Intel Core i9-9900K

[muSPK]

i7 8700K and i9 9900K is almost at same price now in Swedistan due to supply shortage, only 100 USD difference in price. So I guess I am sticking with the i9 and get 2 extra cores.

 

[W1zzard]

You think this will be worked out with future BIOS updates?

To me this looks like "working as intended". The CPU is rated for 95 W, so it'll run at 95 W max (it can go beyond that for a short duration).

If you have a better heatsink -> dial up the TDP. If Intel magically changed their 95 W parts to 150 W over night via BIOS update, all hell would break lose

 

[v12dock]

So let me get this right, even when they decided to solder the IHS they still somehow managed to do a bad job ?

This is correct Intel can't even solder.

 

[PopcornMachine]

Another review where I am dumbfounded with the conclusion of "Editor's Choice".

Leaves me wondering if the reviewer read his own review.

 

[Dante Uchiha]

I'm not sure what you're trying to show me? That max power draw is probably using AVX code & all cores being loaded at 4.7GHz, at which point 9900k exceeds it's PL2 & consumes an overwhelming 221W & almost 60W more than 9700k all core @4.6 GHz.

The 9900k will be horrible at full load, wrt power consumption, but part of that can be mitigated using better cooling.

The disparity between the TPU tests and other sites? The TPU review is the only one that makes the 9900k seem efficient.

 

[B-Real]

So it's actually 8% faster in FHD with a 1080Ti compared to a 2700X and costs 250$ more. That's really the 30% average PT got. And consumes more power than a 2700X. Intel is getting to new lows.

I am going to say it up front, I prefer Intel over AMD. But looking at these benchmarks and going over the price difference, it makes me sad to admit that

I play my games at 1440p and when I compare the performance differences between the 9900k and 2700X, I just can't figure out the insane price difference

1440p:

i9-9900k vs AMD 2700x

AC:Origin
77.2 vs 74.5

Battlefield 1
134.4 vs 126.1

Civilization VI
130.5 vs 113.2

F1 2017
138.5 vs 133.3

Far Cry 5
113.0 vs 102.8

I could go on but I think you get my point. These FPS are so high that 1% difference that is happening makes no improvement during gameplay. But the 50%-60% increase in price, is just down right unbelievable

Yes, I am only looking at this from the gamer view point and I don't care about the other settings because at the end of the day my machine is for gaming

Hail for your unbiased approach!

Yeah sure. Average fps. If they had 1% low at least, ryzen would be crushed.

Haha, yes for sure. You need to grap in something.

Wow, only skimmed through all the performance tables but this CPU looks pretty damn good. Now to go look at pricing...

$660 on Newegg Canada, a little bit more than what I paid for the 3930k. I could live with that if I ever move on from my 4790k.

LOL, trying to justify the nearly 600$ price...

Yes indeed, am I the only one to be disappointed by this CPU ? The scaling in Multithread is very poor, some other tests have shown a huge decrease in speed when used with heavy Multithreaded tasks... If OC is the only way to keep high frequency, a very expensive cooler will be needed and a powerful PSU, getting an increase of 140W in power consumption when OC only at 5.2 GHz is just not possible for a little workstation, a 7900x will do much better, even my 6950x (got it at $500) performs better in Multithread tasks @ just 4.4GHz (Cinebench score 2318).

Well, I am not a high core gamer, but I do play with a 1440p monitor, this 9900K gives no advantages at this resolution, so this cpu is not worth for gaming at this resolution in front of a 2600x, 2700x, 8700K...
So what is the real target of this CPU(sold 700€ in EU) ? As little workstation, a 1920x way cheapper (220€ less expensive than the 9900K in EU), a 1950x (sold just a little bit more expensive) will be better choice for workstation.
Well the 9900K do well in all kind of task but the 2700x do well too and i IS for my opinion, the BEST CPU VALUE for all kind of tasks, the 9900K is crucified by its high price.

Yes, 1440P and above nearly wipes all the small differences on FHD to 1-5%. And most 1080Ti users do not use their cards for FHD gaming. And if you play on FHD, you will use a card usually up to 1070, which also gives zero upgrade from an 1500x-2600-2700x or any i5 or i7 from the past 2 or 3 gens compared to a 9900K.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

i7 8700K and i9 9900K is almost at same price now in Swedistan due to supply shortage, only 100 USD difference in price. So I guess I am sticking with the i9 and get 2 extra cores.

