The Core i9 processing chip, according to reviews, is easily the most powerful consumer processor available today. There will be no regrets in buying, experts said, if one has no problem parting with $1000, which in many cases can pay for a more than decent PC rig.

To be sure, the Intel Core i9 is the new 10-core computing standard and PC enthusiasts will easily forget about the old class favorite that was the Core i7 with the former already in the market. The i7 with 10 cores retailed for around $1700 when it was introduced so the $700 savings is reason enough to move on.

And it helps that the 7900-X is more powerful than its Broadwell predecessor in many levels, reviewers said.

But as mentioned above, the Core i9 is a beast in the general computing area. It's a different story when users want to extract the most juice from the processor in the gaming arena. According to Tom's Hardware, the Skylake-X Core i9 will deliver to expectations for workstation purposes like content creation and editing but in terms gaming, there is much left to be desired.

"The processor struggles in some games compared to its predecessor, failing to match the Core i7-6950X in several titles," the report said.

AnandTech agrees on its own assessment - that it will require some time for the gaming world to take advantage of the CPU muscle-car capabilities deployed with the Core i9. The recommendation from the site: It is wise for now to hold off and "wait for the platform to mature a bit more and for the remaining gaming issues to be fixed before ordering anything."

And holding out should be easy for the PC gaming crowd as for the most part the existing GPU solutions out there are up to the job of satisfying even the highest expectations.

Now to address the question on what to pick between Core i9 and AMD's Ryzen 7, the obvious answer is if gaming is the prime concern then AMD it is. But in terms of overall performance, it is good to note that benchmarking results have indicated the basic Ryzen 7 variant, the R7 1700, boasts of nearly the same performance level, pegged at around 70 percent, as that of the Core i9.

For budget-conscious buyers, the choice will be easy when confronted with the $1000 sticker price of the Core i9 as opposed to the 1700's original price of $329. One can even go for the Ryzen 7 1800X, the most premium of the line, and gain a huge performance boost but will not break the bank as the chip sells for only $499.