The Intel Comet Lake Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K, i5-10600K CPU Review: Skylake We Go Again
by Dr. Ian Cutress on May 20, 2020 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Skylake
- 14nm
- Z490
- 10th Gen Core
- Comet Lake
CPU Performance: Synthetic Tests
As with most benchmark suites, there are tests that don’t necessarily fit into most categories because their role is just to find the peak throughput in very particular coding scenarios. For this we rely on some of the industry standard tests, like Geekbench and Cinebench.
GeekBench4: Synthetics
A common tool for cross-platform testing between mobile, PC, and Mac, GeekBench 4 is an ultimate exercise in synthetic testing across a range of algorithms looking for peak throughput. Tests include encryption, compression, fast Fourier transform, memory operations, n-body physics, matrix operations, histogram manipulation, and HTML parsing.
I’m including this test due to popular demand, although the results do come across as overly synthetic, and a lot of users often put a lot of weight behind the test due to the fact that it is compiled across different platforms (although with different compilers).
We record the main subtest scores (Crypto, Integer, Floating Point, Memory) in our benchmark database, but for the review we post the overall single and multi-threaded results.
LinX: LINPACK
The main tool for ordering the TOP500 computer list involves running a variant of an accelerated matrix multiply algorithm typically found from the LINPACK suite. Here we use a tool called LinX to do the same thing on our CPUs. We scale our test based on the number of cores present in order to not run out of scaling but still keeping the test time consistent.
This is another of our new tests for 2020. Data will be added as we start regression testing older CPUs.
Cinebench R20
The Cinebench line of tests is very well known among technology enthusiasts, with the software implementing a variant of the popular Cinema4D engine to render through the CPU a complex scene. The latest version of Cinebench comes with a number of upgrades, including support for >64 threads, as well as offering a much longer test in order to stop the big server systems completing it in seconds. Not soon after R20 was launched, we ended up with 256 thread servers that completed the test in about two seconds. While we wait for the next version of Cinebench, we run the test on our systems in single thread and multithread modes, running for a minimum of 10 minutes each.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
220 Comments
View All Comments
Darkworld - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
10500k?Chaitanya - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
Pointless given R5 3000 family of CPUs.yeeeeman - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
Yeah right. Except it will beat basically all and lineup in games. Otherwise it is pointless.yeeeeman - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
All AMD lineup*SKiT_R31 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
Yeah with a 2080 Ti the flagship 10 series CPU beats AMD in most titles, generally by a single digit margin. Who is pairing a mid-low end CPU with such a GPU? Also if there were to be a 10500K, you probably don't need to look much further than the 9600K in the charts above.This may have been missed on you, but what CPU reviews like the above show is: unless you are running the most top end flagship GPU and are low resolution high fps gaming, AMD is better at every single price point. Just accept it, and move on.
Drkrieger01 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
It also means that if you have purchased an Intel 6th gen CPU in i5 or i7, there's not much reason to upgrade unless you need more threads. And it will only be faster if you're using those said threads effectively. I'm still running an i5 6600K, granted it's running at 4.6GHz - there's no reason for me to upgrade until either Intel and/or AMD come up with better architecture and frequency combination (IPC + clock speed).I'll likely be taking the jump back to AMD for the Ryzen 4000's after a long run since the Sandy Bridge era.
Anyone needing only 4-6 cores should wait until then as well.
Samus - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
That's most people, including me. I'm still riding my Haswell 4C/8T because for my applications the only thing more cores will get me is faster unraring of my porn.Lord of the Bored - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
Hey, that's an important task!Hxx - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
at 1440p intel still leads in gaming. It may not lead by much or may not lead by enough to warranty buying it over Intel but the person buying this chip is rocking a high end gpu and will likely upgrade to a high end gpu and the performance gap will only widen in intel's favor as the gpu becomes less of a bottleneck. So yeah pairing this with a 2060 makes no sense, go AMD. but pairing this with a 2080ti and a soon to be released 3080TI oh yeah this lineup will be a better choice.DrKlahn - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
By that logic the new games released since the Ryzen 3x000 series debut last year should show a larger gap at 1440+ between Intel and AMD. But they don't. And judging by past trends I doubt they will in the future either.As GPUs advance so does the eye candy in the newer engines, keeping the bottleneck pretty much where it always is at higher resolutions and detail levels, the GPU.