Intel 10 Series "Comet Lake" Launch Review Roundup (10900K, 10700K, 10600K, 10500K)

Schro

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The NDA on performance reviews has finally lifted today and there's going to be a scattering of 10900K, 10600K and possibly other chips reviewed across the web. I'm working to get them all listed here - post 'em if you have 'em and I'll add them during the day.

The FPS Review - 10900K | 10600K | Z490 Overview

PC Perspective - 10900K & 10600K

Legit Reviews - 10900K & 10600K

Guru3d - 10900K | 10600K

Hot Hardware - 10900K & 10600K

OC3D - 10900K & 10600K

Tom's Hardware - 10900K

AnandTech - 10900K, 100700K & 10500K

Kit Guru - 10900K

Phoronix - 10900K & 10600K

GamersNexus - 10900K Video | Written
 
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Pretty much as uneventful as expected, although Intel seems to have some magic in the all important gaming low frame rate results. Hopefully Ryzen 3 closes the gap for an easy no brainer purchase.
 
It's only bad when your competition does it.

Overclocking should be banned, too much power increase.

Surprisingly good thermals and power usage for what it is even after overclocking.
 
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Looks good but nothing to write home about. Did better than I expected with thermals. Increased its lead slightly in gaming performance and closed the gap slightly in productivity compared to Zen.

Interested to see how Zen 3 stacks up later this year if the IPC boost rumors are true. Could end up taking both the productivity and gaming performance crown. Intel really needs to move past 14nm...
 
The efficiency hasn't improved since Kaby Lake:

New Pentium Gold best 35w processor: 3.5 GHz clock., versus i3 7300t at 3.5 GHz!

New Core i3 processor's best 35w: 3.6 base, 3.9 turbo, versus 7700t all-core turbo at 3.6, and singe core at 3.8.

I compare 35w parts because so many processors are labeled with a huge 65w-ish or 125w-ish TDP range, whereas the 35w p[arts are actually designed to stay within manufacturing specs for OEMS making small form-factor systems..

It's just been a a slow price-cutting march to catch up to features AMD has offered for the last four years, while raising power consumption! Hope you enjoy your 150w Core i5?
 
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It seems wrong that the i9-10900K is being compared to the R9 3900X since the actual retail prices put the 3900X with the i7-10700K (based on preorder prices), and that's without factoring in the cost of a cooler.
 
Retail price for that i5 10-6hundo is $262 (via LTT video). Retail on the 3600X is $249. Market price is $199 for the 3600X and has been for months now. I'm not sure how ~$50-62 price increase is worth it over the Ryzen 3600X especially with an upgrade path available.

Also, 3m42s on the GN i5 review... Intel PR spelling failure ftw.
 
It seems wrong that the i9-10900K is being compared to the R9 3900X since the actual retail prices put the 3900X with the i7-10700K (based on preorder prices), and that's without factoring in the cost of a cooler.

Intel would not quote any prices other than 1k tray pricing, which is $488. Historically, retail box prices run around that 1k tray number, so a circa $499 retail price is reasonable to expect. 3900x's also carry a $499 MSRP, even though it's been selling in the mid 400s for the last few months and jumped to $410 or so in the past couple days. It's the closest competition to the 10900 when you're looking at price.

As far as I've seen, Intel only sampled Anand with the 10700, so you won't see many reviews of it out there. The standard sample kit was a 10900, 10600 and a motherboard.

If you believe the third party scalping prices on the 10900, it should be compared to the 3950, but I expect the 10900 to settle in around $499 once etail has proper stock.
 
So what is going on with Tomb Raider?!?

I know this game has been well optimized in general, but look at this:

1590026043107.png


There must be something these developers know that other's do not. How does it scale like that...
 
Currently, the 10600k is $280 at Best Buy compared with $172 for the r5 3600 (Amazon, Walmart, Newegg). Yes the gaming performance is better but is it $100 better? Plus you have to spend 200+ on z490 compared with 100 or less for B450.

If you are willing to pay the premium, the 10th gen parts do deliver about 10% more performance at 1080p. Who other than competitive gamers these days games at 720p or 1080 low these days however? Certainly not me. 1440p is the sweet spot in my opinion in which case the rzyen chips are just fine.
 
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So what is going on with Tomb Raider?!?

I know this game has been well optimized in general, but look at this:

View attachment 246959

There must be something these developers know that other's do not. How does it scale like that...

Every game would look like that if the GPU wasn't the bottleneck. There is barely a difference between 4k highest settings and 1080 lowest settings.

