Intel Core i9-10900K: The Last of the Mohicans

Rendering and Geekbench

The 10th generation of Intel Core processors, called Comet Lake-S, is the latest iteration of Skylake and, unlike the mobile Ice Lake, is still 14 nm. However, this constant tuning of this manufacturing process has resulted in record frequencies that are specifically related to the most powerful processor currently in the LGA 1200 socket. Now the only question is whether this will be enough for the Ryzen 9 3900X.

10th generation, 10 cores

The highest model of the 10th generation is, of course, the Core i9 with the designation 10900K. It follows on from last year’s 9900K to which it adds two cores and four extra threads, a higher 125 W TDP, native support for 2933 MHz memory and several new technologies. Practically, this is just another iteration that does not bring anything surprising. That is, except for the new LGA 1200 socket which is not backward compatible. Again, Intel did what we’re used to and you will also need a new motherboard with Intel Z490 chipset for the new processor. The manufacturer’s justification is that Z490 boards will also support the upcoming Rocket Lake processors which will already use, at least in part, a manufacturing process lower than 14 nm, but above all also PCIe 4.0. Finding PCIe 4.0 support on the new Z490 motherboards is not a problem but don’t be fooled, the 10th generation of processors does not yet support PCIe 4.0. You will practically pay for something you can’t use yet.

Among the changes that we as users can take advantage of almost immediately is support for 2.5 Gb/s LAN and new WiFi 6 (which AMD has had for a year). Other changes have taken place and include new technologies for clock management. You certainly know the terms base clock and Turbo Boost. Turbo Boost has received a new version with the Max 3.0 attribute which complements the existing Turbo Boost 2.0. The maximum frequency of one or more cores is still distinguished and TBM 3.0 increases clock speed of the “favored” core. There is also always a time window in which the maximum clock speeds are reached.

In addition to the new Turbo Boost, the Thermal Velocity Boost is new, too, which also deals with clock speed of the favored core if its temperature is below a certain limit, in this case 70 degrees Celsius. TVB also works for all cores on the same principle. In practice, you get up to 6 frequencies to the processor which, in my opinion, is confusing and users can easily get lost in it. The base frequency is 3.7 GHz, Turbo 2.0 5.1 single core and 4.8 GHz on all cores. TB3 for the favored core is 5.2 GHz and if you include TVB, you will get 5.3 on one and 4.9 GHz for all cores. Where are the times when we had only two frequency values to the processor?

The design of the package has changed again compared to the previous generation, but you will still not find a cooler in the package. There is only documentation and the processor itself.

Basic specs and comparison

We will compare the new i9 with Ryzen 9 3900X which is the closest in terms of price and targeting. It offers more cores and threads, supports higher base memory clock speed. AMD also offers more Cache memory, lower TDP, a newer manufacturing process, PCIe 4.0, and is backward compatible with older motherboards. On the contrary, it does not have such high clock speed in Turbo and does not include integrated GPU that could be used for HW acceleration and possibly also basic use when replacing/upgrading a graphics card or as a backup of a malfunctioning dedicated graphics card. Both processors have unlocked multipliers for overclocking.

The packages are similar, with the difference that AMD also offers a box cooler that really comes to use. You won’t get great OC results with it, but it’s enough for normal gaming/work use. With Intel, buying a cooler is a must.

   

The main difference between the processors is also the type of socket. While Intel uses LGA, pins on the motherboard, AMD is loyal to PGA with pins on the processor. Each of these types has its advantages and disadvantages and it is not possible to determine exactly which one “is better”. When handling the AMD processor, you need to be more careful not to drop it, on the contrary, you need to pay more attention to motherboards with Intel. Once you bend a pin, it is easier to fix on the processor than on the motherboard. However, AMD has a certain ailment, namely the possibility to pull the processor out of the socket together with the cooler when you try to remove it. It is therefore a good idea to warm the processor a little before removing the cooler to make the thermal paste softer.

Testing methodology

We tested the processors at home, not in a laboratory environment. Nevertheless, the effort was made for the most accurate results. These are therefore the average of the measured values from repeated tests. We tried to eliminate factors that would affect performance in addition to the processor itself and the motherboard. We used the same components in both cases. The idea of all tests was to use base settings and turning on XMP, no other adjustments were made. This is how most users will actually function.

