Intel Core i9 9900K vs. AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Linux Gaming Benchmarks

The Civilization VI performance also fell in Intel's favor albeit by a slim margin.

The last set of Linux games is a look with some of the open-source (OpenGL) titles where the performance tended to be similar to a slight lead in Intel's favor.

Lastly for this launch-day comparison is a look at the AC system power consumption over the course of all these Linux games benchmarked with the Ryzen 7 2700X and Core i9 9900K paired with the Radeon RX Vega 64. The Core i9 9900K on average had a lower power consumption by about 20 Watts and a peak power consumption that was 30 Watts lower than the Ryzen 7 2700X rig. The minimum power usage during the moments of idling w was also in favor of the Core i9 9900K at 50 Watts versus 63 Watts.

The Intel Core i9 9900K did manage to outperform the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X in a majority of the Linux gaming tests but the wins ranged from being just a frame or two faster in some of these native Linux games to being in the range of 10~30% faster. In terms of having the best Linux gaming experience, I would have to side with the Intel Core i9 9900K as it was faster and there were no instances where the Ryzen 7 2700X was a stronger performer -- the best case scenarios were in the GPU heavy games where the performance was similar between CPUs.

The 9900K's higher performance was achieved while having similar or slightly lower power consumption over the Ryzen 7 2700X system as shown by the AC power consumption data that was automatically collected during the benchmarking process with the Phoronix Test Suite.

Where the Ryzen 7 2700X does have the advantage is in the price: the 2700X retails for just about $300 USD while the Core i9 9900K is shipping today at $499 USD. The i9-9900K costs about 60% more than the 2700X but in its best cases generally 10~30% better gaming performance on Ubuntu 18.10. So in the end it comes down to your budget and if you want the best possible Linux gaming performance or would rather have a more economical CPU to save money or instead spend that ~$200 savings on a better graphics card.

Coming up in the days ahead will be a fresh Linux GPU gaming comparison with the GeForce RTX 2070 and an assortment of other NVIDIA/AMD graphics cards tested from this ASUS PRIME Z390-A + Core i9 9900K system. But if gaming isn't all that you do, be sure to check out the rest of the Core i9 9900K Linux benchmarks.