The year 2020 has seen an escalation in the war between Intel and AMD, with AMD putting out its new range of Ryzen 5000 processors, which have put much pressure on Intel.
But Intel (aka “the Blue team”) is now planning its response to AMD (aka “the Red team”), with the Santa Clara company currently prepping its 11th generation processors for launch, something which according to rumors will happen in early 2021.
Of course, there’s also Intel’s upcoming 12th generation processors, which should offer a pretty big performance jump compared to current Intel processors as the company will be shifting to a new manufacturing process for its “Alder Lake” (the 12th gen’s codename) processors.
It’s the 11th gen CPUs that will be on most PC gamers minds right now, though, and it seems that Intel will be delivering something special to combat the threat of AMD’s Ryzen 5000 line-up.
Actually, if a recent leaked benchmark is to be believed (and these things should always be taken with a pinch of salt), Intel’s 11th gen processors will deliver stunning single core performance.
As was recently reported on notebookcheck.net, a leaked Geekbench 5.3 benchmark shows Intel’s Core i7-11700K scoring 1,810 points in the single core test, and 11,304 points in the multicore test. For comparison purposes, Intel’s current top of the range i9-10900K scores 1,449 points in the single core test, and 11,414 points in the multicore test.
Meanwhile, AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X scores 1,682 in the single core test and 16,891 in the multicore. Also, the Ryzen 7 5800X (an 8-core processor) manages 1,665 points in the single core test, and 11,354 in the Geekbench multicore test.
This shows that the upcoming i7-11700K could deliver some pretty impressive single core performance. Actually, it’s almost 25 % ahead of the Core i9-10900K, and close to 8 % ahead of AMD’s current top-flight CPU (the Ryzen 9 5950X) in single core performance. The Ryzen 9 5950X admittedly outstrips the new Core i7 when it comes to multicore performance, although this is to be expected taking into account that the Ryzen 9 5950X is a 16-core processor, while the i7-11700K “only” sports 8 cores.
But since single core performance is what still matters most in gaming, it looks like Intel could be recapturing the gaming performance crown with its 11th-gen processors, a crown it lost to AMD when Lisa Su’s company launched its Ryzen 5000 series processors this year.
As a matter of fact, AMD has been gaining market share at a healthy pace since its first-generation Ryzen processors hit the market in 2017, and while there was a time when Intel commanded more than 80 % of the market, its current share is about 64 %. Intel still has a commanding lead, but the gap is closing fast, meaning Intel staff will be working overtime for the next couple of years if the company wants to match what AMD will be bringing to the table after Ryzen 5000.
Read more: Intel’s 11th gen flagship processor spotted beating AMD’s finest in leaked benchmarks