Core i9-10900K available for preorder, but it'll cost you

[midian182]

In brief: Intel’s new Core i9-10900K is now available for preorder in the US, but as is usually the case for early adopters, being one of the first to own the chip comes at a high price.

Tom’s Hardware reports that US retailer B&H Photo Video has listed the new CPU on its site as “coming soon.” At the time of writing, it's available to preorder for $599.99, which is quite an increase over Intel’s MSRP of $488.

A manufacturer suggested retail price is, of course, a recommendation for retailers. New processors often arrive at inflated prices, and the Core i9-10900K is no exception, but that’s unlikely to put off consumers who have to be the first to own new tech.

That $600 price is higher than the launch price of its predecessor, the Core i9-9900K, which released for around $525.

Intel boasts that its 10th-gen Comet Lake flagship is “the world’s fastest gaming processor.” It features 10 cores/20 threads, an integrated GPU, and can reach 5.3 GHz using Intel Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB). One caveat is that the CPU’s operating temperature needs to be lower than 70 degrees for TVB, so an adequate cooling solution is required. There’s also native support for DDR4-2933 RAM modules, and 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes.

There is no indication on B&M’s website of when the Core i9-10900K will be in stock, though it’s expected to launch sometime this month.

If you intend to buy a Comet Lake-S desktop CPU, be prepared to pair it with a 400-series motherboard sporting the LGA1200 socket. And if you’re an overclocker, you’ll need a Z490 board such as ASRock’s $1,100 Aqua. The good news is that you can insure some Comet Lake-S chips against overclocking damage through Intel's Performance Tuning Protection Plan, and your old LGA 115x cooler will work on the new mobos.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/85222-core-i9-10900k-available-preorder-but-itll-cost.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

That price isn’t terrible if you’re an enthusiast who wants it. You’ll probably sell your existing motherboard and cpu on eBay and go for this new model and a new motherboard.

The price isn’t terrible. Many of us paid more for a 9900K/S and I paid way more for an i9 Extreme.

I personally don’t think I would upgrade till DDR5 hits the market unless I absolutely had to.

 

[yRaz]

"Intel thermal velocity boost"

Once a company starts making up marketing terms you know they're running out of snake oil.

This product is launching too close to AMDs 4000 series and the current performance gap already isn't that large between AMDs 3000 series and Intel's 9000 series.

Even if the new i9 is faster than AMDs coming competitor, waiting for release AMDs release will force a price drop.

 

[Adi6293]

That price isn’t terrible if you’re an enthusiast who wants it. You’ll probably sell your existing motherboard and cpu on eBay and go for this new model and a new motherboard.

The price isn’t terrible. Many of us paid more for a 9900K/S and I paid way more for an i9 Extreme.

I personally don’t think I would upgrade till DDR5 hits the market unless I absolutely had to.

The question here is why would you upgrade to it from 9900K/S? I would be very surprised if this was faster in games than overclocked 9700K. I was hoping the 10700K would cost around £350 but in UK is £419 which is a joke because for that price you can get a 3700X and a good B550 motherboard ( Yes I know they are not out yet but £140 will be plenty for one ) that allows OC on the CPU and Ram and it will have working PCI-E 4.0. Even enthusiast would be silly to buy into LGA1200 in my opinion

 

[Alfatawi Mendel]

I can see no reason at all to upgrade to this platform.
It is a small incremental 'upgrade' from the 9900k, needs a new motherboard, and a beefy cooling solution. To top it all - It will be defunct in a year, when the new uarch and 1700 series chipset is promising to deliver improved io and more efficiency.
$800 for a chip and M/board without cooling, and very limited longevity is a joke at the expense of the consumer.

 

[treetops]

10400 Newegg $195, still in stock
https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i...-_-10900k-_-19-118-135-_-2&Description=10900k
Release Date: 5/20/2020. Limit 1 per customer.

 

[Uncle Al]

I'll sit on my hands on this one ... the improvements just are not enough to justify that kind of cash ....

 

[Irata]

10400 Newegg $195, still in stock
https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i...-_-10900k-_-19-118-135-_-2&Description=10900k
Release Date: 5/20/2020. Limit 1 per customer.

And Ryzen 3600x is on sale for USD 205 (including a useable HSF) right now...isn't competition nice.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

And Ryzen 3600x is on sale for USD 205 (including a useable HSF) right now...isn't competition nice.

A cheaper $205 Ryzen is good competition...so long as the buyer is willing to downgrade.

That's like comparing a Mercedes E-class to a Lexus ES.

Oh sure: both have 4 wheels and can get you from one point to another. But they damn sure don't feel the same.

 

[PurpleYoda]

I’m on i7 7700K so was thinking about making a plunge...

 

[Red999]

"Intel thermal velocity boost"

Once a company starts making up marketing terms you know they're running out of snake oil.

