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
CPU Performance: Office Tests
The Office test suite is designed to focus around more industry standard tests that focus on office workflows, system meetings, some synthetics, but we also bundle compiler performance in with this section. For users that have to evaluate hardware in general, these are usually the benchmarks that most consider.
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
PCMark 10: Industry Standard System Profiler
Futuremark, now known as UL, has developed benchmarks that have become industry standards for around two decades. The latest complete system test suite is PCMark 10, upgrading over PCMark 8 with updated tests and more OpenCL invested into use cases such as video streaming.
PCMark splits its scores into about 14 different areas, including application startup, web, spreadsheets, photo editing, rendering, video conferencing, and physics. We post all of these numbers in our benchmark database, Bench, however the key metric for the review is the overall score.
As a general mix of a lot of tests, the new processors from Intel take the top three spots, in order. Even the i5-9600K goes ahead of the i7-8086K.
Chromium Compile: Windows VC++ Compile of Chrome 56
A large number of AnandTech readers are software engineers, looking at how the hardware they use performs. While compiling a Linux kernel is ‘standard’ for the reviewers who often compile, our test is a little more varied – we are using the windows instructions to compile Chrome, specifically a Chrome 56 build from March 2017, as that was when we built the test. Google quite handily gives instructions on how to compile with Windows, along with a 400k file download for the repo.
In our test, using Google’s instructions, we use the MSVC compiler and ninja developer tools to manage the compile. As you may expect, the benchmark is variably threaded, with a mix of DRAM requirements that benefit from faster caches. Data procured in our test is the time taken for the compile, which we convert into compiles per day.
Pushing the raw frequency of the all-core turbo seems to work well in our compile test.
3DMark Physics: In-Game Physics Compute
Alongside PCMark is 3DMark, Futuremark’s (UL’s) gaming test suite. Each gaming tests consists of one or two GPU heavy scenes, along with a physics test that is indicative of when the test was written and the platform it is aimed at. The main overriding tests, in order of complexity, are Ice Storm, Cloud Gate, Sky Diver, Fire Strike, and Time Spy.
Some of the subtests offer variants, such as Ice Storm Unlimited, which is aimed at mobile platforms with an off-screen rendering, or Fire Strike Ultra which is aimed at high-end 4K systems with lots of the added features turned on. Time Spy also currently has an AVX-512 mode (which we may be using in the future).
For our tests, we report in Bench the results from every physics test, but for the sake of the review we keep it to the most demanding of each scene: Ice Storm Unlimited, Cloud Gate, Sky Diver, Fire Strike Ultra, and Time Spy.
The older Ice Storm test didn't much like the Core i9-9900K, pushing it back behind the R7 1800X. For the more modern tests focused on PCs, the 9900K wins out. The lack of HT is hurting the other two parts.
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.
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AutomaticTaco - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Revised. TDP is still some generic average not true max. Regardless, not 220w.https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen...
The motherboard in question was using an insane 1.47v
https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/105342741705...
https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/105339755111...
AGS3 - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Can't wait to get one - thanks. I may have missed it but what cooler did you use for overclock?5080 - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
To summarize Intel's new i9-9900K = Incredible high power usage and heat generation at a high price with no real advantage = market fail.AutomaticTaco - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Revised power consumption. First motherboard was over-voltage.https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen...
SaturnusDK - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Doesn't change the above conclusion of the intel "FX" 9000-series.hnlog - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Why TRUE Copper is chosen for Intel new CPUs and HEDT?shabby - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Ya I wonder if the 9900k will hit 4.7ghz on all cores with a stockish heatsink, it almost seems like Intel is cheating here, 200+ watts on a 95w cpu. I have a feeling amd will follow suit in the next round by letting the turbo mode suck as much juice as possible.Spoelie - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Seconded, can we see what the processors will do with the same cooling capacity provided?ThaSpacePope - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Looks like i'm keeping my i7-9700k pre-order for $399. In 2012 I paid $190ish (in 2012 dollars) for my i5-3570k which is 4 cores running at 4.5ghz for 6 years now. In 2018 today I'll pay $399 for 8 cores running at 5.3ghz (it appears) and a roughly 40% IPC improvement. Feels like a good value, thank you AMD. Anyone recommend a good Z390 board to go along with it?mapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Thank you AMD? This is why AMD has given up on high end GPUs.