Noctua first teased their passive CPU cooler at Computex 2019 which weighed 1.5 kg and could handle processors with a TDP of 120 W passively and 180 W with quiet fans. Noctua had been planning to release a commercial version of the cooler in Q1 2021 but that date was pushed to Q2 2021 when Noctua updated its product roadmap in early 2021. Noctua has recently confirmed that this latest launch date is on schedule with an announcement that the cooler is "coming very soon" in response to a user on Twitter. The prototype featured mounting for AM4 and LGA 115x sockets with it keeping the Intel i9-9900K cool under load so we expect it will handle any consumer CPU.

MSI announced that it is bringing the PCI-SIG resizable base-address register (resizable BAR) support to a variety of older PC platforms, and not just the latest Intel 400-series and AMD 500-series. Among these are Intel 300-series, AMD 400-series, and AMD TRX40. This should come as a boon to those with 8th Gen and 9th Gen Core "Coffeee Lake" processors, such as the i9-9900K and i5-8400. Support is also being added to AMD X470 and AMD B450 chipset motherboards, however, this requires a compatible processor, and the latest beta UEFI firmware that supports them. Lastly, resizable-BAR support is making its way to the AMD TRX40 chipset (Socket sTRX4) Threadripper platform.

Resizable BAR is a feature that allows a processor to see the entire video memory of a discrete GPU as a single addressable block, rather than through 256 MB apertures. This has the potential to tangibly improve performance with certain games. Currently, AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series "Big Navi" GPUs; and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 30-series "Ampere" GPUs support it. MSI is releasing UEFI firmware updates that add resizable-BAR support. Keep checking the "support" section of your motherboard's product page on the MSI website.

Huawei is preparing itself against further United States government technology bans with the introduction of its ARM-based 7 nm Kunpeng 920 CPUs in desktop systems for the Chinese government and enterprise markets. The specific chip used in this upcoming computer is the Kunpeng 920 3211K CPU which features 24 cores clocked at 2.6 GHz paired with 8 GB DDR4 memory, 512 GB Samsung SSD, and an AMD Radeon RX 520 GPU. This specific configuration reportedly beats Intel's Core i9-9900K 8-core processor in multi-core performance, while single-core performance is not reported as it likely lags far behind the high clock speeds of the Core i9-9900K. The desktop runs a custom Linux derived UOS operating system and cannot run Windows 10.

Ahead of its launch a leaked ASUS ROG marketing slide reveals Cinebench R15 performance comparisons between the new Intel Core i9-10900K and AMD's current MSDT flagship part, the Ryzen 9 3950X. The graphs also include Intel's previous gen flagship, the i9-9900K, which should provide a reasonable indication of where the new Core i7-10700K performance could land.

In the single-threaded Cinebench R15 test, the Core i9-10900K scores 222 points, while the 3950X scores 213, which is a 4.22% lead for the new Intel flagship over AMD's. The i9-9900K is 2.81% faster than the 3950X in the same test. The landscape changes completely with multi-thread. Armed with 16 cores and 32 threads, the 3950X tests 48.61% faster than the i9-10900K, and a whopping 94.14% faster than the i9-9900K, which means the 3950X should land around 90% (±5%) faster than the i7-10700K. Core i9-10900K vs. Ryzen 9 3900X should make for a fascinating contest.

Intel marketing is at it again, making sweeping performance claims about its embattled 9th generation Core processors against AMD's 3rd generation Ryzen. In a recent press conference in China, the company was shown claiming that its mid-tier 6-core/6-thread Core i5-9600KF is a "better" processor than AMD's 8-core/16-thread Ryzen 7 3800X. This claim is hard to defend with gaming, when even the "slower" 3700X is seen performing within 1% of the i5-9600K (identical CPU specs to the i5-9600KF) at gaming, and 22 percent faster at CPU tests, beating the i9-9900K in quite a few multi-threaded tests.

