Core i9-9900K vs Ryzen 5 5500

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Core i9-9900K and the Ryzen 5 5500 are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Core i9-9900K has 8 cores and 16 threads, and the Ryzen 5 5500 has 6 cores and 12 threads. The extra cores of the Core i9-9900K help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 5 GHz and 4.2 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Core i9-9900K uses the LGA1151 socket and the Ryzen 5 5500 uses AM4, so they need different motherboards, and often different memory. When you compare prices, count the board as well as the chip.

Rated power is 95 W for the first and 65 W for the second. That is close enough that cooling needs will be similar.

At launch the Core i9-9900K cost $488 and the Ryzen 5 5500 $159, which gives 10.5 and 31.4 points of gaming performance per $100. Today's prices will differ.

Which graphics cards each one can feed, and which to buy

At 1080p the Core i9-9900K can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 4080 Laptop before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Ryzen 5 5500 reaches the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Core i9-9900K if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Ryzen 5 5500 if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.