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
Intel's Core i9-9900K: Technically The Highest Performing Gaming CPU
When Intel announced the new processor lineup, it billed the Core i9-9900K as the ‘world’s best gaming processor’. Here’s Intel’s Anand Srivatsa, showcasing the new packaging for this eight core, sixteen thread, 5.0 GHz giant:
In actual fact, the packaging is very small. Intel didn’t supply us with this upgraded retail version of the box, but we were sampled with a toasty Core i9-9900K inside. We sourced the i7-9700K and i5-9600K from Intel’s partners for this review.
With the claim of ‘world’s best ever gaming processor’, it was clear that this needed to be put to the test. Intel commissioned (paid for) a report into the processor performance by a third party in order to obtain data, which unfortunately had numerous issues, particularly with how the chips it was tested against were benchmarked, but here at AnandTech we’ll give you the right numbers.
For our gaming tests this time around, we put each game through four different resolutions and scenarios, labelled IGP (for 720p), Low (for 1080p), Medium (for 1440p to 4K), and High (for 4K and above). Here’s a brief summary of results:
- World of Tanks: Best CPU at IGP, Low, Medium, and top class in High
- Final Fantasy XV: Best CPU or near top in all
- Shadow of War: Best CPU or near top in all
- Civilization VI: Best CPU at IGP, a bit behind at 4K, top class at 8K/16K
- Ashes Classic: Best CPU at IGP, Low, top class at Medium, mid-pack at 4K
- Strange Brigade DX12/Vulkan: Best CPU or near top in all
- Grand Theft Auto V: Best CPU or near top in all
- Far Cry 5: Best CPU or near top in all
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Near top in all
- F1 2018: Best CPU or near top in all
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).
On our CPU tests, the i9-9900K hit a lot of the synthetics higher than any other mainstream processor. In some of our real world tests, such as application loading or web performance, it lost out from time to time to the i7 and i5 due to having hyper-threading, as those tests tend to prefer threads that have access to the full core resources. For memory limited tests, the high-end desktop platforms provide a better alternative.
While there’s no specific innovation in the processors driving the performance, Intel re-checked the box for STIM, last used on the mainstream in Sandy Bridge. The STIM implementation has enabled Intel to push the frequency of these parts. It was always one of the tools the company had in its back pocket, and many will speculate as to the reasons why it used that tool at this point in time.
But overall, due to the frequency push and the core push, the three new 9th Generation processors sit at the top of most of our mixed workload tests, given the high natural frequency, and set a new standard in Intel’s portfolio for being a jack of all trades. If a user has a variable workload, and wants to squeeze performance, then these new processors will should get you there.
So now, if you are the money-no-object kind of gamer, this is the processor for you. But it’s not a processor for everyone, and that comes down to cost and competition.
At $488 SEP, plus a bit more for 'on-shelf price', plus add $80-$120 for a decent cooler or $200 for a custom loop, it’s going to be out of the range for almost all builds south of $1500 where GPU matters the most. When Intel’s own i5-9600K is under half the cost with only two fewer cores, or AMD’s R7 2700X is very competitive in almost every test, while they might not be the best, they’re more cost-effective.
The outlandish flash of the cash goes on the Core i9-9900K. The smart money ends up on the 9700K, 9600K, or the 2700X. For the select few, money is no object. For the rest of us, especially when gaming at 1440p and higher settings where the GPU is the bigger bottleneck, there are plenty of processors that do just fine, and are a bit lighter on the power bill in the process.
