Intel Core i9-10900K

[cucker tarlson]

frankly I don't feel like pulling the trigger now.
zen 4000 is not going to disappoint,and b550 is the only way to get pcie4 without ruining the budget.

 

[HenrySomeone]

Yeah, I sort of feel your predicament. It is getting more and more clear that 8700k bought at around the time when Zen+ launched (when you could get it for even less than 300$ or Euros for that matter - I have a buddy who was living in Germany at the time and got his for either 285 or 289) was the best gaming oriented cpu purchase of recent years...

 

[cucker tarlson]

Yeah, I sort of feel your predicament. It is getting more and more clear that 8700k bought at around the time when Zen+ launched (when you could get it for even less than 300$ or Euros for that matter - I have a buddy who was living in Germany at the time and got his for either 285 or 289) was the best gaming oriented cpu purchase of recent years...

true.now getting comet lake-s equivalent seems meh and as far as ryzen 3000..... 4000 seems worth the wait.

 

[mrthanhnguyen]

Sold my binned 9900ks for $1100 and It is not enough money to buy new gen. Apex xii $450, 10900k $800. Should I wait for Ryzen 4000 ? Gaming only.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Sold my binned 9900ks for $1100 and It is not enough money to buy new gen. Apex xii $450, 10900k $800. Should I wait for Ryzen 4000 ? Gaming only.

you had a 5.3GHz 9900ks that you sold to get a better gaming cpu.
good luck.

 

[X71200]

Sold my binned 9900ks for $1100 and It is not enough money to buy new gen. Apex xii $450, 10900k $800. Should I wait for Ryzen 4000 ? Gaming only.

Yes.

Off-topic but you have / had all that with an old 24 inch TN panel? Ditch that and get a real monitor first.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Off-topic but you have / had all that with an old 24 inch TN panel? Ditch that and get a real monitor first.

pardon me,but monitors are use specific.

 

[KarymidoN]

Sold my binned 9900ks for $1100 and It is not enough money to buy new gen. Apex xii $450, 10900k $800. Should I wait for Ryzen 4000 ? Gaming only.

for "gaming only" the 10600k looks really promissing tbh. maybe wait a bit for the AMD price drops and AMD B550 boards.

 

[cucker tarlson]

for "gaming only" the 10600k looks really promissing tbh. maybe wait a bit for the AMD price drops and AMD B550 boards.

xt versions coming.
the prices are fine,it's a bit more performance they need.

 

[HenrySomeone]

Yup, this will be a tough one... I see no way any 4000 chip is going to be faster than 10900k (in gaming at least), but that also won't really be any faster than a 5.3 9900ks...except once again a highly binned and OCed one like shown in this thread before. Would honestly be best to wait for Rocket Lake but that depends on what your placeholder cpu is.

 

[BArms]

So essentially the i9-10900K gives you the best gaming CPU at stock speeds, but little to no headroom for overclocking due to heat.

I think if the tables were reversed, e.g. AMD had produced this CPU on 14nm it would have been seen as a huge success. I'm not saying go buy one, I want to replace my 7700K but I'll wait for Zen 3 (moreso because of PCIE 4.0) but it does seem if you just want a very solid gaming CPU to play the latest, and you aren't going to overclock much, it's not a terrible purchase.

 

[HenrySomeone]

If Pcie 4 is your main concern, then just sell your 7700k + mobo while they are still fetching such great prices and get a Z490 + 10600k at almost no extra cost. The board should then support it with 11th gen cpus when it actually becomes important...

 

[LTUGamer]

Now I see why it is called Ice Lake. Intel just mentioned what type of liquid cooler is needed

 

[cucker tarlson]

If Pcie 4 is your main concern, then just sell your 7700k + mobo while they are still fetching such great prices and get a Z490 + 10600k at almost no extra cost. The board should then support it with 11th gen cpus when it actually becomes important...

or get b550 w. zen 2/3 and don't upgrade

 

[BArms]

If Pcie 4 is your main concern, then just sell your 7700k + mobo while they are still fetching such great prices and get a Z490 + 10600k at almost no extra cost. The board should then support it with 11th gen cpus when it actually becomes important...

It's not bad advice, thanks. I'll probably wait for Zen 3 though first, since a new build won't really help that much until the next gfx cards are out anyway.

 

[HenrySomeone]

or get b550 w. zen 2/3 and don't upgrade

Yes, but 10600k will likely at least match the best of Zen 3 chips in games and while the latter will be the end of the road for AM4, you will have another gen available on LGA 1200 (in an interesting reversal of team red's perpetual motto - "better upgradeability"). Although 7700k should last another year or so for even high-end gaming, its second hand market value will eventually plummet though and it is actually a good idea to sell now.

 

[GeorgeMan]

Very good review, as always!
Sorry if it was mentioned again in the comments, but on page 20 I don't see it hitting 5.3GHz even on 1 thread generic FP load. Isn't it advertised to be able to hit 5.3GHz on 1-2 thread loads or am I missing something?

 

[zaku49]

I game at 4k and wow is the 10900k a horrible value when compared to the 3900x, 2fps difference but a MAJOR loss of 2 cores, even at 2k, there's an extremely small difference, not worth the major loss of 2 cores. Unless you're still gaming at 1080p like a peasant this CPU is a horrible value when compared to the 3900x.

Also Zen 3 is just 4 months away , and it's going to make you ask yourself why does the 10900k even exist?

