We'll also discuss the lithographies and architectures that influence the moving goalposts.

We judge the chips on seven criteria based on what you plan to do with your PC, pricing, performance, driver support, power consumption, and security, giving us a clear view of the state of the competition. This article covers the never-ending argument of AMD vs Intel desktop CPUs (we're not covering laptop or server chips). But in many cases, the answer is actually very clear. In fact, for most users, it's now a blowout win in Intel's favor, as you can see in our CPU benchmark rankings. Of course, that comes with caveats, but it represents a fast reversal of fortunes for the chipmaker after its PC dominance was completely overturned by AMD's Ryzen processors. That fact has spawned an almost religious following for both camps, and the resulting AMD vs Intel flamewars make it tricky to get unbiased advice about the best choice for your next processor.

If you're looking for the best CPUs for gaming or the best workstation CPU, there are only two choices: AMD and Intel.

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