Ryzen vs Intel Input Lag/Latency

[Sirius]

Wanted to share my thoughts and experiences on this topic and bring it up to date for 2025.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a 9800X3D system, only to return it after a week of testing and countless headaches—literally. On paper, it's the best gaming CPU available right now, and benchmarks from Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, and others clearly support that claim.

At first, I was fine with that idea—I was upgrading from a 13600K system, hoping for a real improvement. However, my experience ended up mirroring what many others have already reported:

1. Stutter Fest on the AMD System
On Intel, I occasionally had minor stutters, but with AMD, the stuttering was consistent yet unpredictable. It wasn’t a simple "every X seconds" kind of issue; it just happened randomly but more frequently than on Intel.

2. High Latency & Input Lag
This is what frustrated me the most. I know I’m not crazy because others have described the same "mouse latency feeling." Even with optimizations in Windows 11, playing at 300+ FPS in Apex Legends still felt like some sort of subtle frame generation effect—just off.

Now, keep in mind, this is happening in 2025, on the 9800X3D, which theoretically should have better latency than previous X3D chips. And yet, here we are. Chiplet design issue? Still unclear.

3. The Memory Sensitivity Problem
As many have pointed out, Ryzen still performs best with 6000MHz CL30 RAM or higher. Sure, you can tweak it further, but the performance gains aren't worth the weeks of fine-tuning, especially considering how sensitive these CPUs are to voltage changes.

I upgraded from my 13600K mainly because six P-cores were no longer enough for me. I wanted a fresh build, I wanted to give AMD a chance, and with all the hype around the 9800X3D, I thought, "How bad could it be?"

Turns out, very bad—at least in certain cases, which almost no one talks about.

Apex Legends? ""Unplayable"".
Despite seeing a constant 240 FPS, the game felt slow, almost like I was playing with a slight V-Sync effect. My fights felt sluggish and choppy. I kept telling myself, "Maybe it's just me? Maybe it's the game?" But then I noticed even ShivFPS, who built a 9800X3D system, was dealing with the same random microstutters—subtle (even if he don't care lol), but still there.

The Breaking Point
The real issue? The feeling of buying a new CPU, seeing great frametimes on paper, yet experiencing something that felt inherently wrong. I even made a Reddit post, and despite the expected trolls and fanbots (fanboy & bots lol), I found several people reporting the exact same issues.

My Solution? Back to Intel.
I’m not an overclocker, and I have no interest in spending hours tweaking settings. I want a plug-and-play experience. Since AMD clearly wasn’t delivering that, I started looking into alternatives.

I considered the 265K, but CUDIMMs are ridiculously expensive. Instead, I went for a high-end Z790 board on sale (but brand new), a Kingston Renegade Fury 6400MHz CL32 kit brand new, and a brand new 12900K. More P-cores than my 13600K, better editing performance, and—hopefully—zero headaches.

Final Thoughts
AMD’s X3D CPUs look amazing on paper, but real-world experience tells a different story. If you're someone who notices latency, frametime inconsistencies, and microstutters, then Ryzen still isn't the answer in 2025, what's funny is that the vast majority play single player games and I played God of War Ragnarok Vallhala (the DLC) and I had ZERO stutters, so having a processor that does 240fps in single player games and which is not capable of handling fast mouse acceleration on FPS games and massive multiplayer games, then it"s useless.

[kyube]

Final Thoughts
AMD’s X3D CPUs look amazing on paper, but real-world experience tells a different story. If you're someone who notices latency, frametime inconsistencies, and microstutters, then Ryzen still isn't the answer in 2025, what's funny is that the vast majority play single player games and I played God of War Ragnarok Vallhala (the DLC) and I had ZERO stutters, so having a processor that does 240fps in single player games and which is not capable of handling fast mouse acceleration on FPS games and massive multiplayer games, then it"s useless.

skill issue
learn to tune amd cpus then report back
i know people who have unparalleled smoothness on amd cpus

[Sirius]

skill issue
learn to tune amd cpus then report back
i know people who have unparalleled smoothness on amd cpus

I don't participate to ragebait, give a more mature response if you want to start a debate.

[kyube]

skill issue
learn to tune amd cpus then report back
i know people who have unparalleled smoothness on amd cpus

Wait, what? “Kyube”? you got me used to better things here, absurd.
In a world that you are really serious, I don't see why you would only refer to me (a tons of ppls share the same issues before me here), maybe people's as you claim are not either sensitive or demanding that they don't even see those issues, sorry but i just don't understand the point to come only to say "skill issue", I don't come to this site to be answered with a ragebait, thank you for your understanding.

Everyone already knows that 99% of people on the blurbuster input lag section are clueless & borderline malicious people who perpetuate lies instead of objectively striving to fix these issues or tackle any latency topic altogether. Using them to add validity to your arguement does not help it.

AMD does not have any stuttering issues.

If a platform (AMD/Intel) has macrostuttering, it's misconfigured hardware & software on the user's part.

