Intel Core i9-9900K and Core i7-9700K Review

[Julio Franco]

Today we can finally show you how Intel's new octa-core 9th-gen processors perform. On hand for testing we have the Core i9-9900K, an 8 core/16 thread processor that operates at 3.6 GHz, boost as high as 4.7 GHz on all cores with a max single core frequency of 5 GHz. We also have the i7-9700K which is essentially the same CPU, but crucially, with Hyper-threading disabled.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/review/1730-intel-core-i9-9900k-core-i7-9700k/

 

[amstech]

As an Nvidia and Intel fan I usually try to stick up for them or explain their angle, but like the RTX cards these are just too overpriced. I really hope they don't sell all that well, I understand being cocky if your #1 but at this point I don't think either company's head will fit through the door.

Nothing to see here, find a deal on an 2-3 older gen Intel if you want and pair it with a GTX 1080, your not missing anything. In 3 years when Ray Tracing is actually worth getting, the cards won't be so overpriced.
Don't drink the coolaid...this, coming from an Intel/Nvidia supporter.

Great review and honesty by Mr. Walton.

 

[tomkaten]

Great review, Steve, thanks ! And that conclusion really hammers it home. Way too expensive for gaming, nothing to write home about with productivity workloads.

Also, you don't need a new mobo, but you kinda do lol.

 

[Bluescreendeath]

As an Nvidia and Intel fan I usually try to stick up for them or explain their angle, but like the RTX cards these are just too overpriced. I really hope they don't sell all that well, I understand being cocky if your #1 but at this point I don't think either company's head will fit through the door.

Nothing to see here, find a deal on an 2-3 older gen Intel if you want and pair it with a GTX 1080, your not missing anything. In 3 years when Ray Tracing is actually worth getting, the cards won't be so overpriced.
Don't drink the coolaid...this, coming from an Intel/Nvidia supporter.

Great review and honesty by Mr. Walton.

Why buy older 2-3 gen Intels? Even used Haswell and Skylakes 4c/8t cpus still cost around $200 on ebay. For around that price you can get an 6-8 core/12-16 thread Ryzen 2 2600x/2700 that demolishes those Intel cpus.

 

[fadingfool]

Love to see an OC 7820X v 9900k comparison - or even better a delidded OC 7820X v OC 9900K - I suspect it would make a good spot the difference competition......

 

[Sfine]

Considering even the best case scenario for Intel (air-cooled stock 9900k @ 85°C at minimum Intel MSRP & maximum AMD Retail price), the 9900k eventually costs AT LEAST $250 more than a Ryzen 2700X ($488-329 + $90 cooler). At the current prices of 2700X & 9900k, this value is ~$350. For more acceptable temperatures/overclocking, it goes over 400. Even if you already own a powerful LC solution, the extra $350 could be wisely invested in a better video card/Memory/NVMe/SSD. For pure gaming, anything over 60 fps 1% min. is extraneous.

 

[Carmaine]

Bought the 2700x 2 days ago because I thought the upgrade was worth it from my 4790k. But im returning it today mainly because I create Android applications in Android studio and AMD still has so much catching up to do with handling the Android emulator. Google released an update that allowed AMD virtualization to be used but it's still horribly slow. I'm either going to stick to what I have now or get the 8700k since it's cheaper and upgrade it in the future.

 

[mosu]

Good job, Steve. Because I do not own any Intel hardware, please test both processors at frequencies AMD works by default, not overclocked so we can compare IPC. Thank you in advance.

 

[amstech]

Why buy older 2-3 gen Intels? Even used Haswell and Skylakes 4c/8t cpus still cost around $200 on ebay. For around that price you can get an 6-8 core/12-16 thread Ryzen 2 2600x/2700 that demolishes those Intel cpus.

Not in gaming.

 

[ShagnWagn]

I would venture to say, at least strictly from a gaming perspective, that if you are going to spend this much on a CPU you are most likely running higher than 1080p gaming resolution.

I could see it a bit different if the same computer was also being used for productivity where time is money.

 

[Stark]

"The added power consumption and heat make them less attractive options. For an almost 50% increase in price you’re looking at maybe a 5% increase in performance, assuming you don’t game at 4K."
This will give Intel nightmares cause all their PR is shot to the moon with one rational argument. Its THE final rationale.
Great work guys and thanks for the hard work on this.

 

[Sanmayce]

Hi,
you forgot to mention which version of 7-zip was used!
You know that v.18.05 is much faster, it seems you used an older/slower one, yes?

 

[yeeeeman]

As an Nvidia and Intel fan I usually try to stick up for them or explain their angle, but like the RTX cards these are just too overpriced. I really hope they don't sell all that well, I understand being cocky if your #1 but at this point I don't think either company's head will fit through the door.

Nothing to see here, find a deal on an 2-3 older gen Intel if you want and pair it with a GTX 1080, your not missing anything. In 3 years when Ray Tracing is actually worth getting, the cards won't be so overpriced.
Don't drink the coolaid...this, coming from an Intel/Nvidia supporter.

Great review and honesty by Mr. Walton.

Why buy a 2-3 older gen with 4 cores when you can buy an 8 core ryzen and forget about it?

 

[yeeeeman]

Why buy older 2-3 gen Intels? Even used Haswell and Skylakes 4c/8t cpus still cost around $200 on ebay. For around that price you can get an 6-8 core/12-16 thread Ryzen 2 2600x/2700 that demolishes those Intel cpus.

Not in gaming.

