Intel's 9th Generation Core Family - Coffee Lake (Refresh)

If all you do is play games, little deal. If you do a lot of workstation tasks, or you stream on the same machine, then big deal. Th latest multiplayer games are not using more than six threads, and Intel definitely has the advantage there.

Intel is segmenting the market by turning off HT on most processors because they can dominate in games and compete in everything else with their current lineup. If AMD whips out a winner with Zen 2.0, Intel will be forced to compete with whatever pricing AMD offers (HT enabled except at $100).

so have they conceded multithreaded performance to AMD on their mainstream CPU's?
 
so have they conceded multithreaded performance to AMD on their mainstream CPU's?


No, their processors are 20-25% faster per-core, and the speedup for most apps using HT is 25-30%. They trade blows with each-other, depending on the workload.

You only see an advantage with HT if you're doing a lot of multitasking. That means running multiple Workstation apps, or streaming video while playing a game.

If all you're doing is gaming, and then running processing-heavy applications when you're not gaming then the lack of HT doesn't matter.

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Since consoles still only use 6 cores, you have two spare cores to handle future games, when the new consoles finally happen. I've found that games don't tend to bog-down (i.e hit very low minimums) until you're hitting twice as many major threads as you have hardware threads, so the anticipated 16 threads of the next-gen consoles will be just fine.

The only difference is, in six years the 9900k will be up to 30% faster in SOME games (assuming we don't hit a scaling wall). That's a long wait to justify your purchase.
 
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I know alot have dismissed the 9900KF as a 9900K with no igpu at the same price, but the igpu-less flagship is looking to be an overclocking monster!

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-9900kf-vs-9900k-overclock-comparison,6038.html

In short, of the 200 binned 9900k chips, only 19 got 5.3 ghz. As we know, some do FAR worse. Only 5 9900KF chips were binned, which is understandable. Get this - all hit 5.3 ghz and one even managed 5.4 ghz!

For those looking to get every last mhz for gaming, it seems that the 9900kf should not be dismissed.
 
I know alot have dismissed the 9900KF as a 9900K with no igpu at the same price, but the igpu-less flagship is looking to be an overclocking monster!

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-9900kf-vs-9900k-overclock-comparison,6038.html

In short, of the 200 binned 9900k chips, only 19 got 5.3 ghz. As we know, some do FAR worse. Only 5 9900KF chips were binned, which is understandable. Get this - all hit 5.3 ghz and one even managed 5.4 ghz!

For those looking to get every last mhz for gaming, it seems that the 9900kf should not be dismissed.

This doesn't surprise me, really, and I always expected this: less hardware on the same chip = less heat = better overlock potential. :) Thx for confirming it, though.
 
I know alot have dismissed the 9900KF as a 9900K with no igpu at the same price, but the igpu-less flagship is looking to be an overclocking monster!

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-9900kf-vs-9900k-overclock-comparison,6038.html

In short, of the 200 binned 9900k chips, only 19 got 5.3 ghz. As we know, some do FAR worse. Only 5 9900KF chips were binned, which is understandable. Get this - all hit 5.3 ghz and one even managed 5.4 ghz!

For those looking to get every last mhz for gaming, it seems that the 9900kf should not be dismissed.
Damn, and I was going to wait for the KF, too. People here convinced it wasn't going to be worth it :cry:.
 
Intel releases an automatic overclocking tool for certain 9th gen Core CPUs

Intel has a new overclocking tool to help owners of certain 9th generation Core CPUs gain some added performance, without having to muck around in the BIOS...it's called 'Intel Performance Maximizer' and it's available now...Jim Tanous at PCPerspective tested it and not surprisingly found that better results can still be had by manually overclocking through the BIOS, though the gap in performance was not enormous...

https://pcper.com/2019/06/overclocking-intel-performance-maximizer/
 
I know alot have dismissed the 9900KF as a 9900K with no igpu at the same price, but the igpu-less flagship is looking to be an overclocking monster!

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-9900kf-vs-9900k-overclock-comparison,6038.html

In short, of the 200 binned 9900k chips, only 19 got 5.3 ghz. As we know, some do FAR worse. Only 5 9900KF chips were binned, which is understandable. Get this - all hit 5.3 ghz and one even managed 5.4 ghz!

For those looking to get every last mhz for gaming, it seems that the 9900kf should not be dismissed.

