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

[hahahanoobs]

@TechSpot
In the future could you please highlight/use different colours to seperate the hardware that was reviewed to make it easier to see? Especially for mobile users since the text is much smaller compared to a monitor.

Thank you.

 

[mister2forme]

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.

Demolish? No, match with much better performance outside of gaming? Yup. Future upgrades? Yup.

I went from an overclocked 6700k (4.6GHz) to Ryzen, and in most games, it matched or improved FPS on a 1080ti. Was it incredible difference in gaming? Nope. But everything else improved and I'll be ready when 7nm comes out. I'd say if you're looking to build today, you can't beat a 2600 for value. I wouldn't look at Haswell or Skylake unless you can grab a 6700k for 100$

 

[Sausagemeat]

To answer the reviewers question, these processors are for people like me. I am not poor. I’m certainly not a millionaire but I’m currently a working communications professional living without children, the price difference between the 2700X and the 9900K might be big as a percentage but in real money it’s only about £300. I must say the 9900K is dearer than I expected but it’s not dear enough to put me off buying it. Despite these prices, PC gaming remains cheaper than a whole wealth of hobbies and pastimes that many working class people enjoy (such as horse riding, motorsport and mine - scuba diving). Now, I would be more interested in TR if TR could dominate the gaming tests as well as rendering etc. But it doesn’t. So, this CPU is for me, I’m not going to buy it, I’m going to be abroad in Asia for most of the next 9 months and moving from place to place. However if I were in the market for a desktop CPU I would buy the 9900K without question, it’s the new consumer king and offers a real no compromise solution for both gaming and productivity. I do think the 2700X is very good, decent multithreaded performance and it’s cheap. But it’s poor gaming performance rules it out for me, I understand that at higher resolutions you can’t tell the difference but that doesn’t mean it’s not worse. If I buy a graphics card upgrade in a couple of years will I find the CPU is then lagging behind? And other reviewers have shown with the 8700K that some CPU limited games can show a difference even at 4K. Also, it’s only £300. Considering what people spend to game at high resolutions that isn’t much money. Of course that is relative. If you’re on a budget you can get a 2700X, motherboard and RAM for the same price as a 9900K. That will mean a lot to people who don’t want or can’t spend so much. Although as the reviewer states, the best value is the 2600X and I have to agree. Of course it all depends what your system is for. Right now it seems gamers should go Intel, something that hasn’t changed in a long time now. I’m willing to bet even the 9600K will offer an advantage over Ryzen in gaming.

One thing I have learnt however, I don’t think pricing would be that different if Ryzen wasn’t around. CPUs like this have clearly been in development long before Ryzen 1 launched, which was only 18 months ago. Maybe Intel wouldn’t have released them so quickly but I have a feeling that they have only been bumped ahead by a few months at most. Before Ryzen we had 4c/8t CPUs for £300 and now we have 8c/16t CPUs for £600. I don’t feel like things have become any cheaper from Intel at all. And yet we all know they will sell.

 

[petert]

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.

In 2014 I noticed the same issue. Furthermore, even Intel would underperform heavily unless you enabled the virtualization feature from BIOS - which for some laptops used to be deactivated. I wonder if AMD has some virtualization option to enable and if that would help.

 

[ZackL04]

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.

And Overclocked 6700k will beat an overclocked 2600 in everygame cept AotS, which noone plays

 

[Krackan]

I get that there's a time crunch to rush these reviews out before other sites but seriously, there's a ton of spelling/grammatical errors in this article. No, I'm not going to point them all out, proofread your work before publishing it.

 

[Nightfire]

It looks like the 9900k is NOT the fastest at gaming, but instead the 9700k or 8086k are, especially since they do not go nuclear when higher than 5.1 ghz.

So who is it for then? Not pure gamers as stated above. Nor does it make sense for power users that do a combination of things since tr4 and x299 offer so much more.

The only thing this CPU was for was to boost Intels ego.

