Intel Core i9-9900K 9th Generation CPU Review @ [H]

Moore’s Law

Plus software/game engines still being years behind hardware improvements some of which has been caused by the lack of competition in the cpu market for the last 10 years not forcing Intel to move away from 2/4, 4/4, 4/8 i series cpu's.
 
Microcenter is now saying that the 9900K has been pushed back to mid to late November. I'm sure this has already been reported here / elsewhere but regardless, here is another posting.
Wow, lol. What is up with these paper launches.
 
This may have been done for Ryzen 1, but it would be interesting to see a comparison between the 2700X and the 9900k at the same clock speed to specifically look at IPC at the same clocks. I know Intel always does better with IPC, but how much of that advantage is down to higher clocks ?
 
Price, power consumption and thermals are not good to be honest.
The 14nm coffee lake design is obviously on the very edge of what it can achieve now.

If like me you are looking to build a new rig I would hold off a little longer and see what improvements Zen 2 will bring to the party on 7nm.

If you cannot wait then I would go 2700X.

Least then you leave the upgrade path open as hopefully Zen 2 will not be requiring a new high end AM4 chipset/mobo.
 
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Too bad you guys couldn't have paired it up against the 9700K, that CPU seems like a real winner where its at. Hopefully I can get a real sweet deal on one soon, its almost exactly what I'm looking for.
 
Thanks for the review. Am I missing something though? The gaming benchmarks has no modern games and uses Lost Planet. What?
 
Thanks for the review. Am I missing something though? The gaming benchmarks has no modern games and uses Lost Planet. What?

Whole point is to use CPU/thread count limited games to show ipc performance thus older games work great for that like lost planet.
 
Just about anything north of a quad core Bulldozer makes a fantastic 4k gaming CPU. The 8350k was never a good buy when the 8400 offered so much more.

How are 6 cores and a locked cpu better for gaming than 4 cores and a cpu you can overclock to 4.8ghz+?

For gaming, 4.8ghz 4 cores is better than 4ghz 6 cores. At lower price on top of that.
 
Someone who doesn't need gaming performance?

Eric Raymond wrote a tool to convert source code control repositories from CVS to Git. He's running it on a 6-core machine with 64GB of RAM. It's all text manipulation and graph theory, where single-core CPU performance is all that matters; he's busy working on the GCC repository, which is several hundred thousand commits over a couple of decades. A single run of his tool takes 9 hours on that repository. I went back and checked; he's using a Xeon E5-1650 v3, with a max 3.8GHz turbo. Getting a 1.1GHz single-core speed boost would probably be really helpful, but from what he's said, GPU compute wouldn't really help.

Yeah, it's definitely an edge case, but to a lesser extent, anyone with a work computer who does things that would benefit from faster CPU, but GPU wouldn't matter is in the same boat.

I still fail to see how that matters
A 2400G is in no way competitive with an Intel of the last 3 years when it comes to single core perfomance, especially when you dial up the frequency yourself, or if you want to play it safe, a binned chip (HEDT also has binned chips).

If you need the iGPU only for the desktop then the IntelHD one will be fine
Why throw in a 2400g APU vs 9900K iGPU test in?

If your rendering a lot then the iGPU vs APU will also not matter.
Shrugs.
 
How are 6 cores and a locked cpu better for gaming than 4 cores and a cpu you can overclock to 4.8ghz+?

For gaming, 4.8ghz 4 cores is better than 4ghz 6 cores. At lower price on top of that.

Show me a single 4k gaming scenario where the 8350k does better. No one will get the 8350k for gaming when an 8400 is so close in price. It is a stupid buy.
 
Looks like I better go with another CPU according to the new release date from B&H lol
9900.JPG
 
Thanks kyle for the review.

I'm finding very wierd this 9900K launch, it seems a big group of reviewers are getting very high temps, some even going to 100C out of the box, and a smaller group of reviewers are finding normal temps around 70-85C even at 5ghz on all cores with big coolers like NH-D15 or 360 AIO. This leads me to think two things could be happening.

