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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Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 7, 2021 - link
Anarfox? Your reply was in response to my post.Dug - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
It's just like saying very few users download video card drivers and just use what's built into Windows. So that's how were going to test. Really?No. Very few users will buy a 10850-K because it's an enthusiasts chip meant to be overclocked. So if you are reviewing an enthusiasts chip, maybe you should benchmark it like someone that knows what they bought.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 7, 2021 - link
"It's just like saying very few users download video card drivers and just use what's built into Windows. So that's how were going to test. Really?"Good point.
eastcoast_pete - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
About that line on IBM's z-Series processors: I thought about that, but decided against getting one of those. The design of the z-series clashes with the design of my furniture, and the price with the size of my bank account (:boozed - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
So, what you're saying is that I should buy a Ryzen 5000?lucasdclopes - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Is the TRUE Copper still a good cooler? How does it compares to today offerings? I mean, yeah, it is 2Kg of copper, bug there is also more than 10 years of evolution in cooler design.I'm asking because, holy shit, those temperatures are terrible.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 7, 2021 - link
"there is also more than 10 years of evolution in cooler design"Can't overcome the laws of physics.
lucasdclopes - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
"With the Ryzen 7 5800X, there’s no worrying about excessive power or thermals, which in of itself is perhaps peace of mind.On performance against AMD, the 5800X wins on single threaded loads by 15-20% and encoding, while the 10850K wins on rendering multithreaded workloads like Blender by up to 10%. "
Oh my god it is amazing how the tables have turned so fast.
Intel is the hotter, power hungrier, with slower but more cores at the same price point now.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, January 7, 2021 - link
Unless the power consumption is equivalent it's not a win.29a - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
"So why test it at all? Firstly, because we need an AI benchmark, and a bad one is still better than not having one at all."I can't disagree with this statement enough, bad data is worse than no data.