SoTTR-1K-2.png.webp


Shows you how your CPU will hold up with future graphics card you upgrade to IMO. Until AMD beats Intel in this area and I don't mean in games where the difference between them is 2% because the 2080 Ti is getting pegged. I'll rock another AMD A64-type system but not yet.
 
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This is one that has my interest as a 3600 competitor it does well:
Optimum Tech: Intel i5-10600K Review - 6-core Gaming Powerhouse

 
A better format for that graph is on the to do list. Poor Dan hates graphs.

Also the table of content could use some titles instead of numbers too, would be easier to jump to pages we want to look at instead of clicking through numbers :D
 
Gamers Nexus 10600K. For me it will be this vs 3600.

So it'll be a $300 CPU vs a $170 CPU? I mean, why not the 3600x? Or the 3700x? You'd (rightfully) call me out if I said I was only comparing a 3900x vs a 10600k? It's the same price difference to what you're suggesting. If the 10600k doesn't beat a 3600 I would be really disappointed for the increased $$ and power consumption. At that point the 3300x would be on the table as it keeps up with the 3600 in gaming and not to horribly behind in threaded work loads.
 
This is one that has my interest as a 3600 competitor it does well:
Optimum Tech: Intel i5-10600K Review - 6-core Gaming Powerhouse


again, it's not a 3600 competitor. It's $100 more. It's in the 3700x price range. Just because Intel decided to only give it 6 cores, doesn't mean it's the direct competition. If it was meant to complete with the 3600 it'd of been a sub $200 chip.
 
I find it rather devious that Thermal Velocity Boost is exclusive to the i9 parts. Giving the high end "mainstream" parts exclusive access to well established HEDT features makes the i7 and lessers rather peasant outside the obvious core count differences. Sure, it's a great marketing ploy and all that, but devious nonetheless.

The reality is that the i7s are binned from the same dies as i9s, so I find it hard to believe there's a technical reason the i7 couldn't have TVB. At the very least, consider the feature exclusive to K parts.

Intel just doesn't want to give it away for free, plain and simple. Two extra cores isn't going to magically make the i9s more likely to have a single core hit 5.3Ghz, imo.

Ultimately, it's crying over a +200 Mhz that can be obtained by, with little effort, manually overclocking. But I like to complain, and the Intel part naming convention is already confusing enough to the general consumer. I'm thinking of the little guy with little experience and a tight budget.

I'm sure some Intel employee is probably scoffing at spoiled brats like me "Hey, we gave you that HT for free this round". Gee, thanks...
 
again, it's not a 3600 competitor. It's $100 more. It's in the 3700x price range. Just because Intel decided to only give it 6 cores, doesn't mean it's the direct competition. If it was meant to complete with the 3600 it'd of been a sub $200 chip.
So it'll be a $300 CPU vs a $170 CPU? I mean, why not the 3600x? Or the 3700x? You'd (rightfully) call me out if I said I was only comparing a 3900x vs a 10600k? It's the same price difference to what you're suggesting. If the 10600k doesn't beat a 3600 I would be really disappointed for the increased $$ and power consumption. At that point the 3300x would be on the table as it keeps up with the 3600 in gaming and not to horribly behind in threaded work loads.

You need to do two replies, to make essentially the same point?

The price of the 10600KF is $237, not $300, there is also the 10600 for $213, and you don't need to overclock it to beat the 3600 at gaming. I see ~$197 at amazon.com for 3600 and OOS at Newegg.

Same ballpark in pricing, and it's a better gaming CPU.
 
You need to do two replies, to make essentially the same point?

The price of the 10600KF is $237, not $300, there is also the 10600 for $213, and you don't need to overclock it to beat the 3600 at gaming.
That was my fault, it posted your response on the first page b cause I was reading and it came in, then when I went to the second page I saw it again. I honestly thought you posted the same thing twice (hence the again in my post). This was my mistake for not realizing what the site did, so sorry about that.

Yes, i see the 10600kf MSRP is $237, the original post said 10600k thoughts which is $262 (odd retail #). And if you compare th 3600x which is still ~$30 cheaper (Although the way prices are going right now, it could be anywhere between $199 and $400, lol) it would still make a bit more sense. Either way, your point of Intel winning in gaming is still true. The margins are from negligeable to 10%. If you are soley buying this chip with a 2080 and will be CPU constrained it may make sense over the 3600x if you prioritize gaming (which plenty of people do, and to them I think this makes sense). Same story here as the top end (although, the mid tier typically doesn't have 2080-2080ti hardware), Intel has better gaming and a few other exceptions, AMD in most other things. I don't find most of these comparisons all that useful because nothing has changed this generation from last. Same logic still applies as with the 9th gen stuff. Th 10th gen did narrow the multi threaded gap in the mid rang by (finally) offering HT, so that's a + from last gen. Honestly,.at this point neither is a bad choice, but if you know what your priorities are, you know which chip you want. Like I said, I do a lot of dev work and transcoding where more cores wins. You prefer gaming performance, which Intel consistently outperforms AMD. So for me, AMD makes more sense, and for you Intel makes more sense. My GPU is a Radeon they nano, so even a lowly 10300/3300x would run into GPU limit before the CPU, but they would be much slower for what I actually use my PC for.