The i9 9900k needs a 200watt cooler to run at its stock turbo boost speeds properly or it'll throttle itself. That's another $100-$200.

Why not get Ryzen 2 or wait for Zen 2 in early 2019?

 

[B-Real]

i7 8700K and i9 9900K is almost at same price now in Swedistan due to supply shortage, only 100 USD difference in price. So I guess I am sticking with the i9 and get 2 extra cores.

Why can't you jump of the blue train mate?

 

[ShurikN]

I think Steve from Hardware Unboxed said it best. "For whom was this chip made?!"
It's marginally better than 8700K in gaming while costing $150-200 more.
It's marginally better than 2700X in productivity while costing almost two times more.

Not to mention you can get an entire 2700X system with mobo and 16GB of ram for the same preorder/inflated price


Not only that, but you can't hit the same clocks as a delided 8700K. Plus, you need a monster of a cooler for any type of OC. And even with it, it'll still hit 90C.

Gotta hand it to Intel, they made both 2700X and original Coffee Lake look amazing.

 

[Zubasa]

Unbelievable

So let me get this right, even when they decided to solder the IHS they still somehow managed to do a bad job ?

IMO that solder job looks like something you would expect from 2011 not 2018.
I guess this is where all the micro-cracks / thermal expansion BS that have been spew around the internet came from.

 

[EatingDirt]

From the review:

The Core i9-9900K is currently listed on Amazon for $530. For some reason the Newegg price that we usually use is $580.

I don't see the 9900k for $530 anywhere. $580 on Amazon & Newegg. May want to adjust the Performance-Per-Dollar graph to reflect that? (or add another bar reflecting the current $580 price)

Otherwise good review, as expected the 9900k is fast, but it doesn't reaally fit anywhere besides consumer PC "Performance King".

If you only game or need single threaded speed one could save $200 currently with an 8700k and get less than 2% less performance, and if one is looking for value the 2700x is around 15% slower in the majority of tasks but is 48% cheaper.

If you need threads and don't care all that much about value you're generally better off with the x399/x299 platforms.

 

[Hossein Almet]

If you could, try exporting 200 or 300 photos from Lightroom at 5.1Ghz and 4.8Ghz and see which one takes less time to finish to the job.

 

[Mighty-Lu-Bu]

AMD will finally beat Intel in gaming with Zen 2 and it will be glorious!

 

[W1zzard]

If you could, try exporting 200 or 300 photos from Lightroom at 5.1Ghz and 4.8Ghz and see which one takes less time to finish to the job.

We'll add some Lightroom tests in our next CPU benchmark system revision (after new Windows update, probably in November)

Could you share some info on your workflow, so I can reproduce it as closely as possible?

I don't see the 9900k for $530 anywhere. $580 on Amazon & Newegg.

Looks like Amazon jacked up their prices, one of my staff members ordered today for $530. Let's give it one more day to see where prices end up and then I'll adjust

 

[Hossein Almet]

We'll add some Lightroom tests in our next CPU benchmark system revision (after new Windows update, probably in November)

Could you share some info on your workflow, so I can reproduce it as closely as possible?


Looks like Amazon jacked up their prices, one of my staff members ordered today for $530. Let's give it one more day to see where prices end up and then I'll adjust

Well, my i7 6800K benchmark at incredible results 4.3Ghz, but when I exported 100 photos from Lightroom in the middle of Melbourne Winter and timed it, it took more time to finish the job than @ 4.1Ghz, Lightroom is a very taxing application, when exporting photos it loads the CPU between 92% and 98%.

 

[2big2fail]

Hi, @W1zzard ,

Could you provide some details on the Tensorflow benchmark? I'm a developer that uses Tensorflow. I'd be also interested to know if you did any combination of CPU only and CPU+GPU for Tensorflow.

Thanks

 

[Octopuss]

Once you excavate your product out of the packaging

 

[Shatun_Bear]

I think Steve from Hardware Unboxed said it best. "For whom was this chip made?!"
It's marginally better than 8700K in gaming while costing $150-200 more.
It's marginally better than 2700X in productivity while costing almost two times more.

Not to mention you can get an entire 2700X system with mobo and 16GB of ram for the same preorder/inflated price
View attachment 108973

Not only that, but you can't hit the same clocks as a delided 8700K. Plus, you need a monster of a cooler for any type of OC. And even with it, it'll still hit 90C.

