An epic battle is coming Zen 4 Raptor Lake-S, two true titans with whom AMD and Intel are set to fight for market leadership at the end of the year. Those of you who read us daily already know about the news that these two new generations of CPUs will bring, and the truth is that all indications are that this year it will be more balanced than ever.

With Zen 3, AMD managed to make a big fuss and took the lead in multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. It was something very important for Sunnyvale, because until then, Intel hadn’t been able to beat single-threaded performance (the last time it was done with the Athlon 64, if I remember correctly). Intel has responded with Alder Lake-Sa breakthrough generation of processors that demonstrated that its hybrid approach with high-performance cores and high-performance cores was successful.

Now, with the shadow of Zen 4 and Raptor Lake-S, many are wondering who will eventually take the cat to the water, and the truth is that I already have an estimate that I find quite reliable. With the leaks and rumors I’ve seen so far, I think the Raptor Lake-S will outperform the Zen 4 in single-threaded performance, but will lag behind in multi-threaded. Regardless, I’m also quite convinced that the difference in performance between the two architectures will be quite small overall.

Zen 4 and Raptor Lake-S: Will you make the leap to a new generation?

We are in the middle of a generational transition phase, which means that there are only a few months left until the launch of the new Zen 4 and Raptor Lake-S processors, and therefore more and more people decide to postpone the renewal your PC, or buy a new one until both generations of processors hit the market.

There are also many who choose to continue using their computer, meaning that they will not make the leap to the next generation, either because they do not consider it necessary or because budget will be a limiting factor. In my case, I have no reason to upgrade because I have a Ryzen 7 5800X processor, a Zen 3-based chip that has excellent performance. The difference that Zen 4 will make compared to Zen 3 will only be between 8% and 10% in terms of IPC, so it is clear to me that I am not compensated for replacing the motherboard, RAM and CPU.

A user who has e.g. Ryzen first or second generationor which has a processor Intel Core Gen7 or Gen8 Yes, you should have reasons to consider upgrading to a Zen 4 or Raptor Lake-S, although in the end it will all depend on the exact CPU you have, your aspirations and the actual usage you are going to provide. It is a decision that we must carefully consider, but I can tell you in advance that when the time comes, we will help you do so with our classic guides.

If you want to open your mouth, I urge you to tell us whether you plan to jump on Zen 4 or Raptor Lake-S and why. The comments are yours.