The Intel Core i9-9900K at 95W: Fixing The Power for SFF
by Ian Cutress on November 29, 2018 8:00 AM ESTTest Bed and Setup
As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |||||
| Intel 9th Gen | i9-9900K i7-9700K i5-9600K |
ASRock Z370 Gaming i7** |
P1.70 | TRUE Copper |
Crucial Ballistix 4x8GB DDR4-2666 |
| Intel 8th Gen | i7-8086K i7-8700K i5-8600K |
ASRock Z370 Gaming i7 |
P1.70 | TRUE Copper |
Crucial Ballistix 4x8GB DDR4-2666 |
| Intel 7th Gen | i7-7700K i5-7600K |
GIGABYTE X170 ECC Extreme |
F21e | Silverstone* AR10-115XS |
G.Skill RipjawsV 2x16GB DDR4-2400 |
| Intel 6th Gen | i7-6700K i5-6600K |
GIGABYTE X170 ECC Extreme |
F21e | Silverstone* AR10-115XS |
G.Skill RipjawsV 2x16GB DDR4-2133 |
| Intel HEDT | i9-7900X i7-7820X i7-7800X |
ASRock X299 OC Formula |
P1.40 | TRUE Copper |
Crucial Ballistix 4x8GB DDR4-2666 |
| AMD 2000 | R7 2700X R5 2600X R5 2500X |
ASRock X370 Gaming K4 |
P4.80 | Wraith Max* | G.Skill SniperX 2x8 GB DDR4-2933 |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests) |
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| PSU | Corsair AX860i Corsair AX1200i |
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| SSD | Crucial MX200 1TB | ||||
| OS | Windows 10 x64 RS3 1709 Spectre and Meltdown Patched |
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| *VRM Supplimented with SST-FHP141-VF 173 CFM fans | |||||
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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GreenReaper - Saturday, December 1, 2018 - link
I'm not so sure it's as big a win in most cases as it's cracked up to be, especially now that new security measures are required to prevent threads on the same core from being able to use Spectre-class attacks to divulge secrets from timing based on data accessed by other thread.stux - Thursday, November 29, 2018 - link
Apparently a post with an ‘at mark’ in it is spam...Harry_Wild - Thursday, November 29, 2018 - link
I thinking about replacing my proprietary Lenovo Thinkstation P300 motherboard. It is so limited and Lenovo does not update their PC BIOS like other manufacturers to keep the PC up to date with new hardware. Lenovo answer is to buy a new Lenovo PC! Just have to find a new one about the same size and I will jerry rig it in.bairlangga - Thursday, November 29, 2018 - link
So, basically with the power limit in place an 8C-16T i9-9900k is an 8C-16T i7-7820x in a different tshirt riding a different cars, being uncapped is like giving it the pass to run on the autobahn.While we've know that Ryzen 1800x had blown the 7820x out of the water. No more IPC increment for Intel, it seems.
SanX - Thursday, November 29, 2018 - link
IanThe most amazing thing you have revealed in your benchmarks over few last months was the crazy speedup of avx512 on 3D Particle movement which put all recent HEDT incarnations both from Intel and AMD deep into the mud. And in this paper you removed this test. Where is 7900x in the second plot? Or your test was buggy showing these crazy 5x improvements even 7th gen over 9th gen when avx512 was on?
HollyDOL - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link
That would be interesting to see. While AVX can do wonders if the workload is suitable, it IS power hungry. I guess you would still end up with better performance ("tasks per kWh") even with the power limit, but hard to say by how much.I can see on my 8700 how much power at wall and core temp rises when it gets loaded with something AVX heavy.
xTRICKYxx - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link
Once the 9900k is at 95w, the 2700X is looking far more competitive.sharath.naik - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link
You missed come nebench scoresDeath666Angel - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link
Wouldn't mind some tuned undervolted tests for the top consumer processors out right now. :)Consumer1 - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link
Would you be so kind as to change the price of the 9900K in your graphs to the list prices for which it can actually be bought at Amazon and Newegg? Those prices are $579 and $569 respectively when not on sale. It is deceptive to keep listing it at $488.