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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Kevin G - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Inconsistency error on the second page: the 10850K and 10900K swap colors in the graphs.With regards to the intercore latency, what is the internal bus topology like in the 10 core Comet Lake? Last I heard, Intel was still using the ring topology for client processors but did they finally add a second ring similar to what they did for the medium and high core core count Xeons pre-Sky Lake? That'd explain why two of the cores seem off from the rest (and I would presume the GPU and PCIe controller would also sit on that same ring).
Spunjji - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
I genuinely appreciate the detail put into this article, but it's amusing that it was prompted by what amounts to little more than a bait-and-switch on their top-end product. 😬 The way I'm looking at it, they either used the early reviews to lie about the price of their *theoretical* flagship CPU, or they used the early reviews to lie about the power characteristics of their *actually available* flagship CPU.Either way, the end result remains the same: never trust Intel PR, and avoid their products unless you like to use your PC as a small household water heater.
JessNarmo - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
All companies lie and do questionable stuff, all that matters is what you getting for the money.And in winter small house heater in much appreciated when running script overnight allows you to avoid using house air heater in the room ;D
I think 10850k could be a pretty good deal if $400 or cheaper and you can't wait for AMD availability.
But I think it's only viable option for those who still rocking DDR3 or those who have no PC at all for the rest of us waiting is better. CPU upgrade is just not worth it as long as you have anything Skylake based on zen2 based.
Qasar - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
" All companies lie and do questionable stuff " not compared to intel, they have been pretty much lieing for how many years now about how its 10nm tech is coming along.GeoffreyA - Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - link
Maybe Intel should go into the geyser business ;)zamroni - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Intel should remove the low spec on die integrated gpu and replace it with more powerful gpu chiplet.JessNarmo - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Intel should remove integrated GPU from all high end CPU's. It's completely pointless. No one is using $500 CPU and using integrated graphics. Silicone is better spent on better CPU.heftig - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
I am, actually. For a soho+media server and distcc host which only needs a GPU for whatever can't be done over SSH.temps - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
good to see anandtech still has the biggest gap between quality of articles and quality of comment sectionrunning a 9900K with integrated here, the computer is for audio production and has no use for a graphics card. intel outperforms ryzen for this workload too.
powerarmour - Tuesday, January 5, 2021 - link
Sorry to disappoint if you've been hiding under a rock for a couple of years, but this is no longer the case, check any recent Scan dawbench articles...