Feel free to list your entire HW & SW stack. What have you done to troubleshoot the stuttering?

[Sirius]

Everyone already knows that 99% of people on the blurbuster input lag section are clueless & borderline malicious people who perpetuate lies instead of objectively striving to fix these issues or tackle any latency topic altogether. Using them to add validity to your arguement does not help it.

AMD does not have any stuttering issues.

If a platform (AMD/Intel) has macrostuttering, it's misconfigured hardware & software on the user's part.

Feel free to list your entire HW & SW stack. What have you done to troubleshoot the stuttering?

What you think ≠ what people think

Have you read the post and previous answers?
It's a sharing of experience, there's no point starting a useless debate on people's knowledge, that's not even the goal of the topic.
You can't pretend to know people's here just because you spend your life here.
I'm just sharing my experience as others have done here and have exchanged in a courteous manner. I buy a product = it must work, and be enjoyable, nothing more.
I think you need to be more active outside of BlurBustersForum to see how much people are complaining about these issues, specially with the 9800x3D and recent platforms, which directly contradicts what you think about it.

So tell me with evidence, why the majority here say that their typical latency is better on Intel ? we are all impatiently awaiting your universal fix (I hope it will be worth your arrogance)
I'm not coming here to ask some help, i know what i've done by testing experimental step by one during 1 week with 5 enthusiast on proper forums.
I don't have to justify myself and I don't owe you anything, I only believe what I try only, not of a person who supposedly wants to help while implying that the person opposite him is inferior in knowledge, good luck on this forum.

[Hyote]

A lot of people here need a break including me sometimes but it's fine. I think it's easy to get along especially once people realize there is nothing at stake, so these posts and comments should get you a good laugh at worst otherwise they can help you form new opinions even if the information isn't exactly correct.

[adrian_13371]

"If you have the knowledge, tell me why the majority here say that latency is better on Intel" It was debunked multiple times, most of the tournaments in cs are played on 7800x3d cpus and none of the players ever complained about latency nor stuttering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WYIlhzE72s This is an older video but im pretty sure not much has changed.

[Sirius]

"If you have the knowledge, tell me why the majority here say that latency is better on Intel" It was debunked multiple times, most of the tournaments in cs are played on 7800x3d cpus and none of the players ever complained about latency nor stuttering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WYIlhzE72s This is an older video but im pretty sure not much has changed.

1. CS is not representative of all PC experiences (other games)
2. Debunked? this is not everyone's experience, so there is no universal debunk.
3. Based on "professional" players is the worst idea, they don't know the hardware or software in the majority of cases, let's look at ShivFPS for example, his record is very good on the Apex scene, he even built a 9800x3D recently, he has the stuttering problems on his stream and he doesn't even notice it, level rate and playing time of a player is not relevant to the subject.
4. I think as me, the vast majority have seen the video that you let here, the problem is that we are talking about what latency exactly?
There is not just one latency metrics to measured, refering only by machines is good for theorically and methodology, the thing is that human opinion is also important.

[kyube]

What you say about people's is horrible, have you lost your mind?
I don't see the point, have you read the post and those answers?

I don't see a problem in my statement.
I've been here for quite a decent time and I stand by my words.
Most people are clueless.

It's a sharing of experience, there's no point starting a useless debate on people's skills or knowledge, that's not even the goal of the topic, if you come for that, you will be ignored.

Yes. I'm telling you that your experience is a user issue because you haven't done research on what components you should pick to not encounter stuttering. You'd encounter the same stuttering on Intel, if not picking the right settings.
Intel is far easier to make worse, hence why a myriad of people have been coming here looking for some unicorn to save their "floaty CS2 mouse"

Don't pretend to know people's here just because you spend the most fo your time here, like I said, I don't come here for ragebaiting debates that have no relevance, I just saw this post because someone shared it to me.

I'm not ragebaiting. The entire thread title "RYZEN VS INTEL" is flawed to begin with and I didn't want to let anyone derail this topic any further into the vicious circle of misinformation.

I'm just sharing my experience as others have done here and have exchanged in a courteous manner, I would do without your hypocritical "skill issue", if you spend your life benchmarking and testing ok, that's fine but I don't care and that's not my goal of having a pc, I don't have time to waste on that, I buy a product = it must work, and enjoyable, nothing more, not by spending times on forums and a topic where I get insulted by “skill issue” by a random person that is angry that I share my opinion, amd fanboy?

Yes, your experience is tainted by bad choices in the hardware & software stack.
I don't spend "my life benchmarking & testing", I just want to stop misinformation based on clear user error.

If you want to go by your definition of "buy a product = it must work", have you looked at Intel's side?
They are shipping a product with a defective socket that causes instabilities (causing macrostuttering & microstuttering) and even rapid CPU degradation due to incorrect voltages out of the box.
AMD's X3D lineup is miles ahead in comparison when it comes to this regard.
I don't care about either of the two companies, I care about good products & the experience.
I wouldn't be replying to you if I didn't want to steer you into the proper direction.

