Intel Core i9-9900KS Review: The Fastest Gaming CPU Bar None

Intel finding new and "exciting" ways to re-release the same chips and get more reviews to attract clicks. It's all just mildly refined 2017 dies, be it this or the HDET refresh.

But reviewers need the clicks too, it's not like they're gonna say "meh it's a clock bumped 9900K, not worth a review".
 
Intel finding new and "exciting" ways to re-release the same chips and get more reviews to attract clicks. It's all just mildly refined 2017 dies, be it this or the HDET refresh.

But reviewers need the clicks too, it's not like they're gonna say "meh it's a clock bumped 9900K, not worth a review".
Actually seems like that what reviews are doing lol. At least the YT ones.
 
Intel finding new and "exciting" ways to re-release the same chips and get more reviews to attract clicks. It's all just mildly refined 2017 dies, be it this or the HDET refresh.

In this case, they're pretty close to 'the same', but with mitigations in and higher guaranteed minimum clockspeeds along with better efficiency at said clockspeeds, the new release does make sense. Obviously they'd rather make noise about something newer...

But reviewers need the clicks too, it's not like they're gonna say "meh it's a clock bumped 9900K, not worth a review".

All of the above is worth testing since it's more than a clock-bumped 9900K (which it also is). The clock bump is the least interesting part, though, because Intel has remained ahead in single-core performance.
 
In this case, they're pretty close to 'the same', but with mitigations in and higher guaranteed minimum clockspeeds along with better efficiency at said clockspeeds, the new release does make sense. Obviously they'd rather make noise about something newer...



All of the above is worth testing since it's more than a clock-bumped 9900K (which it also is). The clock bump is the least interesting part, though, because Intel has remained ahead in single-core performance.
They remain competitive in single core performance but it by no means is the blow out it used to be. In addition that clock speed boost comes with a lot of additional wattage and that's after the binning. Throw in the reduced warranty and I'm not so sure if it's a good thing to have introduced this SKU.
 
Most people complain about the 9900k/ks being the new FX9590 in terms of heat, but to me the best thing Intel has going for it is single core performance.

Wouldn't the heat issue be mitigated be only using high voltage on a couple of cores and lower voltage on the other 6? (Achievable using Intel's XTU software)

That's the most powerful Intel overclocking feature in my opinion: per core vcore OCing. (I do not believe Ryzen Master offers this specifically) It just requires you finding your best cores.

For instance:
-6 cores at 1.2-1.3 vcore (aiming for 5ghz)
-2 cores at 1.4-1.5 vcore (aiming for 5.4-5.5ghz)

At least in my head that would solve most of the heat issue while not sacrificing single core performance desired by most games these days. Maybe someone here has tried this?
 
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They remain competitive in single core performance but it by no means is the blow out it used to be. In addition that clock speed boost comes with a lot of additional wattage and that's after the binning. Throw in the reduced warranty and I'm not so sure if it's a good thing to have introduced this SKU.

You mean the reduced warranty on the OEM version, or...?

At least in my head that would solve most of the heat issue while not sacrificing single core performance desired by most games these days.

It's worth stating that 'single core' most likely means 'per core', as each core may need to boost up -- indeed, all cores may need to boost.

The advantage relative to AMD is that with AMD, no cores can boost very high, so you have a single-thread performance plateau, and for many applications including most consumer applications, the additional performance from faster cores is more workload relevant than more cores.

For many workloads, I recommend AMD because their current lineup has enough of everything and more where it counts, but for certain workloads Intel still has the lead.
 
Most people complain about the 9900k/ks being the new FX9590 in terms of heat, but to me the best thing Intel has going for it is single core performance.

Wouldn't the heat issue be mitigated be only using high voltage on a couple of cores and lower voltage on the other 6? (Achievable using Intel's XTU software)

That's the most powerful Intel overclocking feature in my opinion: per core vcore OCing. (I do not believe Ryzen Master offers this specifically) It just requires you finding your best cores.