You are aware of the fact that in 1 year time those 4 core cpus will be obsolete, right? Games are more and more threaded, using at least 8 threads. Lets be reasonable for once and not recommend Intel just because it gives you 5 more fps now and 10 fps less in a years time.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I *really* did not expect to be underwhelmed by the 9900K but there it is. It's hard to recommend this over an 8700K or a 2700(X) as it's both too expensive and inconvenient (mobo, cooling) to extract the max performance from it.

Wow.

 

[Goamist]

They keep saying that it's the best gaming CPU... it's like a car manufacturer saying that their new car it's the fastest going backwards - it may be true, but it's useless in real life. There is a niche of people that play competitively using high refresh monitors and 1080p resolution, but those guys won't fill Intel's coffers. Your real-life gamer wants to play The Witcher 3, FF XV, heavily modded Skyrim, the latest Battlefield and Assassin's Creed in 4K with maxxed out details - the GPU will always be the bottleneck. The potential 1-2 fps drop when using a much cheaper Ryzen CPU instead of the "best" gaming CPU in the world is far offset by being able to afford a better GPU or a faster SSD AND being able to increase the productivity of the rig by taking advantage of the higher number of cores, bigger cache and more PCI lanes. And don't forget the added bonus of a cheaper MB.

But I don't expect the sheep to buy anything but "the best", even when "the best" is Intel's profit.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Hey Steve and Tim, I know requests are not your thing but I'm curious about power consumption here. The 9900K is a pig as you say but I wonder how it's power consumption compares to Ryzen 2700X at the same CPU frequency with 8c16t. Pick 4.0 or 4.2, whichever. Just wondering if at the same freq whether one or the other is more of a power pig.

I don't recall a similar comparo of the 8700K to 2600X at 6c12t but if that's been done already, I'd love to see it.

 

[Evernessince]

Why buy older 2-3 gen Intels? Even used Haswell and Skylakes 4c/8t cpus still cost around $200 on ebay. For around that price you can get an 6-8 core/12-16 thread Ryzen 2 2600x/2700 that demolishes those Intel cpus.

Not in gaming.

The Ryzen 2000 series is equal in gaming performance to the Intel 6000 series. As the other commentator said, it's really not worth it to spend $250 on a used 6700K to delid and pair with a high end cooler and mobo when you can get a 6-core 2600 for $150 and a mid-range motherboard for another $70. In fact Newegg was offering a bundle deal the other day for a 2600 + B350 motherboard for $230 plus a free $30 gift card.

Just a comparison

Intel CPU: $250
CPU Cooler: $70
Mobo: $130
Total: $450

AMD CPU: $150
CPU Cooler: $0
Mobo: $70
Total: $220

The AMD system comes out to less then half the cost. You'd have to opt for a cheaper CPU cooler on the Intel system, which defeats the purpose of getting a high IPC CPU in the first place. You'd end up with worse gaming performance then the Ryzen. The AMD system will also get Ryzen 2 support and has 2 extra cores. The only Intel CPUs that are older you should be buying are the 7700K and 8700K. Anything with lower clocks isn't worth the money.

 

[overpricetrash]

It's just boggled your mind when people actually buying these overprice rubbish when there is a better/cheaper alternative, oh! wait that must be for all the peeps who self-proclaimed fanboy.

 

[amstech]

The Ryzen 2000 series is equal in gaming performance to the Intel 6000 series. The only Intel CPUs that are older you should be buying are the 7700K and 8700K. Anything with lower clocks isn't worth the money.

I agree with you that Ryzen is a great choice for gaming as well, the 2700 is gold.

 

[overpricetrash]

Just imagined without AMD around, you all probably still running overprice rubbish UNICORE processor from Intel.

 

[brucek]

"But at 1080p with an RTX 2080 Ti it barely is any better than the 8700K"

Color me skeptical that there is anyone in the world running that configuration other than maybe a QA lab somewhere.

 

[Cooe14]

Bought the 2700x 2 days ago because I thought the upgrade was worth it from my 4790k. But im returning it today mainly because I create Android applications in Android studio and AMD still has so much catching up to do with handling the Android emulator. Google released an update that allowed AMD virtualization to be used but it's still horribly slow. I'm either going to stick to what I have now or get the 8700k since it's cheaper and upgrade it in the future.

Umm.... You do realize that the poor performance on Ryzen with Google's Android code is entirely the former's fault and not AMD's right??? I get why that's frustrating, but it's not AMD that has "the catching up to do", but Google that needs to update their damn code/compliers to accurately reflect the current CPU market.

 

[mrjgriffin]

This is what I've gathered from this article and correct me if I'm mistaken please. last week or whatever the article with the 2080ti performance surfaced right? you were NOT using the new 9ths gen intels in those tests if I remember correctly. so my point is here from the 2080ti test without intel 9th gen comparing to the test we have in this article that has the new 9th gen intels in it, I see no difference in 4k framerate in games. Am I wrong or are the 9th gen intels basically no upgrade when it comes to 4k compared to the 8th gen? I swear the minimum frames etc look extremely similar to what I have in memory right now. I'm not looking at the old article lol so please correct me if I am mistaken.

 

[yeeeeman]

4k usually limits the GPU, not the CPU. This means that an 8700K is bottlenecked by a 2080Ti at 4k, like the new 9900K. If we were to lower the resolution to 1080P, you can see some difference, although minor between the two.
We are beating around the bush here. The 9900K is a nice CPU, no doubt about it. It is a known quantity, in that is has 2 more cores than 8700K, 4 more threads a few more Mhz by default. In 2 years time, this difference will be seen in games, but now the difference is minor.
BUT, the real problem with this CPU is the price now. We are against it because of that price, not because of its performance. At 580$ you have to be blind not to see that it is not worth the money. At 400$, it could have been another situation alltogether.