This product is launching too close to AMDs 4000 series and the current performance gap already isn't that large between AMDs 3000 series and Intel's 9000 series.

Even if the new i9 is faster than AMDs coming competitor, waiting for release AMDs release will force a price drop.

I expect "pro" or "max" things for the next "improvement"

 

[mattferg]

A cheaper $205 Ryzen is good competition...so long as the buyer is willing to downgrade.

That's like comparing a Mercedes E-class to a Lexus ES.

Oh sure: both have 4 wheels and can get you from one point to another. But they damn sure don't feel the same.

Imagine it being 2020 and you still think Intel products are better than AMD

 

[Irata]

A cheaper $205 Ryzen is good competition...so long as the buyer is willing to downgrade.

That's like comparing a Mercedes E-class to a Lexus ES.

Oh sure: both have 4 wheels and can get you from one point to another. But they damn sure don't feel the same.

Well, maybe the 10400k will no longer get beat by the Ryzen 3300x in everything like the 9400k is since it now has HT and higher frequencies.

 

[Mithan]

I am not sure this is worth it. Rocket Lake is rumored to have a 20-25% IPC increase on the new architecture.

Alder Cove (end of 2021/early 2020) is rumored to see a 30-40% IPC increase over existing architecture (not Rocket Lake).

I guess the nice thing here is if you buy a 10700k, you could buy a rocket lake CPU when they come out, and if they are 20-25% faster IPC wise, drop it in...

 

[meric]

A cheaper $205 Ryzen is good competition...so long as the buyer is willing to downgrade.

That's like comparing a Mercedes E-class to a Lexus ES.

Oh sure: both have 4 wheels and can get you from one point to another. But they damn sure don't feel the same.

How do you "feel" if a 10400 is better than a R5 3600X? Maybe you'd like to elaborate

 

[krizby]

Kinda funny when AMD is pulling an Intel when they end support for previous gen chipset and Intel pulling an AMD with clocking their CPU to the max outta the gate.
That said there is really no reason for 8th and 9th gen intel owner to buy the 10th gen CPU. 7th gen or earlier owner can buy a 3300X for now and upgrade to Ryzen 4000 later...

 

[Evernessince]

A cheaper $205 Ryzen is good competition...so long as the buyer is willing to downgrade.

That's like comparing a Mercedes E-class to a Lexus ES.

Oh sure: both have 4 wheels and can get you from one point to another. But they damn sure don't feel the same.

I'm sure this has been pointed out time and time again: The performance difference between the 3600 and 9900K in gaming isn't that much. If you are playing at 1440p or above, it's essentially nill. Not to mention, power consumption. For 99% of PC Gamers who are on a budget, it makes zero sense to get the 9900K unless you have money to burn. Might as well get the 3600, put that extra towards a GPU, and save yourself a couple hundred in air conditioning costs this summer to boot by not having to cool that Intel.

 

[texasrattler]

Imagine it being 2020 and you still think Intel products are better than AMD

Well they can be. It also depends on what you are doing. AMD has come a long way back from the dead but there are and will be ppl loyal to Intel for their various reasons. Lets not try to say one is better than another when both are actually good.

 

[Gomos]

In a way, I find the 10900K to be Intel's only reasonable CPU to buy, regardless of its price. If you only care about gaming and budget is no concern whatsoever, then it could make sense for a few people to spend all that extra money to get a tiny bit more gaming performance. If you are considering buying any Intel CPU below the 10900K, it means budget is a concern for you and once you consider price AMD simply beats Intel all across the board.

Also, why does every single person defending that any Intel CPU might be good value systematically forget to factor in the cooling solution and electric bill expenses?

 

[Irata]

In a way, I find the 10900K to be Intel's only reasonable CPU to buy, regardless of its price. If you only care about gaming and budget is no concern whatsoever, then it could make sense for a few people to spend all that extra money to get a tiny bit more gaming performance. If you are considering buying any Intel CPU below the 10900K, it means budget is a concern for you and once you consider price AMD simply beats Intel all across the board.

Also, why does every single person defending that any Intel CPU might be good value systematically forget to factor in the cooling solution and electric bill expenses?

I can accept taking the electric bill as a given if price / performance is acceptable. A bit like with Polaris card if you can live with inefficiency.

But totally agree on the HSF part and particularly on the mid and lower end. There, the amount spent often makes the difference between two CPU tiers and that is not even taking system cooling cost and the PSU into consideration (mid range and up).

 

[VariableSpike]

Well they can be. It also depends on what you are doing. AMD has come a long way back from the dead but there are and will be ppl loyal to Intel for their various reasons. Lets not try to say one is better than another when both are actually good.