The 10th generation of Intel Core processors, called Comet Lake-S, is the latest iteration of Skylake and, unlike the mobile Ice Lake, is still 14 nm. However, this constant tuning of this manufacturing process has resulted in record frequencies that are specifically related to the most powerful processor currently in the LGA 1200 socket. Now the only question is whether this will be enough for the Ryzen 9 3900X.

Rendering

We will start with the popular, albeit older, Cinebench R15. You can deduce two things from the results. Higher 10900K clock speed makes a 9% lead over AMD which, thanks to 4 extra threads, provides up to 20% higher multi-core performance. Intel has tipped the single-core to its maximum to retain at least this historic advantage, despite AMD making big leaps in IPC.

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The newer and more demanding version of Cinebench R20 already shows a much smaller difference in single core, and that is 2%. AMD’s lead in multi-core dropped slightly, to 20%. You can expect Intel’s lead to be smaller from latter tests.

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In a practical POV-Ray render test you can see that the 3900X is 15% faster than the 10900K. In practice, this means saving 6 seconds in a 40–50 second test.

Blender makes a significant 11% difference in favor of the 3900X. Here, 17 seconds have been spared in a 2.5-minute render.

Geekbench

Geekbench 3 is also one of the older tests, but it is still good for comparison. Single-core is practically identical, those few points in favor of Intel can be described as a measurement error. On the contrary, multi-core is clearly in favor of AMD with a 22% lead.

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You know from previous tests that Geekbench 4 doesn’t like AMD processors very much and Intel performs better in it. 9% lead of 10900K in single-core is therefore not a surprise, AMD wins by 12% in multi-core.

The latest Geekbench 5 has reduced Intel’s lead in SC to 7% and AMD is 14% better in MC.

Rendering tests are not surprising and easy to predict. The 3900X with 24 threads is still the king of multi-core performance and we are not even testing the highest 3950X. As for Intel, it has sharpened its single-core performance to have an edge at least on something. However, it will be interesting to see how this is reflected in power draw and temperatures.

The 10th generation of Intel Core processors, called Comet Lake-S, is the latest iteration of Skylake and, unlike the mobile Ice Lake, is still 14 nm. However, this constant tuning of this manufacturing process has resulted in record frequencies that are specifically related to the most powerful processor currently in the LGA 1200 socket. Now the only question is whether this will be enough for the Ryzen 9 3900X.

Far Cry 5

Performance in games and graphics tests has always been a strength of Intel, and a high fps test in Far Cry 5 only confirms this. High Core i9 clock speed makes a high lead in minimum, average and maximum fps. The nearly 40 fps difference in the minimum is really large and coincidentally this means that Intel did not go lower than the AMD average. The 40 fps difference was also preserved in the average values which I would call demolition. This is where Intel really shows its power to the fullest.

Unigine Heaven and Superposition

Further graphics tests at high fps confirm the findings from Far Cry. Heaven shows a difference of 25 fps at 350, which is only 8%, but on fast monitors like this Alienware it can also help. In Superposition, the difference is 17 fps and thus 9% lead by Intel.

PCMark and 3DMark

Intel maintained an 8% lead in PCMark, but 3DMark Firestrike was very tight with only a 2% lead for the blue team.

The 10th generation of Intel Core processors, called Comet Lake-S, is the latest iteration of Skylake and, unlike the mobile Ice Lake, is still 14 nm. However, this constant tuning of this manufacturing process has resulted in record frequencies that are specifically related to the most powerful processor currently in the LGA 1200 socket. Now the only question is whether this will be enough for the Ryzen 9 3900X.

Decryption and encryption

1 GB decryption/encryption suits Intel, which has fewer threads, more and when using 16 GB of RAM, threads aren’t waiting empty like with AMD that is bottlenecked by low RAM capacity.

Encoding

No bottleneck happens when encoding which shows the power of AMD in MC apps with 17 % lead in H264 and 9 % in H265.

Memory tests

Surprising results are higher speeds of 3900X when reading, writing and copying in memory tests. I really didn’t expect that. On the contrary, the significantly lower latency on Intel is not a surprise.

The 10th generation of Intel Core processors, called Comet Lake-S, is the latest iteration of Skylake and, unlike the mobile Ice Lake, is still 14 nm. However, this constant tuning of this manufacturing process has resulted in record frequencies that are specifically related to the most powerful processor currently in the LGA 1200 socket. Now the only question is whether this will be enough for the Ryzen 9 3900X.