 

[Evernessince]

And Overclocked 6700k will beat an overclocked 2600 in everygame cept AotS, which noone plays

3% performance uplift at 1080p, you are paying more then double the cost and loosing two cores. That's not a good trade-off, especially given not everyone can overclock. You are commenting for an enthusiast's point of view. Stock vs Stock, which is what a vast majority of people are going to be using the 6700K and 2600 are neck and neck. Heck, even as an enthusiast can you really justify double the cost for 3% more performance? If you need every last bit of performance and price is no concern, you are not buying a 6700K in the first place. You are buying an 8700K or 9900K. Otherwise the 6700K and it's platform are far overpriced for what you get.

 

[ZackL04]

3% performance uplift at 1080p, you are paying more then double the cost and loosing two cores. That's not a good trade-off, especially given not everyone can overclock. You are commenting for an enthusiast's point of view. Stock vs Stock, which is what a vast majority of people are going to be using the 6700K and 2600 are neck and neck. Heck, even as an enthusiast can you really justify double the cost for 3% more performance? If you need every last bit of performance and price is no concern, you are not buying a 6700K in the first place. You are buying an 8700K or 9900K. Otherwise the 6700K and it's platform are far overpriced for what you get.

Dont forget you wont see these speeds on Ryzen without overclocking ram or spending more on a 3000+ kit vs the speeds you can attain on some cheap 2400 maybe pulled from a workstation and a 6700k.

Im just saying, its not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. There are many variables involved. I dumped my 1600 system for a i5 8400 and will never look back. Deals can be had, coupons, sales, google express discounts, ebay discounts. You can get in an intel powered system for a fraction more an know you have the best when it comes to games and driving future far more powerful GPU’s

 

[amghwk]

It would have been better if all the CPUs listed under "productivity" benchmarks are also included in the gaming benchmarks. At least the side-by-side comparison with the 8700K would have been useful. I know the threadrippers were conveniently left out of the gaming benchmarks because they're not worth it in gaming?

And there are no obligations for publishing this article this month, since this is not a monthly magazine, so there's no need for rushing out this article and no reason for "time constraints", other than to compete with other online tech sites.

 

[Evernessince]

Dont forget you wont see these speeds on Ryzen without overclocking ram or spending more on a 3000+ kit vs the speeds you can attain on some cheap 2400 maybe pulled from a workstation and a 6700k.

Im just saying, its not as cut and dry as you make it out to be. There are many variables involved. I dumped my 1600 system for a i5 8400 and will never look back. Deals can be had, coupons, sales, google express discounts, ebay discounts. You can get in an intel powered system for a fraction more an know you have the best when it comes to games and driving future far more powerful GPU’s

Ryzen's sweet spot is 2666 which can be had for at the same price as base spec RAM. FYI eBay deals and other discounts also apply for Ryzen. This isn't a point for the i5 8400, it's a point for deal hunting PC parts in general.

"You can get in an intel powered system for a fraction more an know you have the best when it comes to games and driving future far more powerful GPU’s"

In no universe is this true. AMD beats Intel in value, badly. Bringing in "oh well I got this one deal" is subject. Comparisons are based off retail price, not how much some dude snagged a 2nd hand used junker for.

 

[Strawman]

And Overclocked 6700k will beat an overclocked 2600 in everygame cept AotS, which noone plays

True, but it would also crash it in price. Even as used I'm pretty sure a 6700k + a z170/270 + a good cooler is going to cost more than a 2600x + mobo.

 

[hahahanoobs]

And Overclocked 6700k will beat an overclocked 2600 in everygame cept AotS, which noone plays

3% performance uplift at 1080p, you are paying more then double the cost and loosing two cores. That's not a good trade-off, especially given not everyone can overclock. You are commenting for an enthusiast's point of view. Stock vs Stock, which is what a vast majority of people are going to be using the 6700K and 2600 are neck and neck.

