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: Integrated Graphics
Despite being the ultimate joke at any bring-your-own-computer event, gaming on integrated graphics can ultimately be as rewarding as the latest mega-rig that costs the same as a car. The desire for strong integrated graphics in various shapes and sizes has waxed and waned over the years, with Intel relying on its latest ‘Gen’ graphics architecture while AMD happily puts its Vega architecture into the market to swallow up all the low-end graphics card sales. With Intel poised to make an attack on graphics in the next few years, it will be interesting to see how the graphics market develops, especially integrated graphics.
For our integrated graphics testing, we take our ‘IGP’ category settings for each game and loop the benchmark round for five minutes a piece, taking as much data as we can from our automated setup.
Finally, looking at integrated graphics performance, I don’t believe anyone should be surprised here. Intel has not meaningfully changed their iGPU since Kaby Lake – the microarchitecture is the same and the peak GPU frequency has risen by all of 50MHz to 1200MHz – so Intel’s iGPU results have essentially been stagnant for the last couple of years at the top desktop segment.
To that end I don’t think there’s much new to say. Intel’s GT2 iGPU struggles even at 720p in some of these games; it’s not an incapable iGPU, but there’s sometimes a large gulf between it and what these games (which are multi-platform console ports) expect for minimum GPU performance. The end result is that if you’re serious about iGPU performance in your desktop CPU, then AMD’s APUs provide much better performance. That said, if you are forced to game on the 9900K’s iGPU, then at least the staples of the eSports world such as World of Tanks will run quite well.
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The Original Ralph - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
sorry, B&H's availability date should be JAN 1, 2100eastcoast_pete - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
JAN 1, 2100? Intel's manufacturing problems must be at lot more serious than we knew (:I wonder if the 9900K will be supported by "Windows 21" when they finally ship?
cubebomb - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
you guys need to stop posting 1080p benchmarks for games already. come on now.gammaray - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
I agree, 1440p and higher, especially with the top CPUsmapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
They would of course respond that they have to show 1080p in order to reveal CPU differences, even if the frame rates are so high that most people wouldn't care anyway. I suppose those who do game at 1080p on high refresh monitors would say they care about the data, but then the foundation of the RTX launch is a new pressure to move away from high refresh rates, something the aforementioned group of gamers physically cannot do.piroroadkill - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
They need to show a meaningful difference between CPUs. setting a higher resolution makes the tests worthless, as you'll just be GPU bottlenecked.eva02langley - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
They are important since they bring in perspective CPU bottleneck, however it is widely overpreached.1080p, 1440p and 2160p at max settings... enough said. Without multiple resolutions benchmarks, it is impossible to get a clear picture of the real performances to expect from a potential system.
However, basically, a value rating system is now MANDATORY. It doesn't make any sense that the 9900k received 90% + score on Toms and WCCF. They offer abysmal value for gamers, so it is not "The Best Gaming CPU", however it is the "strongest"
DominionSeraph - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
It's $110 over the i7. If you're looking at a $2500 i7 rig, going to $2610 with an i9 is a 4% increase in price. Looks to me like it generally wins by over 4%. That's a really good value for a content creator since it stomps the i7 by over 20%.Chestertonian - Wednesday, February 27, 2019 - link
No kidding. Why are there barely any 1440p benchmarks, but there are tons of 8k benchmarks? I don't get it.avatar-ds - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Something's fishy with the 8086k consistently underperforming the 8700k in many (most?) gaming tests by more than a margin of error where differences are significant enough. Undermines credibility of the whole thing.