Intel i9-13900K vs R9 7950X3D: Ray Tracing Benchmarks
Ray-tracing is intensive on the CPU and the GPU, depending on how many draw calls are sent from the former.
In this title, enabling ray-tracing affects the 7950X3D and i9-13900K differently.
While frame rates drop across both tests, the latter has much worse frame pacing leading to a worse experience. Consequently, we see the X3D win by a margin of over 36% and 33% at 720p and 1080p, respectively.
Crysis Remastered is the opposite, favoring the high-frequency Intel i9-13900K over the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. The Raptor Lake flagship is more than 50% faster than its Ryzen rival in this ray-traced title.
Cyberpunk 2077 exhibits some of the smoothest frame times that we’ve seen in a ray-traced title. Both CPUs deliver similar frame rates, with the 7950X3D winning by an inch.
The Ryzen 9 7950X3D manages another solid win in Dying Light 2, beating the i9-13900K by roughly 10% at both resolutions.
F1 2022 is an interesting title. At first sight, it looks like the Core i9-13900K is leading, but if you look closely at the lows, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D nets better frame times, leading to a better experience.
We shot our Ghostwire Tokyo benchmark across two different locations in Shibuya but got the same result. The Intel i9-13900K wins by a substantial margin at 720p and 1080p when ray-tracing is maxed out.
The Ryzen 9 7950X3D continues to mark its territory in Hogwarts Legacy, beating the Core i9-13900K by up to 13% at 720p.
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition features one of the best implementations of ray tracing with multi-bounce global illumination and reflections. Once again, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D edges past the i9-13900K with a minimal lead at 720p and 1080p.
Although the deltas are subtle, Shadow of the Tomb Raider favors the Core i9-13900K over the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, mainly in terms of lows. Either way, both chips stay well above 200 FPS at the highest ray-tracing preset at 720p and 1080p.
The Callisto Protocol was a buggy mess when it launched earlier this year and kind of still is. Neither processor crosses the 100 FPS mark, scoring between 94 FPS and 100 FPS. The Intel i9-13900K is faster by a hair’s margin in frame rates and frame times.
Unlike rasterized gaming, this is a fairly even contest with many ties and roughly the same number of wins for the R9 7950X3D and the Intel i9-13900K. We’ll test the same chips with the GeForce RTX 4090 in the coming days to see if we can eliminate the CPU bottlenecks. Stay tuned!
