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: Grand Theft Auto V
The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA in tow to help optimize the title. GTA doesn’t provide graphical presets, but opens up the options to users and extends the boundaries by pushing even the hardest systems to the limit using Rockstar’s Advanced Game Engine under DirectX 11. Whether the user is flying high in the mountains with long draw distances or dealing with assorted trash in the city, when cranked up to maximum it creates stunning visuals but hard work for both the CPU and the GPU.
For our test we have scripted a version of the in-game benchmark. The in-game benchmark consists of five scenarios: four short panning shots with varying lighting and weather effects, and a fifth action sequence that lasts around 90 seconds. We use only the final part of the benchmark, which combines a flight scene in a jet followed by an inner city drive-by through several intersections followed by ramming a tanker that explodes, causing other cars to explode as well. This is a mix of distance rendering followed by a detailed near-rendering action sequence, and the title thankfully spits out frame time data.
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release Date | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| Grand Theft Auto V | Open World | Apr 2015 |
DX11 | 720p Low |
1080p High |
1440p Very High |
4K Ultra |
|
| *Strange Brigade is run in DX12 and Vulkan modes | ||||||||
There are no presets for the graphics options on GTA, allowing the user to adjust options such as population density and distance scaling on sliders, but others such as texture/shadow/shader/water quality from Low to Very High. Other options include MSAA, soft shadows, post effects, shadow resolution and extended draw distance options. There is a handy option at the top which shows how much video memory the options are expected to consume, with obvious repercussions if a user requests more video memory than is present on the card (although there’s no obvious indication if you have a low end GPU with lots of GPU memory, like an R7 240 4GB).
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| GTA 5 | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
 |
 |
 |
| 95th Percentile |  |
 |
 |
 |
GTA V is always an amusing game, and not just for its criminal hi-jinx. Originally released for the last-gen consoles years ago – with the best CPUs and GPUs of 2005/2006 – it still sells well. More importantly, it can still punish a modern GPU. And CPUs don’t get off too easily either, especially at our 1080p high settings. In this case the CFL-R chips take a 1-2-3 win, all of them pushing past even the 8700K. The performance gain is nothing to write home about, but the 9900K has improved over its predecessor by 9%.
However these CPU differences quickly become irrelevant at higher, more GPU-demanding settings. At 1440p Very High we’re looking at a tie for the top 7 CPUs, and no one is getting more than 23fps at 4K.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
274 Comments
View All Comments
DominionSeraph - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
The 8700k is also pulling 150W while the 8086k is 95W. Something's not right there._mat - Wednesday, November 7, 2018 - link
There can be two reasons why that is the case:1) The mainboard settings for Power Limits were different.
2) The 8086K ran into Power Limit 1 while the 8700K was not.
Whatever is the case here, it is no doubt that the 8086K did run into Power Limit 1 after the "Time Above PL1" (= power budget) was depleted. The 95 Watts are exactly the specified TDP of the CPU and Intel recommends this as Power Limit 1 value.
So the problem here is that the Power Limits and Current Limits of the mainboard are not properly documented and seem to differ between the test candidates. While the 8086K obviously had Power Limits in place, the 9th gen CPUs were benched with no limits at all (only temperature limit at 100 °C on a core).
Also, the whole page on power consumption needs rework. The TDP does matter depending on the board and its default settings.
ballsystemlord - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Ian! Many of your tests ( Y-Cruncher multithreaded, apptimer, FCAT - ROTR, WinRAR ), are taking too short of a time. You need some differentiation here! Please make them harder.R0H1T - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
>In case the previous comment was missed.I see that the last few pages have included a note about Z390 used because the Z370 board was over-volting the chip? Yet on the Overclocking page we see the Z370 listed with max CPU package power at 168 Watts? Could you list the (default) auto voltage applied by the Asrock Z370 & if appropriate update the charts on OCing page with the Z390 as well?
mapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
"Intel has promised that its 10nm manufacturing process will ramp through 2019, ..."Ian, what promises did Intel make 2 years ago about what they would be supplying now?
eastcoast_pete - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
My guess is that Intel is now printing those promises in 10 nm font size (easily readable with a standard electron microscope). See, they moved to 10 nm by 2018!ballsystemlord - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
Actually, fonts are measured in points. So, it's 10pt, and it's rather legible.But, as for products, I don't see any either.
darkos - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
nice review, but: please add a flight simulation such as x-plane and prepar3d or fsx. this is an area that is sadly, missing from your reviews.kasboh - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
Do I see it correctly that there is little benefit of HyperThreading with 8 core CPUs?eXterminuss - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
I am quiet shocked to see that Anandtech is using a vastly outdated and in parts plainly wrong description for World of tanks:1. The enCore engine ist being used in world of tanks for quiet a while now (10 month)
2.World of tanks is a free to play game, no elements hiden behind a paywall, e. g. no more features for a paying customer than for a freelooter.
3. Since the outadted EnCore benchmark was used, i would have at least expected to see the Results of that benchmark being posted aswell.
Sincerly yours,
eXterminuss a World of Tanks Player