When AMD’s Ryzen line of desktop CPUs was released in 2017, tech media outlets reported the flagship Ryzen 7 1800X competing with Intel’s high-end desktop (HEDT) chip, the Core i7-6900K, in multi-core productivity workloads, while thrashing Intel’s top consumer desktop chip, the i7-7700K. While the Ryzen launch was a revelation in multi-core performance for the money, the 7700K easily bested the newcomer 1800X in single-core tasks such as gaming. This phenomenon made perfect sense – the 1800X had 8 cores, 16 threads, while the 7700K had only 4 cores, 8 threads. Meanwhile, the 6900K was rendered utterly obsolete with a price tag of over $1,000 for the same core count as the 1800X, released at $500 to compete with the $340 7700K while providing superior productivity performance for a lower price than existing options.
For five years, this trend persisted. Within the enthusiast tech industry, AMD continued to be recommended as the choice for productivity tasks while Intel continued to reign supreme for gaming. Accordingly, tech media outlets continued to come to the same conclusions with each subsequent generation: If you will only use your PC for gaming, get an Intel CPU; if you will use your PC for gaming and productivity tasks, go with AMD. But, in early 2022, this trend began to reverse with the introduction of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the Intel 12th Gen lineup with its new hybrid architecture. Today, it is Intel that can largely claim superiority in productivity tasks, while AMD’s top chips are undisputedly better for gaming. Although I already hinted at the reason for this role reversal, I am going to examine how and why Intel and AMD have switched positions in the CPU market when it comes to performance advantages.
In January 2022, Intel brought its 12th Gen Alder Lake desktop chips to market. For the first time in desktop x86 CPUs, Intel included performance cores (P cores) alongside efficiency cores (E cores). For decades, both Intel and AMD have used Intel’s x86 instruction set for their CPUs. In 2011, ARM, another instruction set company commonly used in phones and laptops, introduced their big.LITTLE architecture, in which the CPU die space is maximized by coupling slower, power-efficient cores with larger, more traditional cores. When Intel released Alder Lake, it utilized a similar process for its x86 CPUs, combining slower Gracemont cores previously used in Celeron chips with more powerful Golden Cove performance cores. Tech news site SemiAccurate analyzed Intel’s core design and concluded that Intel likely introduced this design because they were unable to otherwise compete with AMD in instructions per clock (IPC) and power efficiency after AMD modified their core complex for Zen 3. Regardless of Intel’s motivations for releasing their first hybrid architecture 11 years after big.LITTLE, it worked. Intel was also finally able to compete with AMD on power efficiency for two generations, before falling behind again with the release of the 14th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs. However, for the first time in years, Intel’s consumer desktop chips have more cores and therefore better multi-core performance than AMD chips.
In April 2022, AMD responded to Intel’s impressive productivity gains by one-upping Team Blue in gaming performance. With the launch of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, AMD introduced its 3D V-Cache technology. By stacking cache on top of the processor instead of just next to the processor, AMD was able to drastically increase the amount of cache in its CPUs, allowing their chips to access instructions from the GPU and other components more quickly. For example, the 5800X3D had 96 MB of cache, while Intel’s competing 12700K only had 25 MB. However, more cache can lead to decreased clock speeds. AMD solved this problem by creating CPUs with two core complex dies (CCDs), with half of the cores having 3D V-Cache and half having faster clock speeds. This design feature has allowed AMD to reap the benefits of increased cache for gaming while maintaining respectable clock speeds for productivity tasks that demand it. Instead of simply increasing the amount of cache in the CPU, AMD chose to make a new line of X3D chips with additional cache because cache is difficult to shrink at the same rate as transistor size. For this reason, AMD decided to stack extra cache on top of the cores in a new line of more expensive processors. With the advent of 3D V-Cache, AMD has thus surpassed Intel in gaming performance while Intel has simultaneously surpassed AMD in productivity performance by offering more cores at similar prices.
These recent developments raise an important question: Why have Intel and AMD’s architectures changed in this way? Why does AMD not have E cores and Intel not have 3D V-Cache? Could a CPU hypothetically combine both technologies to become the king of the hill?
The reality is that it would be very difficult to implement both technologies into the same CPU, and such a chip is likely several years away. Although, it is theoretically possible for a CPU to have both a hybrid architecture for power efficiency and 3D V-Cache to reduce CPU bottlenecks. However, it takes these chip makers years of research and development and billions of dollars to create new chip designs and modify thermal management and power consumption measures. With that being said, AMD is testing its own hybrid architecture, and Intel is testing its own version of cache stacking, so the two technologies could converge in the next few years to further improve CPU performance.
It is important to note that Intel and AMD have not introduced these innovative technologies in their lowest-end chips. In Intel’s 13th Gen, the cheapest processor with a hybrid architecture is the 13400F, which launched around $200. Meanwhile, AMD’s cheapest processor with 3D V-Cache is the 5600X3D, which launched in limited quantities at $230. However, these prices are relatively accessible for most gamers, and it is likely these high-end features will trickle down further to entry-level chips, as they have already done in their respective product stacks.
With the almost simultaneous introductions of Intel’s hybrid architecture and AMD’s 3D V-Cache, Intel became the brand of superior productivity performance, and AMD took the crown in gaming. Today, the Core i9-14900K has a whopping 24 cores and 32 threads, while the Ryzen 9 7950X3D has fewer cores but four times the amount of cache. Regardless of each brand’s market position, these new technologies and the competition that forced their creation are good for consumers. As these companies continue to compete in the future, there is an increasing chance that the CPU in your computer will have a hybrid architecture, 3D V-Cache, or, eventually, both.
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