1) Intel soldier/silicon lotery is having very big difference between CPUs.

2) Some motherboards might be overvolting more than they are reporting and thus the higher temps than others.

Either way, i cancel my preorder until this settles, if temps are high, ill skip it until next gen, maybe the a 7nm 3700x can put intel to their knees again.
 
Thanks kyle for the review.

I'm finding very wierd this 9900K launch, it seems a big group of reviewers are getting very high temps, some even going to 100C out of the box, and a smaller group of reviewers are finding normal temps around 70-85C even at 5ghz on all cores with big coolers like NH-D15 or 360 AIO. This leads me to think two things could be happening.

1) Intel soldier/silicon lotery is having very big difference between CPUs.

2) Some motherboards might be overvolting more than they are reporting and thus the higher temps than others.
I do not read a lot of others' reviews, by choice. I prefer to try to keep my opinions based on data that I KNOW to be right. That said, I know the temps and clocks we saw were solid as I tested and retested. However from listening to what you guys are telling us, there seems to be something afoot. Temp swings are normal in cross-comparing reviews just due to ambient temperatures being tested at, but swings of 15 to 20c is nuts and most likely shows something going on with the silicon, the packaging, or the inclusion of the IHS and mating.

My 9900K is simply at the wall after my OC. Here is a look at temps from stock to OC. There is nowhere to go after our OC.

9900K Full Stock Temps 16T.png
9900K 5.14OC TEMPS 16T.png
 
Most of those seemed CPU limited judging by the GPU utilization.

What looked interesting was the GPU mem usage being 10-20% higher on the Ryzen system. Have you noticed that in your testing? Why would that be happening?
Honestly, I saw no specs besides CPU and closed it. Depending on IQ and Resolution, it could have been limited either way.
 
was expecting more with the soldered TIM and process improvement over time. I'll stick with my delided 8086k@5ghz on AIO setup. I doubt I'd get 4.8ghz from the sound of it on my AIO and I'm not wanting to go custom loop at this time. AMD seems like a much better bang for the buck for content stuff, but for games I'd think an 8600k/8700k/8086k are much better bang for the $ as well.
 
Thanks for the offer, I have an i7-2700K and so would be more interested to see comparisons with a HT enabled Sandy Bridge.
Which is what I was expecting at such a high resolution, but I thought minimum and average gaming frame rates might be noticeably higher by now.

Between a 2500k and a 1950x, I honestly can't tell the difference between which one I'm gaming on. There's a reason I haven't bought an Intel chip in almost a decade.
 
Win10, 1070 SLI, 1440p (currently 60hz...hopefully 144hz within 6 mo). I'm thinking i9-9900k might be too much $ for what I get in game performance, but maybe I7-9700k might not be...?

Currently working on Metro 2033 Redux with all options max except ssaa (set to 2.0). I'm usually around 70+fps at 1440p.
 
I mean, I like it. I'm usually an AMD guy but this is Intel actually pushing their silicon from the factory instead of leaving a bunch of un-tapped potential out there. They kind of screwed up (well, maybe they had to due to die size?) by making the die so much thicker reducing thermal transfer (which means they kind of had to use STIM), but still, the lack of o/c headroom means they're actually pushing it hard it for the first time in a while. I think we can thank AMD for that, but fact remains they're ahead, at least in the desktop arena, and by a decent amount. This was a good answer to the 2700X, single core and multi-core lead, unlike the 8700k. The 9900k will likely still be head of zen2, unless AMD can really get 5ghz clocks, which I kind of doubt. Of course the bang for the buck sucks, but if you want the fastest without going full HEDT...

Fastest gaming cpu is probably still the 8086k...
 
I mean, I like it. I'm usually an AMD guy but this is Intel actually pushing their silicon from the factory instead of leaving a bunch of un-tapped potential out there. They kind of screwed up (well, maybe they had to due to die size?) by making the die so much thicker reducing thermal transfer (which means they kind of had to use STIM), but still, the lack of o/c headroom means they're actually pushing it hard it for the first time in a while. I think we can thank AMD for that, but fact remains they're ahead, at least in the desktop arena, and by a decent amount. This was a good answer to the 2700X, single core and multi-core lead, unlike the 8700k. The 9900k will likely still be head of zen2, unless AMD can really get 5ghz clocks, which I kind of doubt. Of course the bang for the buck sucks, but if you want the fastest without going full HEDT...

