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: Shadow of War
Next up is Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the sequel to Shadow of Mordor. Developed by Monolith, whose last hit was arguably F.E.A.R., Shadow of Mordor returned them to the spotlight with an innovative NPC rival generation and interaction system called the Nemesis System, along with a storyline based on J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium, and making it work on a highly modified engine that originally powered F.E.A.R. in 2005.
Using the new LithTech Firebird engine, Shadow of War improves on the detail and complexity, and with free add-on high-resolution texture packs, offers itself as a good example of getting the most graphics out of an engine that may not be bleeding edge. Shadow of War also supports HDR (HDR10).
| AnandTech CPU Gaming 2019 Game List | ||||||||
| Game | Genre | Release | API | IGP | Low | Med | High | |
| Shadow of War | Action / RPG | Sep 2017 | DX11 | 720p Ultra | 1080p Ultra | 4K High | 8K High | |
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
| Shadow of War | IGP | Low | Medium | High |
| Average FPS |  |
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Shadow of War is another game where it’s hard to tease out CPU limitations under reasonable game settings. Even 1080p Ultra is a bunch of Intel CPUs seeing who can tip-toe over 100fps, with AMD right on their tail. The less reasonable 720p Ultra pushes this back slightly – the CPUs with the weakest per-thread performance start to fall behind – but it’s still a tight pack for all of the Coffee Lake CPUs. With the highest frequencies and tied for the most cores among the desktop processors here, it’s clear that the 9900K is going to be the strongest contender. But this isn’t a game that can benefit from that performance right now.
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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...
dezonio2 - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
I would love to see overclocking performance of the 9600k. It would show exactly how much of a difference the upgraded TIM makes if compared to 8600k.emn13 - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
That power consumption seems pretty crazy. Going from 4.5 to 5Gz for +56% powerdraw? or worse, from 5.0 to 5.3GHz for 6% clock boost and +40% powerdraw?This proc looks like it makes sense at 4.5GHz; beyond that - not much. I mean going from 4.5 to 5.3 isn't nothing - 18% more clocks! But that's going to translate into less-than-that performance gain, and even 18%, while admirable and all, is often not actually all that noticeable - unlike that powerdraw, which you'll likely notice in terms of noise and effort to get the system cooled at all.
I don't know; this proc looks... cool... but borderline. I'm not sure I'd buy it, even if money were no object (and since I'd consider this for work - it basically isn't).
Tkan2155 - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Yes bill add up this prepare big wallet . amd can overclock higher but it's better at stock . intel is going over limit because they want to show the world they are the bestmapesdhs - Sunday, October 21, 2018 - link
But then, the candle that burns twice as brightly burns half as long. :)MonkeyPaw - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
In regards to TDP, I say use your own methodology and ratings if Intel and AMD can’t arrive at a standard measure. Based on how the i9 truly performs in this regard, the 95W rating is just shy of disingenuous. When real world values are applied it does change where this CPU sits in regard to its overall value. Lots of performance? Yes, but it comes at a significant cost. These CPUs aren’t like GPUs, where the cooling solution is designed to match the limits of the GPU. No, Intel doesn’t even bundle a cooler, because they know they have nothing to offer to hit boost speeds, and let’s be real—it’s the boost speeds that help sell this product and yield bragging rights.pavag - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
It doesn't have a price/performance chart, so it is hard to tell how justifiable is to spend on this processor, compared to alternatives, and that's the main purpose of reading this kind of articles.Here is one from TomsHardware, for reference:
https://img.purch.com/r/711x457/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhLm...
It makes clear that is little to gain from a cheap i5-8400 to an i9-9900K, and it also tells which processors are better performing at a given price, or cheaper at a given performance. At least from an average FPS gaming viewpoint.
WinterCharm - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Well written. Great article, and I enjoyed it thoroughly :)Machinus - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Can you test the power draw and temperatures of the 9900 with HT disabled, and compare that to the 9700 under the same conditions?Felice - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
Ryan--Any chance of you doing the same run with the 9900K's hyperthreading disabled? A lot of gamers find they get better performance without hyperthreading.