The marketing slide makes four key claims: 1. that Intel processors are faster in "real-world" use-cases (gaming, home/office, light content-creation), ; 2. that with boost-frequencies reaching 4.60 GHz, the higher IPC of these chips benefit gaming; 3. that the K-series chips easily overclock to 5.00 GHz yielding even more performance; and 4. that Intel processors have "smooth and stable drivers" compared to AMD. As if that wasn't bad enough, the slide claims that the 4-core/4-thread Core i3-9350KF is "better" than the 6-core/12-thread Ryzen 5 3600X, and the entry-level i3-9100F being better than the 6-core/6-thread Ryzen 5 3500. This incident closely follows its September gaffe that sought to sourgrape AMD's HEDT creator performance leadership by discrediting its lead in certain applications by claiming they don't reflect "real world usage." Making Intel's test relevance claims comically wrong was the fact that it used app usage data gathered exclusively from notebooks.

CORSAIR, a world leader in PC gaming peripherals and enthusiast components, today announced the availability of several new models of its signature CORSAIR ONE family of gaming PCs. The latest to join the CORSAIR ONE lineup are the CORSAIR ONE i145, the CORSAIR ONE i164, and the new range-topping CORSAIR ONE PRO i182. Every new CORSAIR ONE system is powered by a liquid-cooled 9th-gen Intel Core processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics card, housed in an incredibly compact and unique chassis.

Since its debut in 2017, the CORSAIR ONE has become the preeminent high-performance compact gaming PC. The CORSAIR ONE's ingenious compact design allows every system to pack the advanced hardware of a high-end PC into a mere 12 liters of volume, thanks to a patented convection-assisted liquid cooling system that expels hot air through the top of the chassis to keep temperatures low. The CORSAIR ONE's striking aesthetic is accented by subtly integrated RGB light pipes on either side, fully customizable through CORSAIR iCUE software.

Australian e-tailer MWave has put up their product page for the Intel Core i9-9900KS processor that Intel announced earlier this year, but with no actual product in sight. The merchant's listing is showing an AUD 899 price for SKU BX80684I99900KS, which converts to USD 605. The new Intel processor, is basically a binned eight-core Coffee Lake Core i9-9900K, which runs at 4.0 GHz base clock (up by 400 MHz) and 5.0 GHz all-core Turbo (300 MHz increase). Single-core maximum Turbo remains at 5.0 GHz (just like on the Core i9-9900K).

Just earlier this week, ASUS posted a BIOS update note, mentioning in it that the Core i9-9900KS will have a 127 W TDP. It looks like Intel can definitely defend the gaming performance crown with the Core i9-9900KS, mostly thanks to its high clock speeds. However, since most of the improvements are in multi-core workload boost clocks, and single-threaded clocks are identical to 9900K, I'm having some doubts whether the processor can really make any substantial difference — it's definitely not going to beat the $100 cheaper Ryzen 9 3900X in Cinebench, and the 127 W TDP limit might mean that the 5.0 GHz all-core Boost will end up being active only for a short amount of time.

AMD over the weekend updated the product-pages of its Ryzen processors on the company website to be very specific about what they mean by "Max Boost Clocks," that are advertised almost as extensively as the processor's main nominal clock-speeds. AMD describes it has "the maximum single-core frequency at which the processor is capable of operating under nominal conditions." We read into this as the highest boost-clock given to one of the cores on the processor.

If you've been reading the "clock-frequency and boost analysis" charts in our processor reviews, you'll know that AMD processors spread their boost frequency progressively across cores during a multi-threaded workload that scales across all cores. At any given time, only one of the cores is awarded the highest boost clock, and while the other cores too get boosted beyond the nominal clock-speeds, they are in slight decrements of 25-50 MHz. The graph below is from our Ryzen 7 3700X review. The second graph below is from our Core i9-9900K review, which too shows only one of the cores getting the max boost frequency, and the remaining cores getting lower boost clocks, although the graph looks flatter.