Didn't expect such a difference, would be interesting to also know some statistics on 9700kf OC results that I'm interested in, got a 8600K right now but it's either a Ryzen 2 8-12 core or 9700kf that is in the pipeline depending on Ryzen single thread performance when reviews are out, don't need a lot of cores, 8 will do for the next 2-3 years for my needs and at least by then I want to upgrade to something better again.
 
So IPU is free, but they have an optional $20 warranty. Seems like it was suggested they were considering requiring the warranty to use it. Glad they backed out of that plan, free is always good.
 
Hey guys,

What do you think of the i5-9400F?


Wasn’t even aware of this until one of my clients picked one up and was really impressed with it at $149 for gaming. Won’t be doing anything else with it. Would be pairing a 1080 with an nvme SSD and gaming at 1920x1080
 
Hey guys,

What do you think of the i5-9400F?


Wasn’t even aware of this until one of my clients picked one up and was really impressed with it at $149 for gaming. Won’t be doing anything else with it. Would be pairing a 1080 with an nvme SSD and gaming at 1920x1080

It's Intel's best value serious gaming chip (assuming you're not using the integrated graphics). Will get you within 85-90% of the performance of the 9600k (both running stock), for $80 less.
 
It's Intel's best value serious gaming chip (assuming you're not using the integrated graphics). Will get you within 85-90% of the performance of the 9600k (both running stock), for $80 less.

Nice, what I was looking to hear. I know the F means no integrated video but does not matter for me.
 
The missing K is the only thing that would concern me. That limits clock potential on something that should hit 5.0GHz or close to it, on all cores.

But for the price? Hard to beat regardless.
 
The missing K is the only thing that would concern me. That limits clock potential on something that should hit 5.0GHz or close to it, on all cores.

But for the price? Hard to beat regardless.


Can z series boards use MCT tricks to boost alll the cores to the top bin speed? I remember Intel stopping this with the debut of Haswell/z97, but then I swear I read an article about the 9900k and the author mentioned they turned MCT boost off so as to make the test they were doing "fair".
 
Typically referred to as 'Multi-Core Enhancement', or MCE, and that depends on the specific board and CPU used. You're going to want to dig into whatever materials you can find to be sure.
 
Typically referred to as 'Multi-Core Enhancement', or MCE, and that depends on the specific board and CPU used. You're going to want to dig into whatever materials you can find to be sure.

MCE was what I was talking about. I was just saying that even if you could take all 6 cores to the 4.1Ghz it would make a big difference but it does not appear you can.

For $~31 more, you can get a 9600 that gives you TSX support, vPro support, and 500Mhz higher turbo speeds. I think that makes it worth the $31.

Not to derail things, but it's amazing that we are discussing hex core CPUs (s) with speeds over 4Ghz that can be hsd for $200 +/- $31. AMD really did the consumer a huge favor, and even if you will never use an AMD CPU, you have them to thank for the opportunity to have a hexcore or higher, on a mainstream platform.
 
AMD really did the consumer a huge favor, and even if you will never use an AMD CPU, you have them to thank for the opportunity to have a hexcore or higher, on a mainstream platform.

Intel had already planned to put eight-core+ CPUs on the market. They failed to get 10nm parts out, but it was clear after Skylake that more cores were needed. They then had their own hexacore on the market before AMD's was available.
 
Typically referred to as 'Multi-Core Enhancement', or MCE, and that depends on the specific board and CPU used. You're going to want to dig into whatever materials you can find to be sure.

MCE was what I was talking about. I was just saying that even if you could take all 6 cores to the 4.1Ghz it would make a big difference but it does not appear you can.

For $~31 more, you can get a 9600 that gives you TSX support, vPro support, and 500Mhz higher turbo speeds. I think that makes it worth the $31.

Not to derail things, but it's amazing that we are discussing hex core CPUs (s) with speeds over 4Ghz that can be hsd for $200 +/- $31. AMD really did the consumer a huge favor, and even if you will never use an AMD CPU, you have them to thank for the opportunity to have a hexcore or higher, on a mainstream platform.
Intel had already planned to put eight-core+ CPUs on the market. They failed to get 10nm parts out, but it was clear after Skylake that more cores were needed. They then had their own hexacore on the market before AMD's was available.


Intel never had a hexcore on the Mainstream Platform until the 8700k was released. Don't shift the goalposts on me. X58 was Intel's high performance plstform. Mainstream was 1156.
 
