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 |  |
 |
 |
 |
| 95th Percentile |  |
 |
 |
 |
All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
126 Comments
View All Comments
zodiacfml - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
While it is true that AMD's current available Ryzen mobile at 7nm is superior to the M1 at 5nm, you have to consider that M1 is Apple's entry level. Things will get more interesting once AMD gets into 5nm and Apple releases bigger M1Alistair - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
That is not true at all. Everything works on the M1, I have an M1 Mac Mini and a PC and have no problems. The issue is Apple's lack of expansion and lack of GPU performance. Games for example that are not on the Mac, not because of M1's performance (which is excellent) but because of M1's lack of GPU performance vs a basic video card, and the lack of the basic GPU expansion options. Also Mac OS sucks compared to Windows imo, but the Mac Mini hardware and M1 CPU performance are A+. Hopefully Apple doubles the GPU options and performance quickly.Meteor2 - Thursday, January 7, 2021 - link
Yes, I thought that a very strange statement too. Rosetta2 exists and it works.JayNor - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
compared to the competition that can't respond to the WFH and educational demand?Qasar - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
still better then a company that fell asleep, and stagnated the cpu industry. intels lack of innovation, and reliance on its process tech, is what has caused intel to be in the position it is now in.powerarmour - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
Can you actually buy an Intel motherboard at the moment?, shortages are very apparent there too.regsEx - Thursday, January 7, 2021 - link
Apple doesn't have any high performance CPU.JessNarmo - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
420mm AIO with bare die liquid metal here we come!But jokes aside good 360 AIO with liquid metal should keep it quite easily under 80C at all times.
Anytime you see significant temperatures liquid metal helps disproportionately more, because it's thermal conductivity grows with temperature unlike thermal pastes. It drops 20C from 80C on paste and 30C from 100C on paste.
Still I'd rather wait for 5900x
Deicidium369 - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Did you see the cooler?http://thermalright.com/product/true-copper/
passive design
lopri - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
I have been looking for that cooler. Does anyone know where to find one?