Intel is embattled in the client-segment desktop processor business, with AMD's imminent launch of its 3rd generation Ryzen desktop processors. Intel's 9th generation Core processors may lose their competitiveness to AMD's offerings, and are expected to get relieved by the company's "Ice Lake" desktop processors only in 2020. Until then, Intel will market its processors through price-cuts, promotions, bundles, and focusing on their gaming prowess. The company will refresh its HEDT (high-end desktop) processor lineup some time in Q3-2019. According to Taiwan-based industry observer DigiTimes citing sources in the motherboard industry, Intel's immediate response to 3rd generation Ryzen will be a series of price-cuts to products in its client-segment DIY retail channel.

According to these sources, prices of 9th generation Core processors could be cut by a minimum of 10 percent, and a maximum of 15 percent, varying by SKUs. This could see prices of popular gaming/enthusiast SKUs such as the Core i9-9900K, the i7-9700K, and the i5-9600K, drop by anywhere between $25 to $75. AMD is launching the Ryzen 9 3900X to compete with the i9-9900K, the Ryzen 7 3800X to compete with the i7-9700K, and the Ryzen 5 3600X to take on the i5-9600K. The three SKUs, according to AMD's internal testing, match the Intel chips at gaming, and beat them at content-creation tasks. At the heart of 3rd generation Ryzen processors is AMD's new Zen 2 microarchitecture, which brings significant IPC gains. AMD is also increasing core-counts on its mainstream desktop platform with the introduction of the Ryzen 9 family of 12-core and 16-core processors in the AM4 package.

G.SKILL International Enterprise Co., Ltd., the world's leading manufacturer of extreme performance memory and gaming peripherals, is excited to announce that 23 overclocking records in various benchmark categories were broken during the Computex 2019 time frame, including the world record for the fastest memory frequency, all using G.SKILL DDR4 memory kits built with high performance Samsung 8Gb components, the latest Intel processors, and high performance motherboards.

This week at the G.SKILL Computex booth, a new world record for fastest memory frequency was set by Toppc, a renowned professional extreme overclocker, reaching an incredible DDR4-5886MHz using the Trident Z Royal memory on a MSI MPG Z390I GAMING EDGE AC motherboard and an Intel Core i9-9900K processor. At the end of Computex 2019, the top two results for the fastest memory frequency are set by team MSI using an identical hardware setup.

Computer Upgrade King (CUK) is a new BTO (build-to-order) gaming PC manufacturer based out of Virginia, USA. Unlike other system integrators, CUK extends component choices all the way down to the cases. At Computex, the company showed off its Stratos Mini high-end desktop (HEDT), powered by an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX processor, AMD Radeon VII graphics, 32 GB of quad-channel DDR4-3000 memory, an ASRock X399M Taichi motherboard, and a SeaSonic Prime 1300W 80 Plus Gold PSU. Also shown off was the Continuum Mini, a compact powerhouse built around a mini-ITX motherboard. Its chops include the Core i9-9900K processor seated on an MSI MPG Z390I Gaming Edge AC motherboard; GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics, 16 GB of dual-channel DDR4-3200 Apacer NoX memory; and a 750W power supply.

Remember that ludicrous Gigabyte bundle that mixed the company's most outrageously expensive motherboard with a cherry-picked Intel Core i9-9900K overclocked to 5.1 GHz? Well, it's finally available, if that's your particular kind of beach, and the pricing is better than was expected. Solo, the motherboard sets you back $999, while a cherry-picked Intel Core i9-9900K at 5.1 GHz would set you back some $939 in houses such as Silicon Lottery. However, Gigabyte have confirmed that the bundle pricing for these components for the US stands at $1,699 - which really isn't too shabby, if you consider the motherboard to have sufficient bang for your buck.

Intel Tuesday once again shook the IT world by disclosing severe microarchitecture-level security vulnerabilities affecting its processors. The Microarchitectural Data Sampling (MDS) class of vulnerabilities affect Intel CPU architectures older than "Coffee Lake" to a greater extent. Among other forms of mitigation software patches, Intel is recommending that users disable HyperThreading technology (HTT), Intel's simultaneous multithreading (SMT) implementation. This would significantly deplete multi-threaded performance on older processors with lower core-counts, particularly Core i3 2-core/4-thread chips.