I would imagine the vast majority are overclocking the K chips, since that's what they are for...

 

[Evernessince]

I would imagine the vast majority are overclocking the K chips, since that's what they are for...

When I said "especially given not everyone can overclock" I meant they do not have the knowledge to do so. You would also be wrong about the vast majority of K chips being overclocked. The vast majority of people buy the chips because they were recommended to them by friends and benchmarks and they never bother to overclock. You forget that the number of people in the PC enthusiast community is a sliver of all PC purchasers.

 

[HardwareToaster]

So I'm upgrading my computer atm, I already bought a asus strix z370-f and 16 gb trident z rgb. Should I buy a 8700k or a 9700k. I'm not considering an i5 because I'm not only gaming, but editing videos, work with unity and blender. I know a AMD Ryzen might be better, but I got a good z370 mobo for a good price, and now I need an Intel CPU. I also have a asus strix gtx 1070 o8G in my system, If that helps anything. I'm really confused on on wh cpu I should take. Thanks for ur help

 

[Evernessince]

So I'm upgrading my computer atm, I already bought a asus strix z370-f and 16 gb trident z rgb. Should I buy a 8700k or a 9700k. I'm not considering an i5 because I'm not only gaming, but editing videos, work with unity and blender. I know a AMD Ryzen might be better, but I got a good z370 mobo for a good price, and now I need an Intel CPU. I also have a asus strix gtx 1070 o8G in my system, If that helps anything. I'm really confused on on wh cpu I should take. Thanks for ur help

Both 8700K and 9700K pricing is above MSRP right now so any savings you could have possibly gotten on the motherboard are wiped out by paying the extra on top of the MSRP of the CPUs. You are looking at $380 for the 8700K when the Ryzen 2700X runs $300. That's not including the cost of the cooler.

The 8700K is better then the 9700K for multi-thread and the 2700X is better then both of them. Given that you are doing editing, videos, and professional work in general I suggest you do a very conservative overclock if at all. You don't want crashing and to loose hours of work.

I'd highly recommend you just resell the motherboard and get a 2700X. It will be better for your work, will come out cheaper, and doesn't require overclocking to get full performance. You'll also have more upgrade options with the AMD platform.

 

[Mike89]

I just recently bought a 8600k. I ain't going anywhere for awhile. This does what I need it to.

 

[Ira Wechsler]

The 9900k shows the utter futility of Intel in producing a highly overclocked chip still on a 14nm process with super high thermals and probably a short life span before chip degradation. This chip is retailing for $580.00 and in my opinion is not worth more than $375. I will wait 6 months for the 7nm Zen2 from Ryzen which will likely have 10 to 12 cores with better thermals and better performance at a price that will embarrass Intel. This chip is highway robber and with its high top and thermals belongs in the Intel Hall of Shame.

 

[yeeeeman]

One thing I have learnt however, I don’t think pricing would be that different if Ryzen wasn’t around. CPUs like this have clearly been in development long before Ryzen 1 launched, which was only 18 months ago. Maybe Intel wouldn’t have released them so quickly but I have a feeling that they have only been bumped ahead by a few months at most. Before Ryzen we had 4c/8t CPUs for £300 and now we have 8c/16t CPUs for £600. I don’t feel like things have become any cheaper from Intel at all. And yet we all know they will sell.

Intel has its own fabs. The price of taping out another version of the chip is an order of magnitude lower compared to the price AMD pays to GF or soon to TSMC to do the same thing. So it is pretty easy for them to make another design/verify/tapeout/test/produce in half a year-one year max. They might have had in plan to release a higher than 4 cores chip at some point, maybe a 8700K type of chip, but probably at lower frequencies, so that with 9th gen to either launch CannonLake or Icelake again with 6 cores and a small bump in frequency. When Ryzen launched, they had the 7700K with 4/8 cores. The 1800X was fighting with the 6900K which was part of hedt, 10/20 cores and 2k $ price.