Intel never had a hexcore on the Mainstream Platform until the 8700k was released. Don't shift the goalposts on me.

No shifting. AMD wasn't in the game when the 8700K released. And AMD's ecosystem with respect to board quality and memory compatibility was... shoddy.

It's clear that Intel had had their six-core part in development for years; perhaps actually mass producing it was a reaction to AMD, but generally speaking, upon release they were still competing with themselves as they had been for the decade prior.
 
Didn't expect such a difference, would be interesting to also know some statistics on 9700kf OC results that I'm interested in, got a 8600K right now but it's either a Ryzen 2 8-12 core or 9700kf that is in the pipeline depending on Ryzen single thread performance when reviews are out, don't need a lot of cores, 8 will do for the next 2-3 years for my needs and at least by then I want to upgrade to something better again.

The 9900KF isn't an overclocking monster because the iGPU is disabled. It's an overclocking monster because it's a new stepping! It's R0 stepping. That's where the improvements are coming from.
The R0 stepping of the 9900K should overclock the exact same (may run slightly hotter with the iGPU disabled compared to the KF).
 
Intel never had a hexcore on the Mainstream Platform until the 8700k was released.

Because 10nm fiasco forced Intel to change plans. The original tick-tock strategy included 10nm 8C canonlake replacement for the 14nm 4C Skylake in the mainstream platfform. The original plan was cancelled and we got 14+ 4C Kabylake refresh and 14++ 6C Coffelake refresh-refresh
 
Because 10nm fiasco forced Intel to change plans. The original tick-tock strategy included 10nm 8C canonlake replacement for the 14nm 4C Skylake in the mainstream platfform. The original plan was cancelled and we got 14+ 4C Kabylake refresh and 14++ 6C Coffelake refresh-refresh


I'm aware of Intel's woes with 10nm, but all the excuses you care to provide does not disprove my statement.

AMD released hexcore and octacore SKUs on the mainstream platform and Intel had to scramble to release their buggy, hot x299 plstform as an attempt to stop Threadripper.

They then magically announce a hexcore SKU (after forcing users to upgrade to new Mobo despite plenty of evidence that quality x170/270 boards could handle thr cpu) in the 8700k on 14nm++++++++.


I'm not hating on the 8700k/9900k. They are good units once they they are delidded and given proper TIM and cooling. But you cannot deny it was AMD, NOT an Intel Slideshow, that gave us competitive high core count SKUs on an affordable platform with a guaranteed upgrade path via a simple CPU change.

I await your attempt to prove me wrong .
 
I'm aware of Intel's woes with 10nm, but all the excuses you care to provide does not disprove my statement.

AMD released hexcore and octacore SKUs on the mainstream platform and Intel had to scramble to release their buggy, hot x299 plstform as an attempt to stop Threadripper.

They then magically announce a hexcore SKU (after forcing users to upgrade to new Mobo despite plenty of evidence that quality x170/270 boards could handle thr cpu) in the 8700k on 14nm++++++++.


I'm not hating on the 8700k/9900k. They are good units once they they are delidded and given proper TIM and cooling. But you cannot deny it was AMD, NOT an Intel Slideshow, that gave us competitive high core count SKUs on an affordable platform with a guaranteed upgrade path via a simple CPU change.

I await your attempt to prove me wrong .
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I find it hard to believe that Intel can magically release a new line of processors in 4 months in response to AMD. CPU fabrication doesn't move that fast.
 
That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I find it hard to believe that Intel can magically release a new line of processors in 4 months in response to AMD. CPU fabrication doesn't move that fast.

Uhm... ryzen was available in numbers first couple of weeks of march.
8700k was a paperlaunch and werent available until december/january if I recall correctly.
Lots of people ordered and literally waited for months, and bitched about it on these forums.
 
8700k was a paperlaunch and werent available until december/january if I recall correctly.

There was very high demand. I got mine immediately, simply by jumping on Newegg and ordering.

What we were seeing is that stock was updated daily or almost, and then sold out.

And at the time, it took more luck to get a working Ryzen system between the lack of quality of the motherboards and the broad memory incompatibility issues, on top of the low all-core clockspeeds.

You can selectively recall what happened and use that to justify waiving your flag all you want, but we were all there. I'd be running Ryzen in my main system today if they'd had a part that was actually better for what I do.
 