On "safer" microarchitectures such as "Coffee Lake," though, Intel is expecting a minimal impact of software patches, and doesn't see any negative impact of disabling HTT. This may have something to do with the 50-100 percent increased core-counts with the 8th and 9th generations. The company put out a selection of benchmarks relevant to client and enterprise (data-center) use-cases. On the client use-case that's we're more interested in, a Core i9-9900K machine with software mitigation and HTT disabled is negligibly slower (within 2 percent) of a machine without mitigation and HTT enabled. Intel's selection of benchmarks include SYSMark 2014 SE, WebXprt 3, SPECInt rate base (1 copy and n copies), and 3DMark "Skydiver" with the chip's integrated UHD 630 graphics. Comparing machines with mitigations applied but toggling HTT presents a slightly different story.

Gigabyte has been stretching its product portfolio for a while now, and it seems the company really wants to be the one to distribute everything on your PC if it can. Of course, no company does this based on its good heart - Gigabyte is putting up a margin on all products, as the whole spirit of business and capitalism requires. Their latest move is to bundle an overclocked, cherry-picked Intel Core i9 9900K CPU with their most expensive motherboard to date, the Z390 Aorus Extreme Waterforce. This motherboard alone retails for $999, and is built from a "Gigabytestein" of parts such as their Z390 Aorus Extreme motherboard ($550) paired with a custom waterblock.

The good part of having the CPU bundled with the motherboard is that Gigabyte has taken the pains of BIOS tweaking to ensure proper, stable operation - each combo has already been tended to by Gigabyte's engineers - stress testing included - and is guaranteed to work at the cherry-picked 5.1 GHz frequency on all cores. The bundle pricing isn't known as of yet, but pairing the $999 motherboard with a CPU that usually retails for around $525 (due to price fluctuations on account of Intel's CPU shortages) amounts to a cool $1,524 - add in a Gigabyte tax and the price of cherry-picking these CPUs (Silicon Lottery has these i9-9900K going for an out of stock $939), and a bundle price of $1,899 would still be worth it - if you really (really) want that motherboard.

Intel has been playing with the release of multiple of their 14 nm ++ processors without any integrated graphics tech, such as the Intel Core i5-9400F, or the iGPU-less, unlocked Core i9-9900KF. However, as strange as it may seem, a quick look online still shows the i9-9900KF selling for more ($582.50) than its complete i9-9900 sibling.

The Core i9-9900F, as caught in SiSoft's Sandra, is likely simply a locked-down version of Intel's Core i9-9900, since delidding of Intel's Core i5-9400F has shown that the silicon real-estate for the iGPU is still there - as such, this likely isn't an effort from Intel to reduce the silicon used for graphics and pass on the savings to customers. At the most, this is Intel launching products that may carry defective iGPUs from the production process and still be able to sell them - though Intel does seem to be looking not to budge on its profit margin, even on these "crippled" CPUs.

MSI, world's leading manufacturer of true gaming hardware is proudly announcing its new edition of Infinite X Gaming desktop. Featuring the Intel 9th generation processors up to i9-9900K, the MSI Infinite X 9th can overlock its system, offering addictive power for any gameplay. Together with the MSI's renowned RTX graphics cards, Infinite X 9th put its users ahead of any others right before their game has started. To keep a system with all this power cool, the Infinite X 9th uses MSI's exclusive Silent Storm Cooling 3 thermal design, making its cooling efficiency unmatched and as quiet as an assassin. If you are the gamer who like to explore the never-ending possibilities for gaming and multitasking, Infinite X 9th is the one you shouldn't miss.

This godsend rig also maintains its "Stand above the rest" spirit from its predecessor, as the system offers ultimate convenience for upgrading as new components appear in the market. And as always, MSI has added its own gaming DNA features such as a tempered glass side panel and RGB Mystic Light to customize this gaming desktop to your own liking.

The system requirements for 4A Games' Metro: Exodus, the studios' first open-world effort that comes with baked-in NVIDIA RTX support, have been outed. The minimum system requirements for 1080p gaming at 30 FPS uses the Low IQ settings, and should be achieved by an i5-4440 CPU, paired with a 2 GB VRAM graphics card (GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon HD 7870) and 8 GB of RAM.

