The Intel 9th Gen Review: Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K and Core i5-9600K Tested
by Ian Cutress on October 19, 2018 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Coffee Lake
- 14++
- Core 9th Gen
- Core-S
- i9-9900K
- i7-9700K
- i5-9600K
Gaming: Far Cry 5
The latest title in Ubisoft's Far Cry series lands us right into the unwelcoming arms of an armed militant cult in Montana, one of the many middles-of-nowhere in the United States. With a charismatic and enigmatic adversary, gorgeous landscapes of the northwestern American flavor, and lots of violence, it is classic Far Cry fare. Graphically intensive in an open-world environment, the game mixes in action and exploration.
Far Cry 5 does support Vega-centric features with Rapid Packed Math and Shader Intrinsics. Far Cry 5 also supports HDR (HDR10, scRGB, and FreeSync 2). We use the in-game benchmark for our data, and report the average/minimum frame rates.
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| Far Cry 5 | FPS | Mar 2018 |
DX11 | 720p Low |
1080p Normal |
1440p High |
4K Ultra |
|
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| Far Cry 5 | IGP | Low | High |
| Average FPS |  |
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| Minimum FPS |  |
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Far Cry 5 is another game that at reasonable 1080p settings actually shows some CPU differentiation. To really drive a wedge between the CPUs we do need to drop to 720p Low, but still, in both cases the 9900K comes out on top. And in this case the performance gap between it and the 8700K is actually a bit larger than normal at 12%. Still, this is a game that’s if it’s not GPU-bound is closer to being bounded by a limited number of threads, so the lack of major clockspeed gains for the 9900K keep it from pulling too far ahead. It also keeps the 9700K from falling too far behind.
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29a - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
"The $374 suggested retail price is a bit easier to digest for sure, with the user safe in the knowledge that no two threads are sharing resources on a single core."If that statement isn't putting lipstick on a pig then I don't know what is. That is some major spin right there, you should think about being a politician. I generally feel safe that the scheduler will take care of what treads go to which core.
Nikorasu95 - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Did I just fu*king downgrade by purchasing the i9 9900K when I have the i7 8700K? Like WTF? Some gaming results show the i7 is beating the i9. Like what is going on here? The i9 should be ahead of both the i7 8700K, and 8086K in all gaming tests considering it has 2 extra cores. Once again WTF is going on here with these results? They are inconsistent and make no sense!mapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Honestly this is why one should never preorder, wait for reviews. You could also just do a return, go back to 8700K, save the money for a future GPU upgrade which would be better for gaming anyway.dustwalker13 - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
i9900K is a strange animal.if i want workloads, i can get a threadripper for basically the same price with better performance in that area.
if i want gaming i can get a 2700X for much less (plus savings on motherboard and cooler) and get a better gpu for that money, netting me higher fps total.
this part only makes sense if i want to check one single box: get all the parts that net me the absolute highest fps in gaming exclusively, without any compromise, no regard for cost/performance ratios and no other usage scenario like productivity in mind.
the potential customer group seems very limited in that respect. the i9900k just does not make sense for anyone but a statistics crazy gamer with too much money on his hand. for everything else - and especially anyone who does a basic value comparison even on the high end side of gaming - the 9700K and especially 2700X are just hands down the better picks.
jabber - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Yeah to be honest Intel is just redundant price wise. As you say I'd rather save $200-$250 and put the money into say an extra $50/$60 each on Ram/GPU/Motherboard and SSD.jabber - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
So looking at those graphs, AMD at around $360 is the sweetspot.daxpax - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
its funny how there is no 2700x included in benchmarks where it tops Intel. this is as deceptive as previous principle technologies benchmark. haha i thought you were transparent reviwerdaxpax - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
this is clearly intel paid article and you at anand tech should told us this is paid article. shame on youAutomaticTaco - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Seems like a balanced article to me.mapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Do you think it's balanced to refer to MSRP rather than typical retail pricing?