For instance:
-6 cores at 1.2-1.3 vcore (aiming for 5ghz)
-2 cores at 1.4-1.5 vcore (aiming for 5.4-5.5ghz)

At least in my head that would solve most of the heat issue while not sacrificing single core performance desired by most games these days. Maybe someone here has tried this?

You can OC per CCD/CCX via multi and voltage in bios in the recent agesa beta. Ya don't even have to mess with software.
 
You can OC per CCD/CCX via multi and voltage in bios in the recent agesa beta. Ya don't even have to mess with software.
Edit: I see you mentioned per CCX/CCD. That is about 4 cores I believe. I can see that helping a lot on say a threadripper system, though I hope they would be able to expand that to each individual core at some point hopefully.

So for an 8 core AMD CPU they allow you to set 8 different concurrent vcore voltages allowing you to bin your best cores and OC and volt them accordingly? If so that'd make me much more interested to jump to AMD for my next CPU. I get a lot of satisfaction fine tuning a system so those features would be a major plus in my book.
 
Edit: I see you mentioned per CCX/CCD. That is about 4 cores I believe. I can see that helping a lot on say a threadripper system, though I hope they would be able to expand that to each individual core at some point hopefully.

So for an 8 core AMD CPU they allow you to set 8 different concurrent vcore voltages allowing you to bin your best cores and OC and volt them accordingly? If so that'd make me much more interested to jump to AMD for my next CPU. I get a lot of satisfaction fine tuning a system so those features would be a major plus in my book.

It depends on the CCD arrangement. On a 3900x its 3 per so you can get down to 3 cores per setting. You don't need to do single core overclocking as the whole unit is affected if there's a bad lower performing core. This goes back to their design and validation. That said if what you want is to have granular control over each individual core then stay with Intel. Though I have to say that sort of granular overclocking is antithesis to the Intel full on all core way.
 
Most people complain about the 9900k/ks being the new FX9590 in terms of heat, but to me the best thing Intel has going for it is single core performance.

Wouldn't the heat issue be mitigated be only using high voltage on a couple of cores and lower voltage on the other 6? (Achievable using Intel's XTU software)

That's the most powerful Intel overclocking feature in my opinion: per core vcore OCing. (I do not believe Ryzen Master offers this specifically) It just requires you finding your best cores.

For instance:
-6 cores at 1.2-1.3 vcore (aiming for 5ghz)
-2 cores at 1.4-1.5 vcore (aiming for 5.4-5.5ghz)

At least in my head that would solve most of the heat issue while not sacrificing single core performance desired by most games these days. Maybe someone here has tried this?

This only works on HEDT.
Consumer chips do not support per core/voltage control overclocking.
 
This only works on HEDT.
Consumer chips do not support per core/voltage control overclocking.
Really? Damn, I just know because I am able to do it on my 6800k. Their HEDT has always been a bit uninteresting to me simply since their mesh architecture isn't as well suited to single core performance as their ring bus designs are. I'm getting off topic here though. Thanks for that information.
 
For gaming it’s quite a bit faster than anything AMD has, for high refresh.


did you say "quite a bit" ? idk about that. amd 3xxx has ipc clock for clock 99% on par w/ intel. but intel doesn't come w/ a cooler so to get it to a clock that BEATS amd you need to spend another $100 on a cooler so amd WILL beat intel on either price or core count if you are talking about $$$. BUT if you want the VERY best performance you CAN go w/ Intel+cooler but you WILL be paying more out of pocket. just to make things clear.

edit don't forget new consoles coming out in late 2020 will feature 8c/16t AMD ZEN2 proc's
edit2: so if you want best performance in game + be able to stream/whatever else in background i'd rather have the extra cores besides ZEN has already been proven best for streaming anyway and that was on older gen cpu's. better proc just not what industry has been focusing on just yet. give it time. AMD ages like fine wine.
 
