Ryzen 7 5700 vs Core i9-10900K

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Ryzen 7 5700 and the Core i9-10900K are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Ryzen 7 5700 has 8 cores and 16 threads, and the Core i9-10900K has 10 cores and 20 threads. The extra cores of the Core i9-10900K help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 4.6 GHz and 5.3 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Ryzen 7 5700 uses the AM4 socket and the Core i9-10900K uses LGA1200, so they need different motherboards, and often different memory. When you compare prices, count the board as well as the chip.

Rated power is 65 W for the first and 125 W for the second. That difference changes the cooler you need, and it shows up in heat and noise.

At launch the Ryzen 7 5700 cost $175 and the Core i9-10900K $488, which gives 34.3 and 11.9 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 Ryzen 7 5700 can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 4070 Ti before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Core i9-10900K reaches the GeForce RTX 4070 Super. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Ryzen 7 5700 if you want the faster gaming chip. Choose the Core i9-10900K if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.