Check if the 9940X is a good value at £400.
Check if the 9940X is a good value at £400.
I currently have an 8C/16T X99 setup that’s starting to feel outdated. My tasks blend gaming and virtualisation work—mainly malware analysis and reverse engineering. I’m an enthusiast of overclocking, and the machine will run on a custom loop water system with 720mm radius (two times 360). I’ve considered going for a 5900/5950X but have relied on HEDT systems recently. It seems I might be able to acquire a new Skylake-X 9940 14-core board for around £400, maybe less. Although a motherboard would cost more, I’d save elsewhere—my RAM is quad channel with suitable timings for X299, and all my water blocks and brackets fit the X series—so overall expenses could match a 5800X or even lower, roughly £650 total (vs about £1000 for a 5950X). The PSU should handle it easily. Worth taking the risk?
Reviewing cpuagent shows the 9940x only slightly improves over the 5800x, even with a difference in cores from 8 to 14. Gaming the 5800X could really take it to the next level thanks to its strong single-thread performance. Maybe focus on benchmarks that match your specific needs? I don’t have experience with malware analysis or reverse engineering, so I’m unsure how relevant Cinebench results would be for you.
Using the Ryzen path would definitely boost performance, and the Skylake X 14-core model probably wouldn't make a big difference in gaming compared to your current setup. You'll still need plenty of cooling since those cores tend to get quite warm.
From a workload standpoint it’s moderately demanding but I usually run 2 or 3 VMs at once (like one for testing, one for network capture, and another for analysis). Having more than four threads in a detonation or analysis setup is beneficial since core counts are often used by malware to detect analysis environments. The main heavy multithreaded tasks are batch decompilation or large executable disassembly, but I enjoy the challenge of processing 20 threads during those operations while staying productive. I’ve been cautious about comparing performance across platforms like CPUAgent or CPUBenchmark between consumer and high-end chips. Performance numbers can vary widely—ranging from extreme overclocked setups to much lower averages in average workstations. For consumer desktops, the performance gap tends to be smaller. My belief has always been that Intel offers more flexibility than AMD, but have those perceptions changed?
The Ryzen 5000 consistently outperforms even the top Intel CPUs in gaming on average. Skylake X is slower than standard Skylake because of its mesh architecture and lack of ringbus, which increases latency between cores, making it noticeably less effective for high frame rates. This difference matters mainly when CPU power is limited and you prioritize maximum frames per second. The Ryzen 3000 remains a solid choice too—you can find a 3900X for around $400 in the US—and AMD boards are generally more affordable than Intel options, offering comparable core counts and IPC. It’s hard to say definitively who wins, but based on past performance, the 3950X often matched or exceeded Intel’s 18-core i9 in multithreaded tasks.
also keep in mind that if you have anything that uses avx 512 then skylakex will be really good. also here is a review of the 3900x compared to a 12 core skylake x so you can see a rough comparison between skylake x and ryzen 3000, https://www.anandtech.com/show/14605/the...g-the-bar/
It's also true that Skylake X tends to get quite hot during overclocking, but with a solid cooling setup it shouldn't be too difficult. For the 300 series, the 3900X offers an excellent value, especially when paired with a B550 board at a lower cost than the X299. You have the flexibility to upgrade later to the 5950X if you prefer.