Edit:. Nope, just looked back, it WAS 2 posts by you saying basically the same thing, so I responded saying almost the same thing. I was just trying to give you the benefit of the doubt that I must have screwed up... But looking back, nope.
 
Yes, i see the 10600kf MSRP is $237,

One thing to note about the prices listed on Intel ARK is that the prices are RCP not MSRP. Recommended customer price is the price that Newegg or Best Buy will typically get it directly from intel for units of 1000 CPUs. So if you add a few bucks for shipping and a few bucks for the retailer to profit, the price is typically $20-40 above RCP. For example the cheapest i9 10900k is listed at $529 but the RCP is listed as low as $488. So its not really fair to say an i5 can be had for $237 as a consumer--- only if you are a retailer buying 1000 or more of them from Intel.

From Intel Website:
Recommended Customer Price (RCP) is pricing guidance only for Intel products. Prices are for direct Intel customers, typically represent 1,000-unit purchase quantities, and are subject to change without notice. Prices may vary for other package types and shipment quantities. If sold in bulk, price represents individual unit. Listing of RCP does not constitute a formal pricing offer from Intel. RCP values can vary due to tariffs.
 
One thing to note about the prices listed on Intel ARK is that the prices are RCP not MSRP. Recommended customer price is the price that Newegg or Best Buy will typically get it directly from intel for units of 1000 CPUs. So if you add a few bucks for shipping and a few bucks for the retailer to profit, the price is typically $20-40 above RCP. For example the cheapest i9 10900k is listed at $529 but the RCP is listed as low as $488. So its not really fair to say an i5 can be had for $237 as a consumer--- only if you are a retailer buying 1000 or more of them from Intel.

From Intel Website:
Understood, but my point was it costs more than the 3600 by a good amount and even the 3600x, so the comparison should at least be against 3600x. It's hard to compare because 3600x is a year old now so prices are lower and new chips are going to be going for a premium... Once it settles a bit, it's still going to end up around $50 difference between 10600kf and 3600x. So comparing to a 3600 really makes no sense. Thanks for the clarification, just proves my point more.
 
Mhmm. I mentioned earlier that I recently chose a R5 3600 over the i5 10600k this week due to saving $80-100 on the CPU then another $100 or so on the motherboard since I game at 1440 rather than 1080p or lower. When I checked the i5 10600k was $280 at Best Buy and the i5 10600KF was $250. The R5 was in stock at Amazon, Walmart, and Newegg for $172... and it still can be ordered at Newegg right now (though back-ordered 5-7 days).

If you look now, there are no i5-10600K's for purchase anywhere at all. I just felt that Snowdog comparing a 1000-unit direct from Intel price to the r5 3600 retail price was not quite a fair comparison. That said, the i5 10600k still has a place even though it might not be the best bang for the buck. Competitive gamers playing at 1080p or lower should get it since if you overclock it a bit you can get stock 9900k-like gaming performance at lower resolutions.
 
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Mhmm. I mentioned earlier that I recently chose a R5 3600 over the i5 10600k this week due to saving $80-100 on the CPU then another $100 or so on the motherboard since I game at 1440 rather than 1080p or lower. When I checked the i5 10600k was $280 at Best Buy and the i5 10600KF was $250. The R5 was in stock at Amazon, Walmart, and Newegg for $172... and it still can be ordered at Newegg right now (though back-ordered 5-7 days).

So we are what $13 over the ARK price? Seems close enough given it was just released, eventually it usually settles to around ARK price and will even have sale prices lower than that.
 
So we are what $13 over the ARK price? Seems close enough given it was just released, eventually it usually settles to around ARK price and will even have sale prices lower than that.

$280-172 is still $108 and $250-172 is still $78. Z490 motherboards are still expensive. If the price drops on the i5 and it becomes a good value, I'd happily recommend it. Competition is good for everyone. If the i5 price drops substantially like you claim, then we all win. Whether NVIDIA or AMD or Intel, I always go for the best value.

