The Intel Core i9-9900KS Review: The 5 GHz Consumer Special
by Dr. Ian Cutress on October 31, 2019 10:45 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 | Intel Core i9-9900KS |
| Motherboard | MSI Z390 Gaming Edge AC (A.60 BIOS) |
| CPU Cooler | TRUE Copper |
| DRAM | Corsair Vengeance 2x8 GB DDR4-2666 |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests) |
| PSU | Corsair AX860i |
| SSD | Crucial MX200 1TB |
Many thanks to...
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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Dudler - Thursday, October 31, 2019 - link
P4 cough cough..Hifihedgehog - Friday, November 1, 2019 - link
*cough, cough* Emergency Edition *cough, cough*Man, whatever is going around is really catchy.
Spunjji - Friday, November 1, 2019 - link
It's vaguely amusing how they go for the same stock approaches every time. When a product becomes noncompetitive, either release a "special" bin that blows through acceptable power/stability limits, or ram a server CPU down the stack into "consumer" territory. The EE has a special place in my heart because they panicked so hard they did both of those things.Samus - Friday, November 1, 2019 - link
And much like the P4 EE, the power consumption is through the roof. Ahh the days of Presshot warming my dorm seeding a Napster queue.You really have to appreciate (again) what AMD is able to pull off here at 65w. It's literally on the heals of a CPU burning 3x more power.
Notmyusualid - Monday, November 4, 2019 - link
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&...Death666Angel - Saturday, November 2, 2019 - link
All true, but AMD does the same thing, as does Nvidia when it comes to GPUs. Remember the GTX 480? Or the FX-9590. :) If you mess up, that is mostly your only option to have something. Some people don't care much about efficiency and just want the fastest at a certain thing. They probably did the ROI numbers and it came out positive for them.Ratman6161 - Monday, November 4, 2019 - link
But...there are still quite a few tests where there is an orange bar at the top :). One thing I'm a bit curious about on the AMD side though is that there are several cases where the 3700X beats the 3900X. 3900X is both more cores and higher clocked so shouldn't it win everywhere?Also for those of us where price is an obejct, that 3700X looks pretty darn good against most everything else. :)
amnesia0287 - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
It’s possible it’s related to the quality of the cores. With the Ryzen chips not all cores have the same limits. So in theory you could have a chip with less total cores but more higher spec’d ones.MDD1963 - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Little need for any 'panic' as, gaming-wise at least, all AMD has managed is to tie the 8700K.....; everything 9700K and higher in the product stack remains virtually unopposed.WaltC - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
I'm still trying to figure out how a higher clocked Intel CPU which processes data slower than a lower-clocked AMD cpu is a "clear advantage" for Intel....;) Perhaps Dr. Cutress might enlighten me...?....;)