I'm honestly struggling to see a market where Intel is exceeding, fanboyism or not (I couldn't give a rats A## as to what is in my system, as long as it gives me the performance and quality I want for the best price

I see it like this:

Consumer: AMD bests Intel in a good majority of tasks, unless you only care about raw single thread performance (and are therefore only really gaming), and have money to burn on a CPU, good mobo and a good cooling solution. The upgrade doesn't seem that good either, compared to AMD where there was a big jump from ryzen 2k to 3k. (Intel continues their 14nm+++++++ saga for some reason......) - this is coming from a 6700k owner.

Laptop - Intel obviously still has a massive market share, but AMD seems to be making some inroads with things like the 4900HS and the increased market adoption from brands like Asus (where the battery time, performance and heat output seem to be a lot better than Intel at the moment)

Server - you would expect Intel to be ruling the roost here, however EPYC Rome is really good and costs less than Intel's offerings (to the point where the new servers at my company are getting a suite of AMD processors, and this is a place that hasn't had AMD cpu's since the AMD64 Opteron days (think 2004!), so it seems a no brainer to pick it if you are not running anything too specialised (although things like NVidia's new ampere DGX with the AMD cpu's (who would have thought!) seem to prove otherwise)

I can only see Intel ruling with things like office PC's (as tons of businesses have deals with brands like Dell, who bung in Intel Cpu's all round for things like thin clients and so on), as otherwise they are getting bested in a lot of cases - even with network stuff they have competition from companies like Mellanox (who are owned by NVidia, funnily enough)

Intel really needs to step up their game, otherwise AMD (and others) will absolutely trample them, and they (AMD et al.) will also raise prices, which sucks for everyone, and is something no one wants

 

[Rdmetz]

The question here is why would you upgrade to it from 9900K/S? I would be very surprised if this was faster in games than overclocked 9700K. I was hoping the 10700K would cost around £350 but in UK is £419 which is a joke because for that price you can get a 3700X and a good B550 motherboard ( Yes I know they are not out yet but £140 will be plenty for one ) that allows OC on the CPU and Ram and it will have working PCI-E 4.0. Even enthusiast would be silly to buy into LGA1200 in my opinion

Not if game performance and stability is your only concerns. Not to mention resale value Intel chips hold their value better than anything in the market.

I used my 7700k for 3 years and just now sold it for 300.

My friend who went 1800x at the same time never had better gaming performance than me he paid 500 for his chip and can't even get 150 today.

Reale value really adds a lot of value to Intel over amd plus they just work and don't give you so much trouble with booting properly.

 

[Rdmetz]

I’m on i7 7700K so was thinking about making a plunge...

I did and I got almost what I paid for my 7700k selling it (before eBay fees and such but still).


These chips hold their value (top end intel that is) and its almost an investment into future savings by buying them vs the huge losses seen with ryzen.

If you're a regular upgrade not afraid of selling used parts it's really the best as far as cost to performance (for gaming) you can get.

 

[Rdmetz]

I can see no reason at all to upgrade to this platform.
It is a small incremental 'upgrade' from the 9900k, needs a new motherboard, and a beefy cooling solution. To top it all - It will be defunct in a year, when the new uarch and 1700 series chipset is promising to deliver improved io and more efficiency.
$800 for a chip and M/board without cooling, and very limited longevity is a joke at the expense of the consumer.

Yea and a ryzen build this year (4000 series) will be as dead of an end as this actually no even worse cause at least these boards will offer 1 additional cpu upgrade (rocket lake) where as the 4000 series is EOL for x570 b550 and am4.

Not to mention people like my buddy who went 2700x just last year and can't even get the 4000 series just a 1 cpu upgrade path (sounds a lot like typical Intel).

The fact is anyone making their purchase decision based on the ability to upgrade later is fooling themselves they all basically should have a new mobo anytime you should be buying a new cpu.

 

[HardReset]

Not to mention people like my buddy who went 2700x just last year and can't even get the 4000 series just a 1 cpu upgrade path (sounds a lot like typical Intel).

The fact is anyone making their purchase decision based on the ability to upgrade later is fooling themselves they all basically should have a new mobo anytime you should be buying a new cpu.

That is because he bought old stuff. x470 chipset is from 2017. Upgrading CPU requires some planning ahead, not just "buy anything and hope for best". Fact is that some planning will allow to get reasonable performance gains just upgrading CPU. Considering Ryzen series, it seems currently that chipsets are "supported" around two years upgrade wise. This way:

- x370 (2017) + R7 1800X (or anything lower) -> Any 3.rd gen Ryzen (R9 3950X max)

- x570 (2018) + R7 3700X -> (some 16-core, currently unknown)

First upgrade path is miles better than Intel has ever offered. Second is currently unknown but is expected to be better than Intel has ever offered, again.

Of course, if someone buys 2017 chipset motherboard (x470) on 2019 and then expects upgrade in 2020, that's not so wise...