best gaming CPUs. Below the CPU charts and leaderboards, this guide also gives you a basic introduction to CPU benchmarks and includes a list of commonly used CPU reference applications. Its CPU greatly affects overall performance and is considered the most important component of a computer. CPU benchmark comparisons help us work out the differences between chips, but when it comes time to buy a CPU for your desktop, you’ll find a dizzying collection of model numbers and specs from Intel and AMD. We’ve listed the best cheap CPUs and best CPUs for workstations and even refereed the Intel vs AMD feature debate in other articles, but if you want to know CPU ranking and how you can run your own CPU benchmarks, this hierarchy of CPU benchmarks is for you. The $449 Ryzen 7 7800X3D is now the fastest gaming chip money can buy. This eight-core, 16-thread chip uses AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology to accelerate gaming performance, but the technology doesn’t speed up all games and results in reduced performance in some applications. However, for gaming, AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology is the undisputed leader. For ultra-high-end gaming-focused platforms, the $699 Ryzen 9 7950X3D is the undisputed leader with 16 cores and 32 threads that are just as adept at cutting through the heaviest productivity workloads as they are at exploiting the latest gaming titles. We also recently reviewed the Ryzen 9 7900X3D which has the same technology, but its price is too high. That chip takes on the Intel Core i9-13900KS, which has a record clock speed of 6GHz. Overall, the 13900KS is one of the fastest desktop PC chips ever made, but it’s priced at $699 and a voracious appetite for power that requires expensive support components to deliver a single-digit percentage CPU benchmark improvement over the standard Core i9-13900K. Overall, the small performance gains of 13900KS don’t make sense to the average user.
We also have a lot of testing with the Raptor Lake chips, which come in the form of Core i9-13900K, Core i7-13700K, Core i5-13600K, and Intel Core i5-13400. These chips are game changers, offering better value at every price point than AMD’s standard models.
AMD’s full-powered Ryzen 7000 has its advantages, with the Ryzen 9 7950X, Ryzen 5 7600X, Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 7 7700X all solid participants, although price is an issue. For more value, AMD has its Ryzen 7000 65W”Non-X” processors like AMD Ryzen 9 7900, Ryzen 7 7700, and Ryzen 5 7600. These chips bring down the entry-level price to AMD’s powerful AM5 ecosystem, but Intel’s Raptor Lake still has the upper hand in most key price bands. At the other end of the spectrum, we have AMD’s 64-core, 128-core 64-core Threadripper Pro 5995WX listed, along with the 32-core, 64-thread Threadripper Pro 5975WX and 3975WX. These chips provide surprisingly strong performance in gaming, but are geared specifically for the workstation market. We will explain how we classify the processors in each table. The classification of the game tests is the first. We also include a productivity app performance metric, which we’ve broken down into single- and multi-thread measurements. We also have a benchmark ranking of integrated graphics CPU games so you can see how AMD’s APUs compare to Intel’s processors.
CPU benchmark ratings
2023 – Windows 10 and Windows 11
We have two sets of benchmarks in the previous album. Our move to a new RTX 4090 has quite reordered our hierarchy, so we’ve made a clean break for our rankings. All of our previous Windows 11 tests were conducted with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, and we will build all future test results with this platform. We rank all Intel and AMD processors using the Windows 11 and RTX 4090 benchmark in the tables below, but we don’t include CPU overclocking performance ratings. You can see all those numbers in the graphs above. We’ve also added separate tables for integrated chart testing below. Because we have a much wider selection of test results with our now-legacy Windows 10 and RTX 3090 platform, we’ve also included slides with those results in the previous album. You can also find those results in table form in our legacy section at the end of the article. Note that the graphs above use the raw performance numbers, while our CPU benchmark rankings in the tables below use a score to rank the chips against each other.
