If you are going into the PC gaming market, then the time is right. However, there are so many options available in the market, it actually becomes difficult for people to choose the right components for themselves.
One of the biggest debate that is going on in the market for the past year or so is the ever so rising battle between AMD and Intel processors.
As we all know, AMD dominated the market with their Ryzen processors in 2017, but they did not want to slow down as they released the Threadripper series, and just last year, they released Ryzen 2.
AMD has been in full swing where Intel is struggling to keep up the pace. This competition has allowed AMD to gain most of the market share back.
However, the actual question still remains unanswered; is AMD better than Intel or does Intel still hold its reign? There are two ways this decision goes; you can look at the performance difference in productivity tasks such as video editing, or you can look at the gaming performance.
The purpose of this article is to focus on the gaming side of things.
AMD has had a bad past as far as the performance in games is concerned.
However, with the successful launch of both Ryzen generations, AMD has finally stepped up their game and are bringing some amazing processors in the market. But are they enough to actually beat Intel in their own game? That is what we are going to be looking at today.
The shortest answer is that Intel is still better than AMD when it comes to gaming. Why is it better? That is what we are going to look at.
Faster Core Clock Speed
There is no denying that AMD has been absolutely dominating when it comes to the market and they are showing no signs of slowing down either.
The company has released one after the other impressive processors. However, when it comes to gaming, AMD is still not able to catch up with Intel.
One of the biggest reason behind this performance discrepancy can be seen through the fact that the Intel processors come with a somewhat higher core clock speed than AMD does. This applies to both per core clock, and overall.
This allows Intel to have an edge over AMD when it comes to gaming. However, do keep in mind that AMD did manage to bridge the gap to some extent, but even after the launch of Ryzen 2, AMD has some catching up to do.
Better Single Thread Performance
Another reason why Intel is leading in gaming performance as compared to AMD is that the Intel processors have a better single-threaded performance than the AMD processors.
Now for those who do not know, the games that we play, and have been playing are more inclined towards utilizing single threaded performance as compared to multi-threaded performance.
If you do look at the multi-threaded performance numbers, the AMD definitely leads the back. However, what does this mean in laymen term?
Well, productivity apps like Lightroom, Photoshop, Premiere Pro and other similar tools make use of multiple threads in order to speed up the process.
Games on the other hand only need a single thread’s performance to run. Since Intel processors are better in single-threaded performance, the games run better on Intel processors.
Optimization from Developers
There is no denying that AMD had been out of the game for a long time as far as their processors are concerned. Sure, they were making GPUs, but a GPU only paints half the picture when it comes to gaming performance.
With that said, thanks to AMD’s absence from the processor market, the game developers took all the time focusing on optimizing the games for Intel processors.
This means that when AMD made its return with the first launch of Ryzen processors, many developers speculated that this was not going to last a long time, and that is why they were slow to optimize the games for AMD processors.
However, with AMD showing everyone just how serious they are with the Ryzen series of processors by releasing the 2nd generation in a year’s time, the developers finally started realizing that AMD is here to stay.
That is another reason why there is a significant difference between the first generation of Ryzen processors and the second generation of Ryzen processors.
With that out of the way, now that the developers are fully aware that AMD is serious with their roadmap, they are optimizing the games for both processors.
However, this is not something that is going to be done in a day’s time. This process will take time for sure, and once that is done, AMD will start getting better in gaming performance as well.
As for now, the most important thing that one needs to know is that AMD is catching up with Intel as far as the performance in games is concerned, and will soon be able to give Intel a tough competition.
Conclusion
When it comes to drawing an unbiased conclusion, there is no denying that Intel is certainly better than AMD at this point, especially when you are going to account the gaming performance.
Sure, you can definitely see AMD taking the charge in multi-threaded applications but for now, games are single threaded only.
If games were actually multi-threaded, AMD would beat Intel with a significant number, but as for right now, the gaming market is dominated by Intel as far as the performance is concerned.
That is not to say that AMD processors are not worth it.
They are certainly worth it, however, you have to really consider the fact that is you buying AMD for just gaming or you are planning on taking on some of the productivity work as well.
Once that decision is made, you can go buy the right processor based on that decision.