Adobe After Effects: 13th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 7000

Introduction

The last few months have been hectic in terms of new hardware. First, AMD launched their Ryzen 7000 Series of processors along with the new AM5 chipset in late September. Then, in early October, Intel launched their Arc A750 and A770 discrete GPUs, followed quickly by NVIDIA starting their rolling launch of the GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs on October 12th, starting with the GeForce RTX 4090 24GB.

And now, Intel is launching their new 13th Gen Intel Core processors – code-named "Raptor Lake". Unlike AMD's Ryzen 7000 Series, the Intel 13th Gen processors should be able to be dropped into any motherboard that supports the previous 12th Gen CPUs, and maintain support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. We did get a bump in terms of what RAM speed is officially supported, but from a platform view, the 13th Gen is pretty much a drop-in upgrade from 12th Gen.

In this article, we will be using our PugetBench for After Effects 0.95.2 benchmark paired with After Effects 22.4 (22.5 and 22.6 currently have an API bug that prevents our benchmark from running) to examine the performance of the new Intel Core 13th Gen CPUs. As a comparison, we will be including the previous generation 12th Gen processors, as well as their primary competition – the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series. In addition, while we won't be calling out the results specifically in this article, the raw results table in the next section also includes the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series since Ryzen 7000 was only recently released.

If you want to read more about the new Intel Core 13th Gen, and what sets them apart from the previous generation, we recommend checking out our main Intel Core 13th Gen Processors Content Creation Review article. That post includes more detailed information on the CPU specifications, testing results for a range of other applications including Lightroom Classic, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, and Unreal Engine; as well as all the test setup details for both the hardware and software used in our testing.

Raw Benchmark Data

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each test, we also like to provide individual results for you to examine. If there is a specific task that is a hindrance to your workflow, examining the raw results for that task is going to be much more applicable than the scores that our benchmark calculated.

Feel free to skip to the next sections for our analysis of these results to get a wider view of how each configuration performs.

Intel Core 13th Gen vs AMD Ryzen 7000 for After Effects

To start off our analysis, we wanted to look at how the new 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs compared to AMD's Ryzen 7000 series. The MSRP pricing for Intel and AMD don't exactly match, but in most cases, the comparisons we are making in the chart above are looking at CPUs that have an MSRP within $40 of each other. The exception to this is the Core i9 13900K vs Ryzen 7950X since Intel doesn't currently have a CPU that is on par with the Ryzen 7950X in terms of MSRP ($699). We didn't want to leave the 7950X out, so we decided to include the 13900K twice. First versus the 7900X (a price/performance comparison), and second versus the 7950X (a best-of-each-generation comparison)

If you are interested in the exact MSRP for each of these CPUs, we have a full breakdown in our main 13th Gen Intel Core Processors Content Creation Review article.

When comparing similarly priced CPUs from Intel's 13 Gen and AMD's Ryzen 7000 series, Intel holds about a 15-20% performance lead in terms of overall performance in After Effects. The Ryzen 7950X reduces Intel's lead down to a smaller 7%, but we will again note that the 7950X is a slightly more expensive CPU.

In the second chart, we are looking at the Multi-Core Score from our benchmark, which is testing especially heavy projects where the recent multi-frame rendering (MFR) feature comes more into play. MFR allows After Effects to take better advantage of higher core count CPUs, and the inclusion of additional hybrid "Efficiency" cores on the 13th Gen lets Intel run away with performance. The Core i9 13900K was 23% faster than the Ryzen 7900X, while the Core i7 13700K and i5 13600K were both around 50% faster than the Ryzen 7700X and 7600X respectively. Only the Ryzen 7950X was able to catch up to the Intel 13th Gen CPUs, ending up almost exactly on par with the Core i9 13900K.

To put this into perspective, our recent testing of the workstation-class AMD Threadripper PRO 5000 Series gave the TR PRO CPUs a Multi-Core Score between 267-317 points, compared to the Intel Core i9 13900K and Ryzen 7950X which scored 271.4 and 278.3 points respectively. Threadripper PRO processors have support for more than 128GB RAM (which can be incredibly important for After Effects), but it is spectacular that we are seeing consumer CPUs that are able to perform roughly on par at a fraction of the cost.

To be honest, this huge gap in performance for the Multi-Core Score caught us a bit off guard. If you go back to our Ryzen 7000 launch article for After Effects from just last month, AMD had up to a 43% performance lead with the Ryzen 7950X over the Core i9 12900KS, so for Intel to come back this strongly is very impressive. To see how Intel accomplished that, let's take a look at how the 13th Gen compares to the previous 12th Gen CPUs:

Intel Core 13th Gen vs Intel Core 12th Gen for After Effects

In the previous section, we saw that the new 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs are across the board faster than the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series processors in After Effects. This is great as far as the typical "Intel vs AMD" comparison goes, but we also wanted to look at how much faster the 13th Gen processors are compared to the previous 12th Gen CPUs.

Just like the previous section, we want to mention that we are including the Core i9 13900K twice. Intel currently doesn't have a 13th Gen equivalent to the Core i9 12900KS, but we didn't want to leave it out. So, we decided to show the 13900K compared to both the 12900K and 12900KS.

In terms of equivalent models, we are looking at about a 15% performance gain overall with the new 13th Gen CPUs. It is a bit smaller if you compare the 13900K to the 12900KS, although as we noted, that isn't a totally fair comparison since the 12900KS is more expensive ($739 vs $589). In terms of equivalent models, the performance increase is remarkably consistent at roughly 15%.

The big area where we get a massive performance boost is in our Multi-Core Score. As we explained in the last section, this is testing complex projects that are able to take maximum advantage of the recent multi-frame rendering (MFR) feature. Intel's "Efficiency" cores apparently do extremely well here, allowing the 13th Gen CPUs to see anywhere from a 33% to 46% increase in performance over the previous generation.

How well do the Intel Core 13th Gen CPUs perform in After Effects?

Overall, the new 13th Gen Intel Core processors do extremely well in After Effects, showing around a 15% performance gain overall versus the previous generation 12th Gen CPUs. And, for some specific tests (MFR), the new 13th Gen CPUs are an incredible 33-46% faster! This allows Intel to sweep the board compared to AMD's most recent Ryzen 7000 series, with Intel 13th Gen CPUs out-performing AMD by roughly 15-18% at similar price points.

Only the AMD Ryzen 7950X is able to keep up with the Intel 13th Gen CPUs, and even there, it is at best on par with the Core i9 13900K, if not slightly slower. Since the i9 13900K is priced at a lower MSRP, that likely means Intel is going to be the better choice in almost all instances if performance in After Effects is your primary concern.

Keep in mind that the benchmark results in this article are strictly for After Effects and that performance will vary widely in different applications. If your workflow includes other software packages, we highly recommend checking out our Intel Core 13th Gen Processors Content Creation Review article which includes results and links to in-depth testing for a range of other applications including Premiere Pro, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve, and Unreal Engine.