Intel sells the fastest sub-$200 CPUs that you can buy right now and AMD can barely keep up, even with a Ryzen 9 5900XT — so I have to ask, is Intel the new AMD?

• Intel’s sub-$200 CPUs now deliver performance once reserved for far pricier processors
• Core Ultra 5 chips pressure AMD by pairing clocks with multicore results
• AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900XT struggles to justify pricing against newer Intel alternatives

I've spotted something interesting in the low end of the desktop CPU market - right now, some of the fastest processors you can buy for around $200 come from Intel, not AMD, and the performance gap is uncomfortable enough to raise an intriguing question: Is Intel starting to look like the old AMD, the company that wins by offering more performance for less money?

The clearest example here is Intel’s Core Ultra 5 245KF. At a penny under $220 on Amazon, it delivers performance that would have seemed impossible at this price not so long ago.

With 14 cores split between six performance cores and eight efficiency cores, boost clocks up to 5.2GHz, and a PassMark score hovering around 43,000, it outpaces many older high-end chips that once cost far more.

Intel offers better value

Even better for buyers chasing value, this level of performance sits close to the $200 mark rather than drifting toward $300 or beyond.

There is also a slightly more expensive alternative in the Core Ultra 5 245K, which adds integrated Intel Graphics and moves to the newer LGA1851 platform. At a penny under $230 at Newegg, it undercuts most competing high-core-count CPUs while offering modern features like PCIe 5.0 support and large cache sizes.

This is the kind of balance users building general-purpose systems, workstations, or mid-range gaming PCs really want.

In comparison, AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900XT tells a very different story. It’s a capable processor with 16 cores and 32 threads, but based on the older Zen 3 architecture and limited to DDR4 and PCIe 4.0.

It’s selling for $309 at Amazon, and even discounted from its list price of $349, it struggles to justify the premium when newer Intel chips offer comparable or better everyday performance for far less money.

That pricing pressure matters. AMD built its comeback years ago by undercutting Intel with aggressive core counts and solid value.

Now Intel is doing something similar, flooding the lower price tiers with CPUs that deliver strong multi-threaded performance without demanding flagship pricing.

For everyday work, creative tasks, and heavy multitasking, the numbers increasingly favor Intel.

Newer Ryzen platforms still compete well at higher price points, and platform longevity remains a big strength for AMD of course, but in the sub-$200 to $230 range, Intel currently sets the pace.

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