CPU Benchmark Ratings for Gaming
2023
We
have two ratings for each chip, based on 1080p and 1440p CPU game benchmarks. We ran these tests on Windows 11. The most powerful chip gets a 100, and everyone else scores relative to it. We tested all platforms that support DDR5 with the newest memory; overall, Intel’s chips lose a few percentage points of performance with DDR4 memory (more tests here). We also have DDR4 vs DDR5 tests in our legacy tests below. The chart is aligned in order based on 1080p game results, but 1440p listings are not listed in sequential order due to unfortunate limitations with our tables. So pay attention to 1440p ratings: some faster chips in 1440p CPU benchmarks may appear below slower chips due to 1080p results. We’re working to expand this list of gaming CPU benchmarks quickly, with 12th generation Alder Lake chips on our test bed now. We’ll be testing the seventh-generation Intel and AMD Bulldozer chips again in the coming months, so stay tuned for our updates. For now, head over to our legacy section below for all the pre-12th generation benchmarks and Zen 3. We measured the performance of 1080p CPU gaming benchmarks with a geometric average of Cyberpunk 2077, Hitman 3, Far Cry 6, F1 2021, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2021, Red Dead Redemption 2, Warhammer 3, and Watch Dogs Legion. Not all games scale well moving from 1080p to 1440p, so we measured the performance of 1440p CPU game benchmarks with a geometric average of Far Cry 6, F1 2021, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2021, Red Dead Redemption 2, Warhammer 3, and Watch Dogs Legion.
CPU Benchmark Ratings for Integrated GPU Gaming 2023
Here’s our list of gaming performance with integrated graphics on several of the major APUs available. We’ve split this into two different price ranges, so be sure to flip through all the performance charts. For a bit of commentary and analysis of these results, head over to our Ryzen 7 5700G, Ryzen 5 5600G, and Ryzen 3 5300G reviews. The most powerful chip gets a 100, and everyone else scores relative to it.
Single-threaded CPU benchmark ratings
2023
We calculated
previous single-threaded CPU benchmark ratings based on a geometric mean of Cinebench, POV-Ray, and LAME CPU benchmarks. The most powerful chip gets a 100, and everyone else scores relative to it. Single-threaded performance is often tied directly to your PC’s responsiveness and agility in any number of daily applications, such as loading an operating system or browsing the web. This metric relies heavily on a mix of instruction throughput per cycle (IPC) (the number of operations the chip can execute in a clock cycle) and frequency, which is the rate at which transistors switch between on and off states. However, a host of other considerations, such as cache, architecture, and interconnects (such as rings, meshes, and infinite fabric) affect this measure of performance per core, so these results don’t align neatly based on clock frequency. Instead, performance varies with each application and how well it fits for the respective architectures.
Multithreaded CPU Benchmark
Ratings 2023
The multithreaded workload column is based on CPU benchmark performance across Cinebench, POV-ray, vray, Blender (four tests: Koro, Barcellona, Classroom, bmw27), y-cruncher, and Handbrake x264 and x265 workloads. These CPU benchmarks represent performance in productivity-focused applications that tend to require more computing power. The most powerful chip gets a 100, and everyone else scores relative to it. As we see with single-threaded performance metrics, multi-threaded performance, which measures the performance of a chip in applications that use multiple software threads, varies based on a host of architectural factors. It also largely depends on how well the software scales with additional compute cores. As such, these results don’t align perfectly based on core/thread count, though it serves as a decent litmus of multi-threaded performance.
Note that architectures, caches, and pipelines profoundly affect these results, as all of these factors affect the scale of performance with additional threads. Performance rarely scales perfectly with the addition of more cores/threads, so the scale factor of each processor architecture weighs heavily on the value proposition of going with a higher-core-count processor.
How to compare
your CPU
Benchmarking your CPU is an essential practice for CPU overclocking, or if you’re simply tuning your system. Simply run a CPU benchmark before making any changes, then retest after the changes to see the results. You can head over to our in-depth overclocking details in our How to Overclock a CPU guide for more details on tuning your processor, but if you want to learn how to compare your CPU, you’re in the right place. How do you compare your CPU? Well, that’s not as complicated as you might think. Choosing the best CPU benchmarks can be a daunting task, but the rule of thumb is that the best performance benchmark is simply to measure the performance of the programs you use the most. However, you may not be able to find other benchmarks to compare, so these real-world benchmarks may not help you compare your performance to other CPUs. However, if the programs you use frequently don’t have built-in benchmarks, you can also use similar types of programs (renderers or encoders, for example) as a proxy for your workload. There are also several well-known benchmarks with large databases that allow for easy comparisons. You can also compare your results to the benchmarks you see in our review library to get a good idea of how your system compares. We have a list of some great productivity benchmarks and their download links, below. These same theories apply to CPU game benchmarking: the best CPU benchmark is the game you play the most. You can download an fps counter, such as FRAPS, to measure performance during your gaming session. Games can vary widely, so we don’t have a specific list of titles to try. However, you can use the gaming CPU benchmarks you see in our reviews as a good starting point. You can also use CPU benchmarks for synthetic gaming, some of which we’ve listed below. Just keep in mind that these synthetic CPU benchmarks don’t tend to translate well to real-world games, but they do show us the raw amount of computing power exposed to game engines. However, given their stability and repeatability, these are great benchmarks for comparing performance before and after any changes you might make to your system.