Edit: We initially posted this review with data taken with an ASRock Z370 motherboard. After inspection, we discovered that the motherboard used intentionally over-volts 9th Generation Core processors in our power testing. While benchmarking seems unaffected, we have redone power numbers using an MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC motherboard, and updated the review accordingly.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
274 Comments
View All Comments
evernessince - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
I'm sure for him money is a fixed resource, he is just really bad at managing it. You'd have to be crazy to blow money on the 9900K when the 8700K is $200 cheaper and the 2700X is half the price.Dug - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
Relative to how much you make or have. $200 isn't some life threatening amount that makes them crazy because they spent it on a product that they will enjoy. We spend more than that going out for a weekend (and usually don't have anything to show for it). If an extra 200 is threatening to your lively hood, you shouldn't be shopping for new cpu's anyway.close - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
@ekidhardt: "I think far too much emphasis has been placed on 'value'. I simply want the fastest, most powerful CPU that isn't priced absurdly high."That, my good man, is the very definition of value. It happens automatically when you decide to take price into consideration the price. I also don't care about value, I just want a CPU with a good performance to price ratio. See what I did there? :)
evernessince - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
A little bit extra? It's $200 more then the 8700K, that's not a little.mapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
The key point being, for gaming, use the difference to buy a better GPU, whether one gets an 8700K or 2700X (or indeed any one of a plethora of options really, right back to an old 4930K). It's only at 1080p and high refresh rates where strong CPU performance stands out, something DX12 should help more with as time goes by (the obsession with high refresh rates is amusing given NVIDIA's focus shift back to sub-60Hz being touted once more as ok). For gaming at 1440p or higher, one can get a faster system by choosing a cheaper CPU and better GPU.
There are two exceptions: those for whom money is literally no object, and certain production workloads that still favour frequency/IPC and are not yet well optimised for more than 6 cores (Premiere is probably the best example). Someone mentioned pro tasks being irrelevant because ECC is not supported, but many solo pros can't afford XEON class hw (I mean the proper dual socket setups) even if the initial higher outlay would eventually pay for itself.
What we're going to see with the 9900K for gaming is a small minority of people taking Intel's mantra of "the best" and running with it. Technically, they're correct, but most normal people have budgets and other expenses to consider, including wives/gfs with their own cost tolerance limits. :D
If someone can genuinely afford it then who cares, in the end it's their money, but as a choice for gaming it really only makes sense via the same rationale if they've also then bought a 2080 Ti to go with it, though even there one could retort that two used 1080 TIs would be cheaper & faster (at least for those titles where SLI is functional).
If anything good has come from this and the RTX launch, it's the move away from the supposed social benefit of having "the best"; the street cred is gone, now it just makes one look like a fool who was easily parted from his money.
Spunjji - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
Word.Total Meltdowner - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
This comment reads like shilling so hard. So hard. Please try harder to not be so obvious.Spunjji - Monday, October 22, 2018 - link
I think they placed just the right amount of emphasis on "value". Your post basically explains why it's not relevant for you in terms of you being an Intel fanboy with cash to burn. I'll elaborate.The MSRP is in the realm of irrational spending for a huge number of people. "Rational" here meaning "do I get out anything like what I put in", wherein the answer in all metrics is an obvious no.
Following that, there are a HUGE number of reasons not to pre-order a high-end CPU, especially before proper results are out. Pre-ordering *anything* computer related is a dubious prospect, doubly so when the company selling it paid good money to paint a deceptive picture of their product's performance.
Your assertion that Intel have never launched a bad CPU is false and either ignorance or wilful bias on your part. They have launched a whole bunch of terrible CPUs, from the P3 1.2Ghz that never worked, through the P4 Emergency Edition and the early "dual-core" P4 processors, all the way through to this i9 9900K which is the thirstiest "95W" CPU I've ever seen. Their notebook CPUs are now segregated in such a way that you have to read a review to find out how they will perform, because so much is left on the table in terms of achievable turbo boost limits.
Sorry, I know I replied just to disagree which may seem argumentative, but you posted a bunch of nonsense and half-turths passed off as common-sense and/or logic. It's just bias; none of it does any harm but you could at least be up-front that you prefer Intel. That in itself (I like Intel and am happy to spend top dollar) is a perfectly legitimate reason for everything you did. Just be open and don't actively mislead people who know less than you do.
chris.london - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Hey Ryan. Thanks for the review.Would it be possible to check power consumption in a test in which the 2700x and 9900k perform similarly (maybe in a game)? POV-Ray seems like a good way to test for maximum power draw but it makes the 9900k look extremely inefficient (especially compared to the 9600k). It would be lovely to have another reference point.
0ldman79 - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
I'm legitimately surprised.The 9900k is starving for bandwidth, needs more cache or something. I never expected it to *not* win the CPU benchmarks vs the 9700k. I honestly expected the 9700k to be the odd one out, more expensive than the i5 and slower than the 9900k. This isn't the case. Apparently SMT isn't enabling 100% usage of the CPU's resources, it is allowing a bottleneck due to fighting over resources. I'd love to see the 9900K run against it's brethren with HT disabled.