There was very high demand. I got mine immediately, simply by jumping on Newegg and ordering.

What we were seeing is that stock was updated daily or almost, and then sold out.

And at the time, it took more luck to get a working Ryzen system between the lack of quality of the motherboards and the broad memory incompatibility issues, on top of the low all-core clockspeeds.

You can selectively recall what happened and use that to justify waiving your flag all you want, but we were all there. I'd be running Ryzen in my main system today if they'd had a part that was actually better for what I do.

Talk about selectively recalling...the 8700k was 8 months behind 1st gen Ryzen and 8 months of bios updates later to fix the issues you're describing with memory incompatibility. I'm running dual rank Hynix 16GB modules on an old B350 board right now. You were never going to get much higher than 3200Mhz on the memory because of the Infinity Fabric (sounds like this is being addressed with Zen2). It's not like you couldn't figure out by that point what boards had good VRMs or not. There were whole charts on Reddit if you cared to look. No one is going to debate the single core Intel prowess.

Newegg and others were price gouging at launch, and widespread availability (e.g. Hmm...I want a processor right this second, can I go buy it? Or do I have to sit there spamming the refresh button on the browser to get one) was definitely suspect until January 2018.
 
There was very high demand. I got mine immediately, simply by jumping on Newegg and ordering.

What we were seeing is that stock was updated daily or almost, and then sold out.

And at the time, it took more luck to get a working Ryzen system between the lack of quality of the motherboards and the broad memory incompatibility issues, on top of the low all-core clockspeeds.

You can selectively recall what happened and use that to justify waiving your flag all you want, but we were all there. I'd be running Ryzen in my main system today if they'd had a part that was actually better for what I do.


I had my Ryzen 1600 system working no problem with B-die memory in one shot before my 8700k even started shipping... shush.
 
the 8700k was 8 months behind 1st gen Ryzen

March to September- so six.

8 months of bios updates later to fix the issues you're describing with memory incompatibility

Oh, they weren't fixed :D

It's not like you couldn't figure out by that point what boards had good VRMs or not. There were whole charts on Reddit if you cared to look. No one is going to debate the single core Intel prowess.

You know how much I had to figure out to get my 8700K working, with old, existing memory at that? How hard it was to get decent performance out of it? Literally plug and play.

Newegg and others were price gouging at launch, and widespread availability (e.g. Hmm...I want a processor right this second, can I go buy it? Or do I have to sit there spamming the refresh button on the browser to get one) was definitely suspect until January 2018.

They definitely tacked on US$20 to MSRP due to demand, but in the context of the price of the CPU, that's whatever. I got mine mid-November.


[and yes, I did just go look up all of the above cites]


Taken on the whole, the first Ryzen release was a complete shitshow. I regularly dock Intel for mishandling their 10nm process, but the bare reality is that they had to have had their six- and eight-core parts readied as contingencies on 14nm well before Ryzen's performance was known, which may have been a reaction to what AMD might pull off, but must also be a reaction to their own 10nm shortcomings and need to ship something new. Clearly the 6700k --> 7700k lack of improvement didn't sit well with most.

Now, as to what they're going to do in response to Ryzen 2 looking like a near-complete knockout, beats me. I'll only recommend Intel for high FPS usage going forward, and pretty much only the 9700k or 9900k.
 
I had my Ryzen 1600 system working no problem with B-die memory in one shot before my 8700k even started shipping... shush.

...but you had b-die. I wanted b-die, but I wasn't about to pay >150% for memory, and then just to run it on a slower CPU. What I had then worked, for me. I also got to hear the horror stories of those trying to run Ryzen on a budget. Sure, the CPUs and the boards were cheaper, but you paid one way or another and still wound up with a slower product.
 
...but you had b-die. I wanted b-die, but I wasn't about to pay >150% for memory, and then just to run it on a slower CPU. What I had then worked, for me. I also got to hear the horror stories of those trying to run Ryzen on a budget. Sure, the CPUs and the boards were cheaper, but you paid one way or another and still wound up with a slower product.

Sorry you fail to mention that in your original bashing post, oh I also forgot to mention my 1600 clocked to 4.1Ghz all cores avx prime stable for hours and hours.

No shit it was slower, good job sticking that in there too. Not my fault you're too cheap to pay for B-die.
 
