AMD vs Intel at 1440p With Ray Tracing
The Ryzen 7 9800X3D and Intel’s Core Ultra 7 265K have been fighting for the top spot in gaming CPU benchmarks since both landed in late 2024. At 1080p, AMD’s 3D V-Cache architecture tends to pull ahead. But 1440p with ray tracing active is a different stress test entirely – one where the CPU’s role shifts and the question of which chip actually earns its price tag gets more complicated.
What Changes at 1440p
Ray tracing workloads don’t behave like standard rasterization. When a game is rendering reflections, ambient occlusion, and shadow calculations through dedicated RT cores on the GPU, the CPU’s job shifts toward managing draw calls, BVH traversal setup, and feeding the GPU fast enough to avoid stalls. At 1080p, that CPU-to-GPU communication overhead is more visible because the GPU finishes its work quickly and waits. At 1440p, the GPU is working harder on every frame, which naturally reduces how often it’s sitting idle waiting on CPU data.
That dynamic matters here because it affects how each chip’s strengths show up in benchmarks. The 9800X3D’s 96MB of L3 cache is built around reducing latency for game data that would otherwise round-trip to slower main memory. That benefit is most visible in CPU-bound scenarios. At 1440p with ray tracing pushing the GPU harder, the test shifts more toward a GPU-bound state – which theoretically should narrow AMD’s advantage over Intel.
The Core Ultra 7 265K runs on Intel’s Arrow Lake architecture, which brought a redesigned hybrid core layout separating its P-cores and E-cores more aggressively than previous generations. Intel’s single-threaded performance is strong here, and the 265K has no trouble keeping up with GPU demands in most titles. Where it historically struggles against the 9800X3D is in games that are highly cache-sensitive – certain open-world titles and strategy games where the V-Cache advantage is pronounced regardless of resolution.
Both chips were tested here paired with a high-end discrete GPU to keep the GPU from being a bottleneck at the lower end of the performance range. The goal was to identify any remaining CPU-side differences when ray tracing is active and resolution is pushing the card. The results aren’t uniform across titles, which is worth paying attention to.
Ray Tracing Benchmark Results Across Titles
In Cyberpunk 2077 running at 1440p with ray tracing set to Overdrive (path tracing enabled), both CPUs land within 3-4 frames per second of each other at average framerates. This is expected – path tracing in Cyberpunk is one of the most GPU-intensive workloads available on PC, and at 1440p the GPU is doing so much work that the CPU is rarely the bottleneck. What’s more telling is the 1% low performance. The 9800X3D holds a small but consistent advantage in 1% lows across multiple test runs, suggesting its cache architecture is still smoothing out micro-stutters even when average fps is nearly identical between the two chips.
Alan Wake 2 tells a similar story with its ray tracing implementation. At 1440p with full ray tracing enabled, average fps gaps between the 9800X3D and 265K shrink considerably compared to native 1080p results. You can check the 1080p ray tracing breakdown to see how much wider that gap is at lower resolutions. At 1440p, Alan Wake 2’s demanding RT implementation keeps the GPU maxed out enough that both CPUs deliver comparable average fps, but again the 9800X3D produces fewer frame time spikes in prolonged outdoor sequences.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider with ray tracing shadows enabled is one area where the gap closes even further – almost to within margin of error. This title’s ray tracing implementation is lighter than Cyberpunk or Alan Wake 2, but at 1440p the GPU still runs warm enough that CPU differences are largely absorbed. Both chips push well above 100fps average here, and choosing between them based on this title alone would be pointless.
The clearest CPU differentiation at 1440p with RT shows up in Dying Light 2, which combines heavy ray tracing with an open-world design that generates unpredictable streaming and draw call loads. The 9800X3D leads by a more noticeable margin in this title specifically – around 8-10fps in average performance and a stronger 1% low advantage. The open-world streaming workload feeds directly into the V-Cache strength, and even with ray tracing raising the GPU load, the CPU is still getting exercised enough for the cache size to matter.
Intel’s 265K doesn’t embarrass itself in any of these tests. The chip is fast, runs games well, and its performance floor is high. The issue is consistency – frame pacing under ray tracing with open-world geometry tends to show more variance on the 265K than on the 9800X3D, and at 1440p that shows up more in the 0.1% lows than in headline averages.
Value and Platform Considerations
Pricing is where this decision gets genuinely messy. The 9800X3D commands a premium over the 265K at most retailers, and AMD’s AM5 platform, while now mature, requires DDR5 memory. Intel’s LGA1851 platform also requires DDR5, so memory cost isn’t a differentiator anymore. What separates them is upgrade path – AM5 is confirmed to support future AMD desktop CPUs, while LGA1851’s longevity beyond Arrow Lake remains unclear. If you’re buying a chip today and planning to hold the platform for three or more years, that matters.
At 1440p with ray tracing enabled, the 9800X3D still leads – but less dramatically than at 1080p. The gap in average fps across most titles falls to low single digits, while the 1% low and frame pacing advantage is where AMD continues to justify its price. For a buyer specifically targeting a 1440p ray tracing build who already owns an LGA1851 motherboard, the 265K is not a bad choice. For anyone building from scratch, the 9800X3D’s consistent frame delivery under heavy RT workloads in demanding open-world titles is hard to dismiss at that price tier.