For the Extreme IQ settings, at 4K 60 FPS, though, you'll require, obviously, a beast of a system. An Intel Core i9-9900K is the CPU of choice here, paired with 16 GB of RAM and the top of the line NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti. These requirements pressupose the absence of any RTX features, however, so prepare to see your maximum resolution with those features on coming down quickly as you scale the ray tracing capabilities. RTX-specific performance profiles will be released by 4A Games in the coming days.

At its CES 2019 keynote, AMD unveiled two killer client-segment products, the Radeon VII graphics card, which beats the GeForce RTX 2080; and a sneak preview of the 3rd generation Ryzen socket AM4 processor based on the company's "Zen 2" microarchitecture. As part of the unveil, CEO Lisa Su demonstrated an 8-core/16-thread 3rd generation Ryzen prototype processor in a head-to-head CineBench nT face-off with the Intel Core i9-9900K processor, which has the same core-count. The Ryzen narrowly beat the Intel flagship. Following this, Dr. Su held up a de-lidded sibling of the processor that was tested, revealing not one, but two dies.

This confirms that AMD is taking the heterogeneous multi-chip module approach to building its 3rd generation Ryzen processors, much like its 2nd generation EPYC processors that were unveiled late last year. The MCM of the processor Dr. Su held up had two chips, the smaller chip is an 8-core CPU chiplet built on the 7 nm process, that appears to have the same die-size as the 8-core chiplets that make up the 64-core 2nd gen EPYC MCMs, the larger die is an I/O controller logic built on the 14 nm process. This die controls the memory, PCIe, and SoC connectivity of the package. We noticed something curious about the way the two dies are arranged on the package substrate.

Intel today expanded its 9th generation Core "Coffee Lake Refresh" socket LGA1151 desktop processor lineup with six new SKUs. The first of these will begin rolling out in stores toward the end of January 2019. These include the Core i5-9400 6-core/6-thread processor clocked at 2.90 GHz with 4.10 GHz Turbo Boost, and 9 MB of shared L3 cache. The company is yet to list out model names of its other five models, although these are expected to include Core i3-9350KF, Core i5-9600KF, Core i7-9700KF, and Core i9-9900KF, besides a possible Core i3-9300. The "KF" SKUs are targeted at the DIY channel and the gaming pre-built ODM market, and are expected to lack integrated graphics.

Update: Intel also revealed its Core i5-9400F processor, which has the same specifications as the i5-9400, with the exception of no iGPU. Intel's own list price for this chip is USD $182.

Corsair showed off their ONE series of desktops at CES with the ONE PRO i180 workstation for content creators taking center stage. Also on display were the ONE i160, and ONE i140 for prosumers which round Corsair's ONE series of desktop systems. The internal design for this release has been entirely revamped, allowing for exceptional performance with support for processors of up to 165-watts and graphics cards of up to 300-watts without increasing noise or size. Compared to their older Corsair ONE Elite, the new systems are faster quieter and cooler running across the entire range. The ONE i140 packs an Intel Core i7-9700K alongside an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, 32 GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2666 memory, 480 GB NVMe SSD, 2TB HDD, and a 600-watt SF600 80-PLUS Gold power supply for $2999 and is available immediately.

The upcoming EVGA Z390 DARK is designed from the ground up to be the world's best overclocking motherboard. Need proof? The EVGA Z390 DARK was recently used by Finland Overclocker, Juhani Luumi AKA LUUMI to set a brand new CINEBENCH 8-Core CPU World Record. Armed with an Intel Core i9-9900K, and EVGA Z390 DARK Motherboard and Liquid Nitrogen Cooling, LUUMI was able to clock his CPU to nearly 7GHz and achieve a score of 3142 cb. A new CINEBENCH 8-Core CPU World Record!