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did you say "quite a bit" ? idk about that. amd 3xxx has ipc clock for clock 99% on par w/ intel. but intel doesn't come w/ a cooler so to get it to a clock that BEATS amd you need to spend another $100 on a cooler so amd WILL beat intel on either price or core count if you are talking about $$$. BUT if you want the VERY best performance you CAN go w/ Intel+cooler but you WILL be paying more out of pocket. just to make things clear.

Thanks, Capt Obvious.
 
In this case, they're pretty close to 'the same', but with mitigations in and higher guaranteed minimum clockspeeds along with better efficiency at said clockspeeds, the new release does make sense. Obviously they'd rather make noise about something newer...



All of the above is worth testing since it's more than a clock-bump. The clock bump is the least interesting part, though, because Intel has remained ahead in single-core performance.

yeah but while single core perfomance is still is a thing, looking toward the future when late next year (2020) when the new consoles come out devs will be targeting 8c/16t ZEN 2 procs for best performance.

and besides if we go by your logic we CAN also disable cores/smt in amd processors to get better performance in single core, but no tech reviewers want to spend the time to do it. but if you are a zen owner you DO have that option...
 
did you say "quite a bit" ? idk about that. amd 3xxx has ipc clock for clock 99% on par w/ intel. but intel doesn't come w/ a cooler so to get it to a clock that BEATS amd you need to spend another $100 on a cooler so amd WILL beat intel on either price or core count if you are talking about $$$. BUT if you want the VERY best performance you CAN go w/ Intel+cooler but you WILL be paying more out of pocket. just to make things clear.

edit don't forget new consoles coming out in late 2020 will feature 8c/16t AMD ZEN2 proc's
edit2: so if you want best performance in game + be able to stream/whatever else in background i'd rather have the extra cores besides ZEN has already been proven best for streaming anyway and that was on older gen cpu's. better proc just not what industry has been focusing on just yet. give it time. AMD ages like fine wine.

I look at as a whole system. I’ll spend the extra $0-100 on a $3,000 - $4,000 system and not be CPU limited. If you’re buying those processors you’re likely buying a high end card to go with it. If you’re high hz why limit yourself for basically pennies?

I also feel way more comfortable buying a cheap mobo for intel than I do for AMD.

I don’t see any reason to save 3% on a total system cost to gimp my lows by 10-20%.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ryzen-9-3900x-7-3700x-review,6214-10.html
 
how are you gonna act like a couple hundred bucks are pennies and then say "I also feel way more comfortable buying a cheap mobo" AHAHAH LOL!!!! point = moot

and those reports are how old? we are getting agesa 1.0.0.4 sometime in November. come talk to me then.

An extra 100Mhz isn’t going to fix that gap, nevermind the KS is faster than the K.

By cheap mobo I mean the most economical mobo that fits my needs. With AMD everytime I did that there were bugs and/or deficiencies.

It’s not a couple hundred dollars, my KF was $420. At the same time the 3800x was $399.
 
It’s not a couple hundred dollars, my KF was $420. At the same time the 3800x was $399.


KF is 8c/8t PS5 = 8c/16t!!!! ahahahaha console peasants will be shitting on your head come next christmas. lol . what now? when GTA6 uses all 16t what you gonna do? upgrade? ...yep.

you will end up part of the PC Master(bation) race.!!! LOL!!! especially when AMD has a bigger market share and thats what devs will be programming for. get w/ the times, homey. intel is better at space heating tho.... i will give them that.

edit: 14+++ gigantameter
 
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did you say "quite a bit" ? idk about that. amd 3xxx has ipc clock for clock 99% on par w/ intel. but intel doesn't come w/ a cooler so to get it to a clock that BEATS amd you need to spend another $100 on a cooler so amd WILL beat intel on either price or core count if you are talking about $$$.

You're going to want a decent cooler either way -- and IPC is a little lower than Intel at the same clocks, while AMD cannot clock higher.

Now, if you're a stock-cooler user...
 