After 1.5 years, we get better performance than 6900K at 500$ (official price). If that isn't progress, I don't know what it is.

Don't fool yourself, Intel has the same prices because pricing is something they don't want to change. People need to have this idea in their heads that Intel is the posh, expensive, super high-end option, so it is therefore understandable to pay the price premium. What Ryzen did was to force Intel to skip the baby steps and release something that they would have released maybe in 2021 (talking about this 8 core variant). They made Intel move the good/expensive stuff from HEDT to the consumer platform which is cheaper, period.

Another thing that I think you get wrong is the fact that people will be people this time also and buy the 9900K. I think the price is so prohibitive, that most people will spend the cash on RAM, better GPU, etc. People like you will feed their ego and pay the extra cash just to have the best thing out there, but it isn't worth it.

 

[Lew Zealand]

AMD beats Intel in value, badly. Bringing in "oh well I got this one deal" is subject. Comparisons are based off retail price, not how much some dude snagged a 2nd hand used junker for.

Not contradicting you but there are some narrow use cases where Intel does win the value proposition. Mine is one. I built my first PC for another person here about a year ago with a Ryzen 3 1200 and was anticipating building another for myself with a R5 2600 but it ends up the most processor-intensive way I use my PC is for h.265 encoding and gaming and the i5-8400 wins for those uses. Almost exclusively those uses but those are mine. I also appreciate low power and cost and in fact the i5-8400 also wins for h.265 fps/watt and fps/$ (a half year ago).

Is it a forward-thinking purchase? No, as AM4 will be supported for another year and a half at least while my low power B360 will probably not run a 9700K or i900K well due to power restrictions. And mega $$ restrictions. But I bought for what I need now and it was the clear winner.

We'll see if Zen2/R 3xxx makes a long term fool out of me.

 

[Evernessince]

Not contradicting you but there are some narrow use cases where Intel does win the value proposition. Mine is one. I built my first PC for another person here about a year ago with a Ryzen 3 1200 and was anticipating building another for myself with a R5 2600 but it ends up the most processor-intensive way I use my PC is for h.265 encoding and gaming and the i5-8400 wins for those uses. Almost exclusively those uses but those are mine. I also appreciate low power and cost and in fact the i5-8400 also wins for h.265 fps/watt and fps/$ (a half year ago).

Is it a forward-thinking purchase? No, as AM4 will be supported for another year and a half at least while my low power B360 will probably not run a 9700K or i900K well due to power restrictions. And mega $$ restrictions. But I bought for what I need now and it was the clear winner.

We'll see if Zen2/R 3xxx makes a long term fool out of me.

Hey and that's completely perfect. You picked what works best for you and that's always a smart idea.

 

[Brian0917]

The new chips are suppossed to have some fixes for the meltdown and specter I believe. maybe thats why performance isn't as great.

 

[Evernessince]

The new chips are suppossed to have some fixes for the meltdown and specter I believe. maybe thats why performance isn't as great.

They don't have fixes for meltdown and specter the 8700K or other Intel CPUs don't already have.

 

[loki1944]

Not very exciting when you realize that an overclocked i7 5930K/6850K/7800X can pretty much match the gaming performance, especially @1440p/2160p.

 

[yeeeeman]

Dude, come on. We are past these arguments that were made 1 and a half years ago when Ryzen appeared and everyone was still doubting about it. Ryzen is a fantastic CPU, within 10% gaming performance of Intel, so no one cares about 135FPS for Ryzen vs 145FPS on Intel.
Regarding your comparison, again, it is invalid. Ryzen 5 2600 is the counterpart for i5 8400. It is 20$ cheaper than 8400, comes with a cooler (so i5 8400 is more like 200$). Ryzen 2600 can be OC and it is comparable to the numbers we saw in the video for Ryzen 7 2700. Open your eyes and see that no one is bashing Intel for no reason.