Sorry you fail to mention that in your original bashing post, oh I also forgot to mention my 1600 clocked to 4.1Ghz all cores avx prime stable for hours and hours.

No shit it was slower, good job sticking that in there too. Not my fault you're too cheap to pay for B-die.

Why pay the same and get something slower? Why go through the pain of dealing with first-gen issues when a plug-and-play solution can be had?

I get the desire to tinker. To work with something new. It just wasn't something that I wanted to pay to do at that time.
 
Why pay the same and get something slower? Why go through the pain of dealing with first-gen issues when a plug-and-play solution can be had?

I get the desire to tinker. To work with something new. It just wasn't something that I wanted to pay to do at that time.

That makes sense, just like how I want the 2700x but won't pay for it even though it's faster than my current 8700k.
 
You can selectively recall what happened and use that to justify waiving your flag all you want, but we were all there. I'd be running Ryzen in my main system today if they'd had a part that was actually better for what I do.

I run 38 intel workstations at work and two rigs with intel at home.

What flag do I have in my flagdrawer? Except a red, white and blue one that is.
 
The fact that you could overclock a B-350 and not the late-to-the-party B-360 more than made up for B-die costs.

But even overclocked, you're well behind an Intel six-core, and you've put significant effort into research to get to that point.

Again, I get the appeal of tinkering and learning, but at the very best you'd still be slower using first-gen Ryzen.
 
The 9900KF isn't an overclocking monster because the iGPU is disabled. It's an overclocking monster because it's a new stepping! It's R0 stepping. That's where the improvements are coming from.
The R0 stepping of the 9900K should overclock the exact same (may run slightly hotter with the iGPU disabled compared to the KF).

I am fairly certain that the 9900KF that Tom's was testing was NOT R0 stepping.
 
Which doesn't address your post above...

Some dude claimed four months, I remember more like 8-9 months, you claim 6 six months.
So we've established that 4 months is incorrect and I dont care about the rest of this discussion.
 
I'm aware of Intel's woes with 10nm, but all the excuses you care to provide does not disprove my statement.

AMD released hexcore and octacore SKUs on the mainstream platform and Intel had to scramble to release their buggy, hot x299 plstform as an attempt to stop Threadripper.

They then magically announce a hexcore SKU (after forcing users to upgrade to new Mobo despite plenty of evidence that quality x170/270 boards could handle thr cpu) in the 8700k on 14nm++++++++.

I'm not hating on the 8700k/9900k. They are good units once they they are delidded and given proper TIM and cooling. But you cannot deny it was AMD, NOT an Intel Slideshow, that gave us competitive high core count SKUs on an affordable platform with a guaranteed upgrade path via a simple CPU change.

I await your attempt to prove me wrong .

What excuse? I have just mentioned what happened. The history of how Intel original plans failed and they had to replace the classic tick-tock strategy with a new strategy whereas developed new nodes and new products not in the original roadmaps. I don't need to mention again how Intel had an 8C CPU for the mainstrean line planned years before Zen had been tapeout.

The history about Threadripper was very different to what you pretend. AMD planned initially to release Zen as competitor for HEDT platform (initial AMD demos were against Broadwell-E not Kabylake) and official AMD roadmaps showed only one socket for desktop: the AM4 socket. In fact AMD expected 95W 8-core Zen to compete with 10-core Skylake. Threadriper line didn't exist in any AMD roadmap. Then Glofo failed to provide the clocks expected by AMD engineers, and the top 1800X launched with lower clocks even when the real TDP pushed to 128W (the original '95W' TDP was maintained for marketing reasons). Zen IPC was also inferior to initially expected (that is why engineers later released a Zen+ version on improved 14nm+ relabeled as 12nm). Since AMD couldn't compete with Intel, in last minutes AMD developed a new desktop platform, the TR4 socket, from modification of the SP3 socket for servers/workstations (internally TR4 = SP3r2). Once AMD released the 12C and 16C ThreadRipper to beat 10-core Skylake, Intel reacted launcing the 12C, 14C, 16C, 18C Skylake-X models. And AMD replied with the 2000-series threadripper included the top 32C model. Finally Intel released the 9th family of Skylake-X with higher clocks same core count, and the 28C W-series Xeon for UHEDT desktop.

I enjoy how some people always grants AMD for providing competition to Intel, when without Intel we would be today paying $15000 for some turd FX-9999 4M/8T model.
 
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