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: Civilization 6
Originally penned by Sid Meier and his team, the Civilization series of turn-based strategy games are a cult classic, and many an excuse for an all-nighter trying to get Gandhi to declare war on you due to an integer underflow. Truth be told I never actually played the first version, but I have played every edition from the second to the sixth, including the fourth as voiced by the late Leonard Nimoy, and it a game that is easy to pick up, but hard to master.
Benchmarking Civilization has always been somewhat of an oxymoron – for a turn based strategy game, the frame rate is not necessarily the important thing here and even in the right mood, something as low as 5 frames per second can be enough. With Civilization 6 however, Firaxis went hardcore on visual fidelity, trying to pull you into the game. As a result, Civilization can taxing on graphics and CPUs as we crank up the details, especially in DirectX 12.
For this benchmark, we are using the following settings:
- 480p Low, 1440p Low, 4K Low, 1080p Max
For automation, Firaxis supports the in-game automated benchmark from the command line, and output a results file with frame times. We do as many runs within 10 minutes per resolution/setting combination, and then take averages and percentiles.
| AnandTech | Low Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Low Quality |
High Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Max Quality |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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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!