Intel Core i9-10850K Review: The Real Intel Flagship
by Dr. Ian Cutress on January 4, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core
- Z490
- 10th Gen Core
- Comet Lake
- LGA1200
- i9-10850K
Gaming Tests: Chernobylite
Despite the advent of recent TV shows like Chernobyl, recreating the situation revolving around the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the concept of nuclear fallout and the town of Pripyat have been popular settings for a number of games – mostly first person shooters. Chernobylite is an indie title that plays on a science-fiction survival horror experience and uses a 3D-scanned recreation of the real Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. It involves challenging combat, a mix of free exploration with crafting and non-linear story telling. While still in early access, it is already picking up plenty of awards.
I picked up Chernobylite while still in early access, and was impressed by its in-game benchmark, showcasing complex building structure with plenty of trees and structures where aliasing becomes important. The in-game benchmark is an on-rails experience through the scenery, covering both indoor and outdoor scenes – it ends up being very CPU limited in the way it is designed. We have taken an offline version of Chernobylite to use in our tests, and we are testing the following settings combinations:
- 360p Low, 1440p Low, 4K Low, 1080p Max
We do as many runs within 10 minutes per resolution/setting combination, and then take averages.
| AnandTech | Low Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Low Quality |
High Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Max Quality |
| Average FPS |  |
 |
 |
|
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
126 Comments
View All Comments
simpleinhibition - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
This review is only 6 months after launch. I remember a time when anandtech spent more time doing launch day articles and less time tweetingmrvco - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Very diplomatic review, but Intel has become the Dodge of CPUs.Everett F Sargent - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
"For v2.1, we also have a fully optimized AVX2/AVX512 version, which uses intrinsics to get the best performance out of the software."Hmm, err, none of the CPU's in this review support any of the AVX-512 instruction set afaik.
Pointless to compile explicit AVX-512 instructions or use the AVX-512 compiler flag. We know this because compiling something on an AVX-512 aware CPU will work on an AVX-512 machine but will surely crash on a non-AVX-512 CPU. So the best you can say in this review is that AVX2 was enabled as all of the tested CPU's support AVX2.
Now when Rocket Lake comes out then you have an AVE-512 aware CPU. I really don't care what you all do. But if you are going to use/build custom code then use it in a pure AVE-512 compiled code. Four word versus eight word vectors (assuming 64-bit FP code). That then isolates the AVX-512 advantage which should be ~2X faster (eight/four) afaik.
Everett F Sargent - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Oh and the CPU speeds would have the same for all tests. Otherwise you will have to factor in those different CPU clocks. Yes to the slower clocks for AVX2/AVX-512 instructions as per the MHz offsets versus non-vectored code.TeXWiller - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Sorry to nit-pick, Ian, but the original definition of the dark silicon was the area of the chip for which there is not enough power or thermal budget to power at the same time as the rest of the chip, instead that of structures that are purposefully added to improve thermal management. The paragraph makes the distinction unclear in my opinion.anarfox - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
I bit of an overreaction in the comments here. I have one of these with a noctua nh-d15 and it has no problem keeping it cool. And it's not like it have to ramp up the fans either. Is really quiet.An amd cpu might be a better choice of you can get one. But that's not an easy task.
Oxford Guy - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
‘While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds’Hogwash.
Ultimately, very few non-enthusiasts read Anandtech. So, citing the people who are not your audience is plain fallacious.
Secondly, no one needs to go to JDEC to gain stability, nor wants to, unless they’re in ECC land. If they didn’t bother to read their motherboard vendor’s supposed RAM list that shouldn’t be a ball and chain around our necks.
Want JDEC? Fine. Do two rounds of tests. Otherwise, stick with the actual sweet spot in terms of price and performance. That is never JDEC.
Oxford Guy - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
JEDEC, rather. Not even spelling the acronym is par for the course given how irrelevant it is for enthusiasts.As for ‘supposed’, that’s auto-defect.
Dug - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
"‘While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds’"Ummmm..... no.
I guess you guys haven't bought a computer in a long time from a vendor. Or even realize that people that do make their own, do apply it because every single guide on youtube, every tech site, every how to blog, shows it. So your assumption is just that, and not realistic.
Dug - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
And that wasn't directed to anarfox, but Anandtech. No edit in 2021!