Multi-chip Intel Core i9-11900K Overclocking Review: Four Boards, Cryo Cooling
by Gavin Bonshor on August 30, 2021 9:00 AM ESTOverclocking Results Continued
Synthetic - GeekBench 5: Link
As a common tool for cross-platform testing between mobile, PC, and Mac, GeekBench is an ultimate exercise in synthetic testing across a range of algorithms looking for peak throughput. Tests include encryption, compression, fast Fourier transform, memory operations, n-body physics, matrix operations, histogram manipulation, and HTML parsing.
In the single thread element to the Geekbench 5 benchmark, we saw an overall gain of 0.1% which is marginal at best. However, in the multi-thread section of the benchmark, our overclocked results account for an average uplight of around 4.5%. Again, The reason why the ST values aren't popping here is because the stock CPU enables turbo with TVB to 5.3 GHz, whereas we are fixing each chip to 5.2 GHz all-core.
Gaming - Civilization (DX11)
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 is 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.
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StevoLincolnite - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
I just upgraded from my 10~ year old Core i7 3930K Sandy Bridge CPU, 6-cores, 12 threads. Overclocked to 4.6Ghz with 16Gb of Quad-Channel Ram...Haven't noticed much of a difference when upgrading to the Ryzen 9 5900X and 64GB of 3600Mhz Ram in the games I play. (Mostly just eSports titles)
But hoping this rig lasts 10~ years like my last one.
Sold my old system in parts and so far made about $1,000 AUD back, which is definitely a good return on investment... Enough to buy a Radeon RX 6700XT.
lemurbutton - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
Buy Apple Silicon. Pretty soon, no amount of energy-wasting, environmentally unfriendly overclocks can match the speed of a 35w Apple Silicon thin and light Macbook Pro.TheinsanegamerN - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
> suggesting an apple ARM device for the enviroment.My sides have entered hyperspace. How can one be so dense?
bigvlada - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
That's what we were hearing about slow and melting Pentium 66 MHz and lightning fast and cool 90 MHz PowerMac.And no, "This time it will be different tm" won't work, because just like in 1984. and 1994. majority of people do not want a closed, barely repairable system. In those early days, you needed a bayonet sized screwdriver and soldering iron in order to expand memory on Apple machines.
joelypolly - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
I mean... look at the smartphone market. It's a good indication that the market has changed and most people are just looking for a computing appliance.M O B - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
Oh really. Do people normally want to swap out the GPU, RAM, disk, or WiFi/BT card in their android phone? Of course now. Phones, despite their computational power, are not computers. You fail at analogy.Every company except Apple at least makes it possible to swap out several components, granted that soldered RAM or PCIe SSDs are common in certain compact form factors.
vshade - Tuesday, August 31, 2021 - link
Smartphones are computers for most of the world, is the device they will communicate, make planning and game on.whatthe123 - Monday, August 30, 2021 - link
It's an indication of an entirely new premium market that relies on subscriptions to mask costs. Macs continue to dominate in profitability but they always trail in marketshare because the upfront costs are too high, and nobody can really even get that market except Apple since Apple is the only one that has successfully created and maintained a lifestyle culture around their products. In order for Apple's CPUs to sweep the rest of the market they'd need to sell their chips directly or macs would need to overtake everything else in volume, neither of which Apple seems interested in doing or is really able to do since they're capped by TSMC's output.Exotic - Tuesday, August 31, 2021 - link
On Desktop I agree as people generally want easy upgradability. Where Apple Sillicon will shine and be very impressive to a lot people will be in laptops. In 99.99% of laptops the CPU and GPU is soldered and is not user upgradeable and the same is to said for ultrabooks regarding RAM as that too is getting soldered onto the mainboard.Laptops also sell more than desktops these days.
Wrs - Tuesday, August 31, 2021 - link
Being closed and barely repairable is a side effect of tight integration, not necessarily with being Apple. It is true that Apple tends to be associated with pushing the curve on engineering/miniaturization and naturally this results in a higher price, but they don't have a monopoly on integration and neither does the PC side have a monopoly on expansion and the use of commodity parts.I remember Macs from the 90s, as well as Mac Minis in the 2010s that incorporated tool less entry to the RAM slots, and with just a few regular screws you can access the same on Intel iMacs. Hard drives were just more screws. That's leaving aside the Mac Pro lineup. Yet no modern smartphone lets you upgrade the RAM or internal storage because it takes a lot more effort to design user serviceability into such a tiny yet functional form factor.