Saturday, October 13th 2018
New PT Data: i9-9900K is 66% Pricier While Being Just 12% Faster than 2700X at Gaming
Principled Technologies (PT), which Intel paid to obtain some very outrageous test results for its Core i9-9900K eight-core processor launch event test-results, revised its benchmark data by improving its testing methodology partially. Initial tests by the outfit comparing Core i9-9900K to the Ryzen 7 2700X and Ryzen Threadripper 2950X and 2990WX, sprung up false and misleading results because PT tested the AMD chip with half its cores effectively disabled, and crippled its memory controller with an extremely sub-optimal memory configuration (4-module + dual-rank clocked high, leaving the motherboard to significantly loosen up timings).
The original testing provided us with such gems as the i9-9900K "being up to 50 percent faster than 2700X at gaming." As part of its revised testing, while Principled Technologies corrected half its rookie-mistakes, by running the 2700X in the default "Creator Mode" that enables all 8 cores; it didn't correct the sub-optimal memory. Despite this, the data shows gaming performance percentage-differences between the i9-9900K and the 2700X narrow down to single-digit or around 12.39 percent on average, seldom crossing 20 percent. This is a significant departure from the earlier testing, which skewed the average on the basis of >40% differences in some games, due to half the cores being effectively disabled on the 2700X. The bottom-line of PT's new data is this: the Core i9-9900K is roughly 12 percent faster than the Ryzen 7 2700X at gaming, while being a whopping 66% pricier ($319 vs. $530 average online prices).
This whopping 12.3% gap between the i9-9900K and 2700X could narrow further to single-digit percentages if the 2700X is tested with an optimal memory configuration, such as single-rank 2-module dual-channel, with memory timings of around 14-14-14-34, even if the memory clock remains at DDR4-2933 MHz.
Intel responded to these "triumphant" new numbers with the following statement:
The entire testing data follows:
Source:
Principled Technologies (PDF)
The original testing provided us with such gems as the i9-9900K "being up to 50 percent faster than 2700X at gaming." As part of its revised testing, while Principled Technologies corrected half its rookie-mistakes, by running the 2700X in the default "Creator Mode" that enables all 8 cores; it didn't correct the sub-optimal memory. Despite this, the data shows gaming performance percentage-differences between the i9-9900K and the 2700X narrow down to single-digit or around 12.39 percent on average, seldom crossing 20 percent. This is a significant departure from the earlier testing, which skewed the average on the basis of >40% differences in some games, due to half the cores being effectively disabled on the 2700X. The bottom-line of PT's new data is this: the Core i9-9900K is roughly 12 percent faster than the Ryzen 7 2700X at gaming, while being a whopping 66% pricier ($319 vs. $530 average online prices).
Intel responded to these "triumphant" new numbers with the following statement:
Given the feedback from the tech community, we are pleased that Principled Technologies ran additional tests. They've now published these results along with even more detail on the configurations used and the rationale. The results continue to show that the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K is the world's best gaming processor. We are thankful to Principled Technologies' time and transparency throughout the process. We always appreciate feedback from the tech community and are looking forward to comprehensive third party reviews coming out on October 19.The media never disputed the possibility of i9-9900K being faster than the 2700X. It did, however, call out the bovine defecation peddled as "performance advantage data."
The entire testing data follows:
322 Comments on New PT Data: i9-9900K is 66% Pricier While Being Just 12% Faster than 2700X at Gaming
I'm getting my Devil delivered this week. when I get it I will definitely play with it. I wonder how will it go with my screen :)
I got my 4k screen and it's so amazing :) It was worth it and hopefully my Vega Red Devil will make it shine even more :D
25% does not mean 100-125%. Do the math... If I got 25 more FPS and I was at 100 FPS, that would be 25% more. 100% more of 100 FPS is 200 FPS.
Your heat example is a 50% increase, but... those values are made up. I haven't seen a 50% increase on temperatures from HT in any HT CPU I owned or benchmarked. I have seen 10-20C much more commonly (and the latter is on my current CPU adding 16 threads...... not 4), but if I am already sitting at 70C................ that isn't a 50% increase (and those are real numbers with my current CPU).
It's sad the reviews dont do that, only a user can do things like that and show its findings, I wish somebody would do that to a 9900k, how much it can be underclocked as 8 threads only and then as 16 threads, the usefulness of have a 16 threads to a 8 threads and the tradeoffs of it cause for me is very important. 9900k is just not worth for me, too much heat and performance to justify the price even thought its binned.
I hope Intel is working on a successor to Core.
Is the problem just the density/complexity of the design, or is it just the high frequency?
Power consumption grows because there are more transistors in the CPU (more circuitry). :-)