Intel is readying a curious-looking "KF" brand extension for key SKUs of its 9th generation Core "Coffee Lake Refresh" family. These SKUs include the Core i9-9900KF, the Core i7-9700KF, Core i5-9600KF, and the Core i3-9350KF. The source revealing slides from a GIGABYTE internal presentation mentioning these doesn't explain what "KF" means, but we've heard rumors on what "KF" could mean. The "K" in KF denotes that the processor features an unlocked base-clock multiplier. No points for guessing that one. The "F," however, could indicate a disabled or physically absent iGPU.

This won't be the first time that Intel has launched variants of its mainstream desktop premium SKUs with disabled iGPUs. Intel's reasons for doing so with "Coffee Lake Refresh" could be many, including harvesting dies with defective iGPU components. Physically absent iGPUs could only make sense from the perspective of increasing yields per wafer, as the dies could be around 15% smaller for the 8-core silicon, and 25% smaller for the 6-core silicon. It doesn't make sense from a purely TDP-optimization perspective, because Intel processors are capable of power-gating (and not just clock-gating) user-disabled iGPUs.

Prices of retail versions of several 8th and 9th generation Intel Core processor SKUs dropped down to MSRP-levels Friday, in the US. Newegg currently lists the Core i5-9600K at USD $249.99, and the Core i7-8700K at $369.99, while the i7-8700 goes for $319.99, matched with AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X. The Core i5-8600K is listed at $239.99, which is just $20 above the consumer-favorite i5-8400. Newegg's pricing is still riddled with mark-up anomalies for SKUs in high demand. The Core i7-9700K is listed at $487.99, which is about $10 cheaper than Intel's MSRP for the Core i9-9900K, which is selling for an obnoxious $850.

Prices of retail packages of Intel Core desktop processors could continue to rise over Q4-2018, as the company has reportedly cut their supply, in favor of tray/reel shipments to OEMs. This could mean DIY favorites such as the Core i5-8400, the i5-8600K, i5-9600K, or even Core i7 models such as the i7-8700K, i7-9700K, and the flagship i9-9900K could be severely in short supply, or heavily marked up wherever available. Intel recently devised a strategy to increase its Core processor volumes by pumping in an additional $1 billion to its usually-$15 billion capital expenditure, to fire up small-scale manufacturing facilities around the world, to augment its bigger fabs located in Malaysia and Vietnam.

Sites like Mexico, Israel, and Ireland are beneficiaries of this move, and are being expanded. Much of Intel's efforts appear to be focused on making sure notebook and pre-built PC manufacturers aren't starved of processor inventory. The DIY retail channel, which consists of boxed processors, will foot the bill for this move. A good example of understocked retail channel would be the $499 Core i9-9900K processor being sold for upwards of $900 in some online stores. AMD is in an enviable position to fill the void, comments PCGamesN. Prices of its Ryzen desktop processor PIBs are either flat, or marginally cut; and socket AM4 motherboards are generally cheaper than LGA1151 ones.

GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY Co. Ltd, a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, announced the release of the Z390 DESIGNARE motherboard with full support for the newest 8-core Intel Core i9-9900K processors. The newest addition to the GIGABYTE DESIGNARE series is a feature-packed motherboard that provides content creators the fastest and most efficient tools to showcase their creativity and craftsmanship. GIGABYTE DESIGNARE Series motherboards bring out the best in workstation graphics cards, maximize M.2 SSD and DDR4 RAM performance, and fully support powerful CPUs such as the newest 8-core Intel Core i9-9900K CPU. With built in USB Type-C Thunderbolt , and native USB 3.1 Gen 2 to provide 40Gb/s transmission speed, the board is designed with effective storage performance as a key feature. GIGABYTE Ultra-Durable Technology and exclusive software also bring additional value for digital content creators and design professionals.

"Today's content creators are seeking faster and more efficient performance from their PCs. GIGABYTE created the DESIGNARE series a few years back to fulfill these user demands," stated Jackson Hsu, Deputy Director of the GIGABYTE Channel Solutions Product Development Division. "Z390 DESIGNARE is the newest addition to this constantly evolving content creation focused series and is loaded with features that enable content creators to express their artistic creativity through their PCs with excellent performance and efficiency."