I don't even understand why you say "AMD doesn't have stuttering" when yes, AMD have those issues, whether in cases relayed every day or cases from the past that even well-known content creators have relayed.

Not a single youtube reviewer knows how to benchmark properly and actively deceives it's audience under layers of makeup.
Take a look at GamersNexus—3 videos on PresentMon w/ it's new parameters such as AnimationTimeError, GPUTime, GPUBusy, GPUWait and not a single benchmark since then with these specific metrics.
Not to mention the fact he only tests D3D12 titles, without testing OpenGL, Vulkan, D3D9-D11.
Not to mention the fact he hides 0.01% lows & finer granularity statistics, which he himself is pretty aware (even HWunboxed)
They all actively choose to hide it to end-users, even though it's the #1 problem-solving tool we have to troubleshoot these things.
The other content creators are even worse (yes, techyescity is also clueless)

If you have the knowledge, tell me why the majority here say that latency is better on Intel (again and again) and why this is the case for me, a friend that I have never spoken about this subject and even people in my closed circle, we are all impatiently awaiting your universal fix (are you that bothered that people's enjoy their Intel PC or what it's going wrong with you?)

I've mentioned the fixes to these issues many times on this sub-forum, you're free to read through my post history.
It's not even rocket science that I'm spouting, just basic good HW choices & good SW choices which are known in semi-open communities.

I'll even re-list them for you in a short format:

1.) Buy X3D with a decent 8-layer motherboard with a ALC1220 on it, with non-switched GPU & M.2 slots.
Ideally with a free PCIe x4 slot for potential expansions later down
Examples: X670e Steel Legend (2x PCIe x4 slots via CPU), X670e Aorus Master (2x m.2 slots via CPU)
2.) Buy non-RGB RAM which has been verified by the motherboard vendor. They have a list for this in their respective support page.
3.) Don't run PBO, Curves or touch anything in the BIOS that isn't verified by AMD's server performance guide documentation
4.) Buy a good PSU, Corsair only. RM-x, HX, AX series only
5.) Buy a good SSD. Optane (P4800x, P5800x, 905p), 990 Pro, KC3000, P44 Pro, SN850X, Crucial T500 (always opt for a SSD with DRAM, unordered list)
6.) Install W11 23H2 (important if Intel) or older releases, depending on games you play.
Good Windows releases: W7, W10 1803, W10 1809, W10 1909, W11 23H2
Run valleyofdoom's .reg file after install (follow his post-install for easiest setup)

See? Very simple steps. From here, you change things accordingly.
XMP/EXPO can be unstable on some configurations, be aware of this.
^ This is the #1 cause of all "EMI, FLOATY MOUSE, STUTTER, NOT SMOOTH" threads.

I'm not coming here to say "help me blablabla", i know what i'm doing and i've done all the fix one by one during 1 week with 5 OC enthusiast on proper forums (it was a lot of wasted time) sorry but I would never ask for help from a person whose only argument is "skill issue" and sophistry in the first place, I must be crazy but I knew a nice person called "Kyube" who helped me in the past with monitors here, I must have got the wrong person.

OC enthusiasts are the exact opposite of what you should be looking at.
Their goals don't align with people chasing latency & "good feel". Not to mention the fact that 99% of them have questionable "skills".
Everyone, whether they perceive it or not, desire good latency.
Good, consistent & low latency makes up the "smoothness feel" that you want.

I don't have to justify myself and I don't owe you anything, I only believe what I try only, not of a person who supposedly wants to help while implying that the person opposite him is inferior in knowledge, good luck on this forum.

I just asked a simple question on what your hardware & software choices were... nobody is asking of you to justify yourself?...

[witega]

2.) Buy non-RGB RAM which has been verified by the motherboard vendor. They have a list for this in their respective support page.

XMP/EXPO can be unstable on some configurations, be aware of this.
^ This is the #1 cause of all "EMI, FLOATY MOUSE, STUTTER, NOT SMOOTH" threads.

I agree with everything you said but I feel this part of your advice deserves more elaboration. As you said previously, most people are clueless, and if you suggest them buy RAM on the QVL list from the motherboard manufacturer, that doesn't guarantee it's going to be stable (say if you bought something like an approved 8800mt/s EXPO kit) and you're back right to the problem where people have bad 1%/0.1% lows, stuttering, floaty mouse, etc.

And then you have RAM modules that have XMP/EXPO profiles with too high voltages (like 1.35V or greater for SOC).

I appreciate your post for being no-nonsense, straight to the point and easy to follow, but the RAM I feel is super important because it affects performance a lot, especially in the lows.

Since 9800x3d is the hot new chip for gaming, what would you suggest as a guidance for RAM kits speeds to look for and primary timings? Obviously you want stability and lower latency and smoothness but without the need for extreme overclocking.