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Best CPUs for streaming 2026

While streaming, the CPU does two jobs at once: runs the game and encodes video in OBS. You need fast cores for the game and spare cores for encoding.

# CPU Type Task score cores/threads Score
1 Ryzen 9 9950X Desktop
100.0
 16 / 32 100.00
2 Ryzen 9 9950X3D Desktop
100.0
 16 / 32 100.00
3 Core Ultra 9 285K Desktop
90.8
 24 / 24 90.61
4 Ryzen 9 7950X Desktop
89.5
 16 / 32 89.63
5 Ryzen 9 7950X3D Desktop
87.7
 16 / 32 87.61
6 Core i9-14900K Desktop
83.8
 24 / 32 82.96
7 Ryzen 9 9900X Desktop
82.6
 12 / 24 80.49
8 Core i9-13900K Desktop
80.5
 24 / 32 79.58
9 Core Ultra 7 265K Desktop
80.4
 20 / 20 79.26
10 Ryzen 9 7900X Desktop
74.2
 12 / 24 72.58
11 Core i7-14700K Desktop
73.9
 20 / 28 72.52
12 Ryzen 9 5950X Desktop
65.6
 16 / 32 65.39
13 Core i7-13700K Desktop
65.3
 16 / 24 63.13
14 Core Ultra 5 245K Desktop
63.6
 14 / 14 60.91
15 Ryzen 7 9800X3D Desktop
63.1
 8 / 16 59.36
16 Ryzen 7 9700X Desktop
62.7
 8 / 16 58.31
17 Core i9-12900K Desktop
58.9
 16 / 24 56.63
18 Core i5-14600K Desktop
58.4
 14 / 20 55.56
19 Ryzen 7 7700X Desktop
56.7
 8 / 16 53.14
20 Core i5-13600K Desktop
56.7
 14 / 20 54.01
21 Ryzen 9 5900X Desktop
55.0
 12 / 24 53.58
22 Ryzen 5 9600X Desktop
54.3
 6 / 12 49.02
23 Core i7-12700 Desktop
54.3
 12 / 20 52.02
24 Ryzen 7 7700 Desktop
53.8
 8 / 16 50.07
25 Core i7-12700K Desktop
53.4
 12 / 20 50.82

Compare the top two: Ryzen 9 9950X vs Ryzen 9 9950X3D →

How we rank

Formula: 60% multi-core, 40% single-core. If you encode on the graphics card (NVENC, AMF), the CPU load is much lower.

The score is our own estimate from the specs (cores, threads, clocks, architecture generation), not a benchmark run. 100 = the fastest CPU in our database.