Most of the time they overlook web browser performance, but these are among the best CPU benchmarks for measuring performance on single-threaded workloads, helping to quantify agility in your system. This also directly correlates with performance in games that reward single-threaded performance. We’ve included some web browser benchmarks below as well. If you plan to compare with other CPU benchmark results from games and review apps, forums, or friends, be sure to turn off as many background tasks as possible during your benchmark tests to remove that influence from your CPU benchmark results. Here is a list with download links for some of the
most common CPU benchmarks:
Best CPU benchmarks you can run
- Cinebench R23 (MS Store (opens in new tab)) – This rendering CPU reference program has single and multi-core reference modes. This is one of the most commonly used CPU benchmarks.
- UL Benchmarks 3DMark – This synthetic CPU benchmark has a lot of built-in testing for both CPU and GPU and is regularly updated with new tests. This is the synthetic gambling test for many.
- CPU-Z – This is a common utility that exposes the details of your processor, but it also has a built-in CPU benchmark that’s incredibly simple to run. Single and multi-threaded test results don’t correlate well with real-world tasks, but the stability of the tests makes them suitable for before-and-after comparisons. CPU-Z test results are also widely shared among enthusiasts, so it’s easy to find comparison systems.
- has single and multi-thread testing options, but uses a heavier distribution of AVX instructions than Cinebench to create a demanding
- C-Ray — This CPU benchmark uses a ray tracer rendering engine to measure the multithreaded performance of a CPU in floating-point operations.
- – The HandBrake encoder comes with a plethora of options, so you can easily tailor the coding CPU benchmark to your needs. Simply measure the amount of time it takes to encode a video and then use it as a baseline for comparison.
- another popular rendering utility and is a simple one-click CPU benchmark that uses the Chaos Corona rendering engine to measure CPU performance in multithreaded workloads. WebXPRT 4: This is a click-to-run CPU benchmark that runs in your browser to measure performance in
- HTML5-based tests, JavaScript and WebAssembly. This is a great CPU benchmark for measuring single-threaded performance.
- ARES-6 – This is a click-to-run CPU benchmark that runs in your browser to measure performance in JavaScript, but it has a heavy weighting towards neural network (machine learning) workloads that are becoming increasingly common. This is a great CPU benchmark for measuring single-threaded performance.
- y-cruncher — This CPU benchmark runs from a command line, so it’s not the easiest to use. However, it calculates Pi using the latest AVX instruction sets in a strongly threaded manner, making it one of the best at measuring SIMD performance. Be careful, this test can break overclocks easily (which also means it’s great for stress testing).
POV-Ray — This rendering CPU benchmark
CPU benchmark.
HandBrake
Corona — This is
CPU 2023 Benchmark Configuration and Test System: CPU 2023 Benchmark Ratings
– Windows 10 and 11
Legacy: CPU Benchmark Rating for Gaming
2023 These tests are from our
2023
benchmark.
We measured the performance of 1080p CPU game benchmarks with a geometric average of Borderlands 3, Hitman 2, Far Cry 5, Project CARS 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We measured the performance of 1440p CPU game benchmarks with a geometric average of Borderlands 3, Project CARS 3, Far Cry 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. We ran these tests on Windows 10.
Legacy: Single-threaded CPU benchmark ratings
2023
These results come from our 2023 benchmark. We calculated the previous single-threaded CPU benchmark ratings based on a geometric mean of the Cinebench, POV-Ray, and LAME CPU benchmarks. The most powerful chip gets a 100, and everyone else scores relative to it. We ran these tests on Windows 10.