This review is also very one sided, it's strictly targeted at one type of gamer, if you game at 1080p then this review is for you, if you game at anything higher, which most of us do these days then this review will not be providing you with an accurate representation of value to performance.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Does anybody else think it would be both informative and beneficial (and also finally put some potentially false arguments "to bed") if TPU, some larger tech YouTube Channel, or anyone with the necessary resources did a controlled, blind experiment to definitively determine at what percentage delta a human can actually differentiate an Fps difference correctly more than 50% of the time (specifically for frame rates above 100fps since, whether explicitly or implicitly, it's the high fps, 1080p performance that's given the most weight in determine gaming performance)?

Personally I feel like it's impossible for a human being to discern a 5% difference in Fps (over 100fps) which equates to, for example 128fps vs 134fps, but I'd like to know for sure, especially if my assumption is incorrect. Does anyone here honestly think that a majority of people can correctly identify a difference this small better than random guessing?

The trend in PC hardware reviews has been to increasingly incorporate more "real world" tests that are more meaningful to the user, just like how most of us know, for example, that sequential r/w's for an SSD mean very little for your day to day experience compared to random read and writes at low queue depths, and most of the better reviewers weight such performance more heavily than sequential performance.

I just feel as though scientifically determining at what point a difference in Fps and gaming performance is actually meaningful and detectable by a human being would give less knowledgeable consumers (as well as the community as a whole) the tools they need to make a more informed decision, and in the end, isn't that the overarching purpose of reviews?

 

[david0852]

Why is PL2 (250w) in the +300W mark and the PL1 (125w) in the 200w ? Is the vertical axis wrong?

 

[GeorgeMan]

Why is PL2 (250w) in the +300W mark and the PL1 (125w) in the 200w ? Is the vertical axis wrong?

No it's total system power consumption.

 

[watzupken]

Testing still doesn't include 1% and 0.1% lows. Shame really since that's where you really see the differences in a CPU throttled game and one that is smooth, regardless of averages.

View attachment 156632

It's noticable when you do include these results. E.g. the stock 10900k has higher 1% lows than the AMD 3900x average FPS.

Who buys a i9 processor with a RTX 2080Ti and games at 1080p?

Why is PL2 (250w) in the +300W mark and the PL1 (125w) in the 200w ? Is the vertical axis wrong?
View attachment 156674

Its telling you that under load, the total system power draw is say around 320W, of which the CPU should be taking 250W to achieve the boost speed. After running for what looks like 50 seconds, it goes back to the PL1 state (base clockspeed). The boost (PL2) state duration may differ from motherboard to motherboard, and subjected that you have sufficient cooling and power. With most reviews using high end cooler (generally a 360 AIO from what I observed), so you are unlikely to see throttling or critically high temps.

 

[B-Real]

Amazing job, was waiting for this review ! It seems the i5 10600k is the real winner for high end gaming rigs? 260€ and almost same performance as the other top of the line Intel CPUs.

Was also shocked to see differences up to 30% on some gaming scenarios, compared to AMD, damn that's a lot imo.

The total cost is too much tho, I would get a 10600k for Pure high refresh gaming machine, 3900x por serious productivity, 3600 for good all arounder budget machine.

Yes, there is a game, where there is bigger difference (actually more than 30% in FC5), but in the end averaged from 10 games you get that it's only 8% faster in games, in FHD, with a 2080Ti. However, nobody uses the 2080Ti in FHD. Or maybe 1% of the 2080Ti owners. In 1440p, the 8% reduces to 4%. You can't even see that 8%, not to speak of this 4%. And you have to pay $100-120 extra for the CPU + the cooling + the (maybe more expensive?) motherboard. Not to speak of the 50-70W extra power consumption and the bigger heat. Man, that 100C temperature in OC...

Comet Lake is a huge NO for every PC builder, just as refreshed Coffee Lake was: clearly slower in productivity, slightly faster in games, significantly higher power consumption, higher temperature, these paired with significantly higher price (+25%, it reaches more than +35% at Microcenter), with no stock cooler (yes, you can get better for the stock 3900X cooler but hey, it can cope with the CPU), so you can count an extra $50-100 for that for a 10900K. And not to mention the probably higher mobo prices.

 

[Ravenas]

Thanks for this review W1zzard.

Good read. Overall I agree, however, I just don't see the benefit. For an extra ~$220 you could jump in

AMD marketing is pushing reviewers hard for that, because it's the only way their cores don't sit idle in games. Do really that many people game and stream at the same time?

All the time.

 

[EarthDog]

10 FPS on >150 FPS averages is negligible and you will never see any return of that in a real life scenario

That's 7.5%... the difference between high and ultra or 2xAA and 4xAA...or pegged at 144 FPS versus not. It's something...and in some cases, a bump in the class of card!

AMD marketing is pushing reviewers hard for that, because it's the only way their cores don't sit idle in games. Do really that many people game and stream at the same time?

A handful surely (all the time, no)...I think its novel to have this type of testing...but in its own article... kind of like the PCIe bandwidth or memory scaling articles. To have to do that for every new CPU review...ick.

Hilarious. Needs best bin and special gear to hit 200mhz over stock turbo. Why even bother... I'll take stock any day of the week, funny how that is the same between Intel and AMD now all of a sudden

Stock all core turbo is 4.8 Ghz (4.9 GHz TVB). Stock single core TVB is 5.3 GHz. So that 5.5 GHz is likely a great bin...and is, technically 600 MHz over stock TVB..700 MHz over stock turbo.

As I side note, I've had two of these so far. Both have run 5.2 GHz at 1.35V all c/t using AIDA64 default stress test. I run out of cooling there (Corsair H150i).