Gotta hand it to Intel, they made both 2700X and original Coffee Lake look amazing.

I don't understand the point of this CPU, it was a surprise they rushed it to market. Perhaps they got spooked by the 2700X and TR2 so needed to scramble something onto the market to try and combat those.

But at $550 it's DOA in terms of gaining any marketshare back. Even at $400 I could not recommend one as the 2700X can be had for $290 and doesn't need a $150 cooler. But at $550!?? Lol.

i7 8700K and i9 9900K is almost at same price now in Swedistan due to supply shortage, only 100 USD difference in price. So I guess I am sticking with the i9 and get 2 extra cores.

Come off the Intel koolaid dude you're not thinking straight.

 

[Frick]

Adding some lighter games could be a good idea for the future. Anyone else has an opinion on that?

Dwarf Fortress would be an outstanding addition, and honestly shouldn't be hard to achieve. Ask on their forums for an advanced save and just use that, or possibly measure world generation. That game will suffer the FPS death if you go on for long enough. I don't know how big the difference will be between CPUs though...

For those of us who prefer high refresh rate gaming, is there any way you could include minimum frames or an average of the minimums in future benchmarks? I feel like this would further highlight the differences in CPUs for gaming.

Not just high refresh gamers, I've been wanting that number for a while now, it's important on the lower end of things too. This is like the last site that doesn't include it tbh.

i7 8700K and i9 9900K is almost at same price now in Swedistan due to supply shortage, only 100 USD difference in price. So I guess I am sticking with the i9 and get 2 extra cores.

That ain't close dude, that's like several plattor öl.

 

[Recus]

I am going to say it up front, I prefer Intel over AMD. But looking at these benchmarks and going over the price difference, it makes me sad to admit that

I play my games at 1440p and when I compare the performance differences between the 9900k and 2700X, I just can't figure out the insane price difference

1440p:

i9-9900k vs AMD 2700x

AC:Origin
77.2 vs 74.5

Battlefield 1
134.4 vs 126.1

Civilization VI
130.5 vs 113.2

F1 2017
138.5 vs 133.3

Far Cry 5
113.0 vs 102.8

I could go on but I think you get my point. These FPS are so high that 1% difference that is happening makes no improvement during gameplay. But the 50%-60% increase in price, is just down right unbelievable

Yes, I am only looking at this from the gamer view point and I don't care about the other settings because at the end of the day my machine is for gaming

Because competition increasing prices.

 

[Mighty-Lu-Bu]

I don't understand the point of this CPU, it was a surprise they rushed it to market. Perhaps they got spooked by the 2700X and TR2 so needed to scramble something onto the market to try and combat those.

But at $550 it's DOA in terms of gaining any marketshare back. Even at $400 I could not recommend one as the 2700X can be had for $290 and doesn't need a $150 cooler. But at $550!?? Lol.



Come off the Intel koolaid dude you're not thinking straight.

People don't understand the point of this CPU just like they don't understand the point of RTX. It seems like Intel rushed out this CPU because they were worried about both 2700X (which is currently $304.99 and is expected to drop well below the $300 mark by the end of year) and Zen 2 which will probably be in the $350-$380 for the flagship model.

This CPU is not impressive at all- worse power draw than Threadripper, only minimal performance gains in gaming from the i7-8700k, and it is expensive. Why shell out $500 for this CPU when you can get the 2700X for $200 cheaper, that has similar performance and better power consumption.... Zen 2 is going to ruin Intel's 2019 year.

 

[mastershake575]

Zen 2 is going to ruin Intel's 2019 year.

I have a feeling this is going to be the case.

Zen 2 doesn't even have to be groundbreaking to ruin Intel .

2700 successor with 300-350mhz increase on all cores + 5-7% increase in IPC for near $300 and it's probably all over to be honest

 

[JRMBelgium]

For all visitors from the Netherlands & Belgium. Chart is based on this review + prices on Tweakers pricewatch:

 

[Captain_Tom]

I just cannot conceive of an intelligent human who would buy this for any good reason. It is only about 8% better in 1080p gaming than a 2700X that costs $300 less!

$300 base cost + $100 for an AIO cooler + $50 more for the expensive motherboards. That's paying $450 for 8% better low-res gaming performance, and that is nearly the difference between buying a 1080 Ti and a 2080 Ti!!!!

There is no world where buying this makes sense.

 

[xorbe]

Don't see a reason to upgrade my 5GHz 8086K for 4K/VR gaming.