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: F1 2018
Aside from keeping up-to-date on the Formula One world, F1 2017 added HDR support, which F1 2018 has maintained; otherwise, we should see any newer versions of Codemasters' EGO engine find its way into F1. Graphically demanding in its own right, F1 2018 keeps a useful racing-type graphics workload in our benchmarks.
Aside from keeping up-to-date on the Formula One world, F1 2017 added HDR support, which F1 2018 has maintained. We use the in-game benchmark, set to run on the Montreal track in the wet, driving as Lewis Hamilton from last place on the grid. Data is taken over a one-lap race.
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| F1 2018 | Racing | Aug 2018 |
DX11 | 720p Low |
1080p Med |
4K High |
4K Ultra |
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All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| F1 2018 | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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Our final (ed: and most British) benchmark is another game that’s not GPU-bound right out of the box, so it gives the CPUs something to do. At 1080p Medium we see the 9900K and 9700K take the top spots, though along with the 8700K it’s all noise, as evidenced by the fact that the 9700K edges out the 9900K. Dropping down to 720p forces the CPUs farther apart, at which point the 9900K takes the top spot, with the 9700K following. The net result here is that the 9900K is about 13% ahead of the 8700K.
Past that however, once we get to any kind of 4K settings (entirely reasonable for this game), the game becomes much more strongly GPU-bound. So these CPU performance differences are mostly on the theoretical side of matters.
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3dGfx - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
game developers like to build and test on the same machinemr_tawan - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
> game developers like to build and test on the same machineOh I thought they use remote debugging.
12345 - Wednesday, March 27, 2019 - link
Only thing I can think of as a gaming use for those would be to pass through a gpu each to several VMs.close - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
@Ryan, "There’s no way around it, in almost every scenario it was either top or within variance of being the best processor in every test (except Ashes at 4K). Intel has built the world’s best gaming processor (again)."Am I reading the iGPU page wrong? The occasional 100+% handicap does not seem to be "within variance".
daxpax - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
if you noticed 2700x is faster in half benchmarks for games but they didnt include itnathanddrews - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
That wasn't a negative critique of the review, just the opposite in fact: from the selection of benchmarks you provided, it is EASY to see that given more GPU power, the new Intel chips will clearly outperform AMD most of the time - generally with average, but specifically minimum frames. From where I'm sitting - 3570K+1080Ti - I think I could save a lot of money by getting a 2600X/2700X OC setup and not miss out on too many fpses.philehidiot - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
I think anyone with any sense (and the constraints of a budget / missus) will be stupid to buy this CPU for gaming. The sensible thing to do is to buy the AMD chip that provides 99% of the gaming performance for half the price (even better value when you factor in the mobo) and then to plough that money into a better GPU, more RAM and / or a better SSD. The savings from the CPU alone will allow you to invest a useful amount more into ALL of those areas. There are people who do need a chip like this but they are not gamers. Intel are pushing hard with both the limitations of their tech (see: stupid temperatures) and their marketing BS (see: outright lies) because they know they're currently being held by the short and curlies. My 4 year old i5 may well score within 90% of these gaming benchmarks because the limitation in gaming these days is the GPU. Sorry, Intel, wrong market to aim at.imaheadcase - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
I like how you said limitations in tech and point to temps, like any gamer cares about that. Every game wants raw performance, and the fact remains intel systems are still easier to go about it. The reason is simple, most gamers will upgrade from another intel system and use lots of parts from it that work with current generation stuff.Its like the whole Gsync vs non gsync. Its a stupid arguement, its not a tax on gsync when you are buying the best monitor anyways.
philehidiot - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Those limitations affect overclocking and therefore available performance. Which is hardly different to much cheaper chips. You're right about upgrading though.emn13 - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
The AVX 512 numbers look suspicious. Both common sense and other examples online suggest that AVX512 should improve performance by much less than a factor 2. Additionally, AVX-512 causes varying amounts of frequency throttling; so you;re not going to get the full factor 2.This suggests to me that your baseline is somehow misleading. Are you comparing AVX512 to ancient SSE? To no vectorization at all? Something's not right there.