Edit: The i5 10600k is the best value out of all the 10th gen parts. I can see it making sense for people with 1080p 360Hz monitors that play competitively for example as frequency still matters for the top frame rates at low resolution. I'm saying that the current price isn't good value compared with the 3600 for most people. If it was $200 I might choose it but not at the premium currently charged.
 
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Retail price for the 3600 is $199. It's $197 at amazon, and OOS at newegg.

And 10600k isn't available anywhere right now. You can currently backorder the R5 3600 for 5-7 day delivery at Newegg now. I was using the $172 price because it was in stock at that price at Walmart, Newegg, and Amazon today. If you look at the price history on pcpartpicker, the R5 3600 has been available in the $169.99 to $175 price range nearly continuously since 4/17 even though one or more retailers might be out of stock at any given time. I didn't bring up the fact that I can get it at Microcenter for $160 because Microcenter isn't available to everyone.

If you fudge the i5 10600k prices down a bit by using ARK rather than retail prices and then fudge the R5 3600 prices up a bit by using the highest rather than the lowest prices, sure you can try to make it seem like the i5 is a better value than it is. Until I can buy an i5 for the same price as the R5 and not $80-100 more, I still stick to my belief that the R5 3600 is a better value for me as a 1440p gamer. I've said multiple times that I think the i5 can be a good value for a 1080p low or 720p competitive gamer but not for most people.

Edit: Looks like R5 3600 been available for $175 or less nearly continuously since 2/3 and not 4/17... claims of a $200 price aren't realistic
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9nm323/amd-ryzen-5-3600-36-thz-6-core-processor-100-100000031box
 
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So what is going on with Tomb Raider?!?

I know this game has been well optimized in general, but look at this:

View attachment 246959

There must be something these developers know that other's do not. How does it scale like that...

What in the fuck kind of ludicrous scaling is this

This does not seem sane?

Edit: I am not sure I buy that result. 4k, relatively modern game, highest settings, still apparently CPU limited as absolute fuck and pulling insane framerates and scaling.

A 2080 ti is barely scratching 60 fps here at 4k and it's clearly GPU bound as hell?
https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pag..._graphics_performance_benchmark_review,7.html
 
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I agree its clearly erroneous. 1080p low to 4k highest goes from 228 fps to 189 fps on the 10900k at 5.1ghz. Only 20% performance difference for 4 times the pixels and highest graphics instead of low just doesn't add up for a graphically demanding game.

If I had to guess they put the data for some esports game in there instead of tomb raider by accident. That would make more sense as being completely cpu bound.
 
Another GN vido highlighting a tuned 10600K exceeding the 9900K/matching the 10900K (in some test). I would never build around how much my cpu can overclock, never that lucky.

 
Interesting result. Looks like if you get one of the new 10th gen series it might be worth getting a pair of Patriot Viper Steel DDR4 4000 for $110. That's like $40 bucks more than regular 2x8 but seems like good B-die overclocking combined with cache overclocking can give good gaming results.
 
Retail price for the 3600 is $199. It's $197 at amazon, and OOS at newegg.
Yeah, prices are kind of odd right now moving around a bunch. I mean, 1600AF's are/were $150, which is just stupid. The normal price was hovering around $175 for a while though and you can still order from newegg and wait a few days for it to ship, not ideal especially if you don't know how long it'll be. The market right now is so crazy with all the hardware missing. If Intel didn't do their own manufacturing they may have had even less availability right now (just due to all the COVID-19 stuff). As it is, I'm surprised they had as much as they did available. The point still stands though, 3600x is the better comparison as it's still a good bit cheaper than the 10600kf. Also, I understand the prices will probably come down, but it'll probably be really close the zen3 releases by the time they do (which means, Intel will probably intentionally do a price drop).
 
Edit: Looks like R5 3600 been available for $175 or less nearly continuously since 2/3 and not 4/17... claims of a $200 price aren't realistic
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9nm323/amd-ryzen-5-3600-36-thz-6-core-processor-100-100000031box

Fair enough, though it likewise isn't fair to claim the 10600K is a $300 CPU when comparing to AMD, when 10600KF is the more reasonable comparison, with a $237 ARK price, and $250 street price at release that you yourself witnessed. If it was already down to $250 street at launch, that is a sign it will be reaching ARK price sooner rather than later.

Sure there is a premium, bu the 10600KF is a better gaming CPU than the 3600. Heck, 10600KF it's a better gaming CPU than anything AMD has. $250 or less for a great Gaming CPU, seems like good deal to me.
 
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