Fastest gaming cpu is probably still the 8086k...

I also doubt that they'll hit 5 GHz. I think it will be at most 4.7 GHz if we are lucky but considering this is my first AMD build I've been thrilled with it other than my motherboard. This chip is a monster and I would purchase it if I were building now even though it is overkill for my needs.
 
Kyle's Cinebench score of 2244 is the best I have seen in any review. That is a pro right there!
 
Gonna be a tossup between that, 8700K, 9700K, and 9900K, depending on clockspeed and thread requirements.
Only if you're maxed out on the GPU, otherwise the price difference is better spent on a better GPU.
 
Show me a single 4k gaming scenario where the 8350k does better. No one will get the 8350k for gaming when an 8400 is so close in price. It is a stupid buy.

I picked the first result that Google showed
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwrevie...ew-overclocking-vs-i5-8400-r5-1600x?showall=1

Simply, 8400 is not a better buy for gaming and it shows. It is locked and more expensive than 8350k.
Saying that more cores is faster for gaming is a flawed logic that is disproven everywhere. You see, i9-9900k is still faster in games than Threadripper which has twice the cores.
 
Hey Kyle, are you going to delid and apply some liquid metal? I'd love to see you put a video together for that as I'll probably do the same thing in a few months.

Also, it looks like you're getting a halt at 100C. Gigabyte suggests changing tjmax to 115 which may get you to 5.2ghz.
I have one at the moment and a pile of motherboards to test, so no.
 
Looking around discussions on the web, some people appeared confused by sites with 'low' temps which had charts reporting temp difference above ambient while the sites with 'high' temps has charts which reported the total measured temp. When obviously you cannot directly compare such things without adding back in the ambient temp for sites which only reported the difference. I can't say for sure this is what's happening in all cases, but for swings like 20c I'd say it's likely.
Has this been confirmed as the source of the large temp differences?
 
I picked the first result that Google showed
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwrevie...ew-overclocking-vs-i5-8400-r5-1600x?showall=1

Simply, 8400 is not a better buy for gaming and it shows. It is locked and more expensive than 8350k.
Saying that more cores is faster for gaming is a flawed logic that is disproven everywhere. You see, i9-9900k is still faster in games than Threadripper which has twice the cores.

So the very best you could do is show me where an overclocked 8350k which requires a z370 and an aftermarket cooler beats the stock coolable 8400 by 2 fps?

Alright man, you win. I am sure you will lead many to this new quad core Promised Land.
 
The next upgrade for most of us in a year or two will probably be to make the leap to 4k gaming.

And at 4k there is nothing between Intel and AMD processors being you are GPU bound at that point.

So you may as well go with Ryzen and put what cash you save towards a RTX 2080ti.

From a future proofing and budget point of view that would appear to be the smart move.
 
So the very best you could do is show me where an overclocked 8350k which requires a z370 and an aftermarket cooler beats the stock coolable 8400 by 2 fps?

Alright man, you win. I am sure you will lead many to this new quad core Promised Land.

More than 2 fps. It is a cheaper and a better cpu for gaming.
That was the discussion. Your argument was that 8400 is a better gaming cpu. It is not. You got proven wrong. Suck it up and move on.
 
Most excellent!

BTW, a fun overclock test on the i9900K could be to disable hyper threading and compare it to a 9700K. They should be equal, but maybe the i9900K is of a higher bin quality, giving a higher OC?

I'll admit to being kind of curious about this, although the ~ $114 price difference between 8c/8t vs 8c/16t makes me wonder who would be crazy enough to buy a 9900k to disable HT. Maybe if you boot one profile for "gaming" and another 16t profile for "rendering" it could make sense.
 
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