KF is 8c/8t PS5 = 8c/16t!!!! ahahahaha console peasants will be shitting on your head come next christmas. lol . what now? when GTA6 uses all 16t what you gonna do? upgrade? ...yep.

you will end up part of the PC Master(bation) race.!!! LOL!!! especially when AMD has a bigger market share and thats what devs will be programming for. get w/ the times, homey. intel is better at space heating tho.... i will give them that.

edit: 14+++ gigantameter

Yeah, I am sure that’ll happen right after they program for Mantle and DX12...

Considering I maintain 5 rigs in total, IF your hopes and dreams came true I would buy AMD. Not holding my breath. Not like we haven’t heard that exact same nonsense that last decade which never came to fruition.
 
KF is 8c/8t PS5 = 8c/16t!!!! ahahahaha console peasants will be shitting on your head come next christmas. lol . what now? when GTA6 uses all 16t what you gonna do? upgrade? ...yep.

you will end up part of the PC Master(bation) race.!!! LOL!!! especially when AMD has a bigger market share and thats what devs will be programming for. get w/ the times, homey. intel is better at space heating tho.... i will give them that.

edit: 14+++ gigantameter

The 9900kf is not a 8c / 8t part. What planet are you on?

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...900kf-processor-16m-cache-up-to-5-00-ghz.html
 
You're going to want a decent cooler either way -- and IPC is a little lower than Intel at the same clocks, while AMD cannot clock higher.

Now, if you're a stock-cooler user...


even if you're not. for same price you will have more cores w/ AMD for same price OR same amount of cores/threads for cheaper. plus amd geting ready to release ANOTHER update to give ANOTHER at least 100 mhz all core performance boost so should be in line or more than original boost specs. yeah intel has a slight clock speed advantage but it is also MORE EXPENSIVE but for the same price w/ amd you have more cores so if you are STREAMING then you will get BETTER PERFORMANCE. besides if it wasn't for AMD coming out w/ ryzen, they were already starting to double the cost's of theire performance cpu's when it cost them the same to build. nobody wants to pay $2000+ for a processor except maybe YOU? so i guess maybe you have enough left over after buying your volkswagen and your iPhone to afford the TOL intel proc then hey you''re prob use to bending over to corporations so take it and f***ing like it. meanwhile they are laughing all the way to the bank.
 
The 9900kf is not a 8c / 8t part. What planet are you on?

you're right. i f*cked up but still doesn't come w/ cooler.

so compare that price w/ amd 8c/16t proc that comes w/ a cooler if nothing else you can sell for $40-50 easy on ebay. ...yeah
 
Not holding my breath. Not like we haven’t heard that exact same nonsense that last decade which never came to fruition.

what are you talking about? the last consoles had 8 jaguar cores. that's the only reason a 9th gen intel quad had no prob keeping up. look at ipc. just wait until the new consoles come out and have 8c/16t ZEN 2 (IT'S ALREADY CONFIRMED) and when that's what dev's are targeting... then come back to this thread. but don't think about coming back here and telling me about how your dinky little intel quad no longer gets [H]ard. because i'm just gonna laugh.
 
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...and slower.

by how much? and i am not talking about now (even though perfomance has improved and is still improving since day 1 reviews) but i am talking next year when new consoles drop and every tom, d!ck and hairy have a 8c/16t ZEN 2 in their living room?!
 
You're going to want a decent cooler either way -- and IPC is a little lower than Intel at the same clocks, while AMD cannot clock higher.

Now, if you're a stock-cooler user...
In gaming sure and Adobe premier, but in many other areas that's not true. The only area where it's universally true would be in the area of AVX-512 and that's not everywhere and won't be for quite some time if it ever is.

I keep hearing this supposed ipc advantage and there's many benchmarks out there that makes that statement less than completely factual.

This SKU doesn't even keep up with the 3900 the moment the workload leaves games so I'm still wondering where the argument is coming from.

