AMD is once again poised to take the performance crown from Intel, with its upcoming Ryzen 9 9900X besting Intel’s best in benchmarks.

According to benchmarks posted to Geekbench, the Ryzen 9 9900X scored 3,401 in single-core performance, a substantial improvement over its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 7900X. Even more impressive, the chip’s performance also beats Intel’s top chip, the Core i9-14900KS, which came in at 3,189.

As Digital Trends points out, the Ryzen’s performance is even more impressive when taking into account that it’s AMD’s second-best chip and only sports 12 cores. In contrast, the upcoming Zen 5 will have 16 cores and should easily best the Ryzen 9 9900X’s performance.

The fact that AMD can beat Intel’s best chip with its second-best is not a good look for Intel. The company has been working to turn around its fortunes, with CEO Pat Gelsinger infamously saying that AMD was “in the rearview mirror in clients, and never again will they be in the windshield,” when it comes to performance.

As the Ryzen 9 9900X benchmarks demonstrate, Gelsinger’s prediction is more wishful thinking than reality.