Heating

This section will be key to the 10900K rating. The difference in maximum temperatures is 5 degrees, which is not as bad as might be expected. In practice, the temperatures are lower, these are really the highest values across all tests. Typically, both processors are around 65 degrees in load and up to 75 degrees in demanding applications. The maximum was recorded during long renders.

A closer look at the temperature in practice shows that 10900K immediately after the start of the render jumps to 75 degrees and from there only grows further until it stops between 81 – 83 degrees. On the contrary, AMD is growing more slowly and from 70 degrees to a maximum of 74 degrees Celsius. It does not even reach 75 ºC.

Power draw

The biggest problem of the Core i9-10900K is definitely the power draw. It is extremely high, literally. CPU package at maximum load takes up to 90% more watts than AMD. System power draw also shows a 36% difference to Intel’s detriment. Although the percentages may not sound so threatening, the real numbers do. The almost double difference in CPU package from 145 to 276 W is enormous and the 85 W difference in system power draw is also not negligible.

Again, a look at the real world, AMD reaches a maximum of 145 W in Blender, while Intel jumps between 240 – 250 W. 250 W corresponds to the PL2 limit of the processor. According to Intel, it should be only 56 seconds but as can be seen on the tested motherboard, this limit is boundless. This way the motherboard manufacturers allow the 10900K to run in Turbo over a long period of time.

Clock speed

The power draw corresponds to the clock speed, where the 10900K stays stable at 4.9 GHz which is the maximum all-core boost under TVB limit. This is surprising, as according to the graph the temperature was higher than 70 degrees. Again, the “original” limits of the processor were exceeded by the motherboard manufacturer to achieve better results. Ryzen is moving around 4100 – 4150 MHz.

The 10th generation of Intel Core processors, called Comet Lake-S, is the latest iteration of Skylake and, unlike the mobile Ice Lake, is still 14 nm. However, this constant tuning of this manufacturing process has resulted in record frequencies that are specifically related to the most powerful processor currently in the LGA 1200 socket. Now the only question is whether this will be enough for the Ryzen 9 3900X.

Rating

Intel Core i9-10900K is perhaps the least expected processor this year and many people have rejected it before it even started selling. The main dogmas are high power draw, high temperatures and lower performance than those offered by competing AMD which is also cheaper. Some things have been shown as worthy, others have not. Let’s review one point after another. The price of 3900X has dropped to about 450 euros and if you are lucky, you can get the 10900K for about 550 euros. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of processors and it is sold for 700 euros in some places which is no longer appropriate. AMD thus has a significant price advantage and better availability. Not to mention that in a moment we can expect slightly improved XT versions with higher clock speed.

So the 10900K doesn’t offer good price or availability which probably doesn’t surprise anyone. What about the other dogmas? Extremely high power draw has been confirmed, the numbers are insane and hard to accept. Especially when we talk about the fact that the 3900X has stronger multi-thread performance and almost half the maximum power draw.

The big surprise, however, is that the 10900K temperatures were quite in check. The 360 mm AIO cooler did its job, but we always use it for testing. 83 degrees Celsius as a maximum is not as bad of a value as I expected. Of course, it will be different with overclocking which we will look at another time. The multi-thread performance was obvious in advance and only confirmed that the 3900X is the king in this price range. Only game performance left now. In this area, the 10900K starred and only showed the 3900X its rear lights. So, if your priority is to play at high fps, the 10900K is currently the best choice. High clock speed still gives it an advantage over Ryzen, although it’s only for a while until AMD introduces Ryzen 4000 series. The 10900K can therefore be summarized as an expensive, power-thirsty but fast processor. It is then up to you whether you are willing to accept its flaws to achieve higher fps in games. That is, under certain circumstances, in lower resolutions. In UHD, which will probably not be unique to expensive PC builds, this advantage is almost completely eliminated.

You can buy this processor at our partner’s website czc.cz for 14 681 CZK/550 EUR.

We’re definitely not closing the Intel 10th gen topic with this test. Soon, we will bring a test of Core i7-10700K and we’re planning to have a look at several Z490 motherboards. So stay tuned! 🙂

English translation and edit by Lukáš Terényi

• Contents
• 10th generation, 10 cores
• Rendering and Geekbench
• Gaming, graphics tests and PC/3DMark
• Encryption, encoding and memory tests
• Heating and power draw
• Rating