The fact of the matter is developers are moving away from sticking everything on one core because well they have to. A 3-5% per generation is no where near enough to keep pace with the fact that most cpus have adjacent cores just sitting there. They are going to use them and when they do the boost clocks will be affected. It just is what it is right now until a new packaging breakthrough comes through.
 
what are you talking about? the last consoles had 8 jaguar cores. that's the only reason a 9th gen intel quad had no prob keeping up. look at ipc. just wait until the new consoles come out and have 8c/16t ZEN 2 (IT'S ALREADY CONFIRMED) and when that's what dev's are targeting... then come back to this thread. but don't think about coming back here and telling me about how your dinky little intel quad no longer gets [H]ard. because i'm just gonna laugh.

It’s an octo core not a quad. I’ll choose to stick with reality and historical data. Historically having their chips in consoles have not given any sort of “fine wine” effect for either GPUs or CPUs.

Also the 9900KS is 8/16 so I don’t even know what you are talking about. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are drunk posting. ;)
 
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It’s an octo core not a quad. I’ll choose to stick with reality and historical data. Historically having their chips in consoles have not given any sort of “fine wine” effect for either GPUs or CPUs.

Also the 9900KS is 8/16 so I don’t even know what you are talking about. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are drunk posting. ;)
Yeah, hopefully it is just drunk posting. Disturbing otherwise.
 
In most other areas you're outside of consumer applications.

Get a workstation.

One could argue that the Intel top dog is also outside of "typical" consumer area and is into pro / hobbyist area instead.
Given the nature of the bleeding edge segment and that mostly advance users will use those higher core counts it's safe to assume a high percentage of those users will use it outside of Gaming ... don't you think ? Like VM, encoding even streaming...

Gotta ask, are you paid per post by the blue team ? You really try hard to nail this idea that AMD slower by what 3~5% at 1440P gaming but will toss all the metrics they lose at simply saying to buy a workstation !? Sure, let's spend more on Xeon while at it... nonsense.

Personally I would look into / recommend more the 3700 or 9700 CPUs for gaming, better value for almost the same performance in high resolution (I'll toss out 720P & 1080P benchmarks much like you did with you workstation argument).
 
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are drunk posting. ;)

and i'll give you the benifit of the doubt that you weren't the one that tattled to the mods about the funny comment i made about your name. ;)

weak sauce bro. :[H]4life:
 
One could argue that the Intel top dog is also outside of "typical" consumer area and is into pro / hobbyist area instead.
Given the nature of the bleeding edge segment and that mostly advance users will use those higher core counts it's safe to assume a high percentage of those users will use it outside of Gaming ... don't you think ? Like VM, encoding even streaming...

Gotta ask, are you paid per post by the blue team ? You really try hard to nail this idea that AMD slower by what 3~5% at 1440P gaming but will toss all the metrics they lose at simply saying to buy a workstation !? Sure, let's spend more on Xeon while at it... nonsense.

Personally I would look into / recommend more the 3700 or 9700 CPUs for gaming, better value for almost the same performance in high resolution (I'll toss out 720P & 1080P benchmarks much like you did with you workstation argument).

It’s not so much resolution as it is Hz. Under ~90Hz there isn’t much of a difference.

Also a lot of older (and not so old like Warhammer 2) are singled threaded and many “multithreaded” still have a single thread component somewhere. At some point the threads have to come together.

Regardless, I think you are right with the 3700x/9700k for gaming. The only rig I cared about Intel for was my VR rig, personally.
 
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and i'll give you the benifit of the doubt that you weren't the one that tattled to the mods about the funny comment i made about your name. ;)

weak sauce bro. :[H]4life:

I didn’t even see anything about my name, wasn’t me that reported you, I would have called you out on it in the thread since it’s a sign of losing an argument. I am half curious what you said but I am not going to waste my time skimming through your text, once was enough.

Your whole arguement was the consoles are 8C16T and games will be made for that thread count, but so is the 9900KS and so is my 9900KF.
 
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