AMD Ryzen 9 9900X vs Intel Core Ultra 9 2026: Which CPU Wins?

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X (Zen 5, 12 cores, 120W) and Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (Arrow Lake, 24 cores, 125W) target different workloads. AMD wins on per-core performance, power efficiency, and gaming at 1440p/4K where both are GPU-limited. Intel wins on highly parallelized rendering and compilation workloads that scale with 24 threads. At ~$449 vs ~$589, the Ryzen 9 9900X offers better value for most users; Intel's premium is only worth it for content creation pipelines that fully saturate all 24 cores.