Intel Core i9-9900KS

W1zzard · Nov 11, 2019

The Core i9-9900KS is Intel's new consumer flagship processor. It runs at 5 GHz boost no matter how many cores are active, which translates into 10% application performance gained over the 9900K. Gaming performance is improved too, but pricing is high, especially compared to what AMD is offering.

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erixx · Nov 11, 2019

"Over 10% application performance gains compared to i9-9700K" from the conclusion list.

But in the review I don't see this CPU, it might be the i7-9700K?

Chrispy_ · Nov 11, 2019

Nice review.
I had to contain myself on the power draw charts. We all know that Intel has been fudging the TDP numbers for a while, but those results show how bad the lies really are once you get to the top-bin, highest-clocked parts.

However, my favourite chart in the review is this one.
Intel is winning with a 1st-place, chart-topping score :\

W1zzard · Nov 11, 2019

erixx said:
"Over 10% application performance gains compared to i9-9700K" from the conclusion list.

But in the review I don't see this CPU, it might be the i7-9700K?

Fixed, it is the 9900K

Chrispy_ said:
Intel is winning with a 1st-place, chart-topping score :\

I can see how certain gamers would be willing to spend 10% over the 3900X for this. But yeah, overall quite expensive

E-curbi · Nov 11, 2019

Have to believe an 8086K running at 5.4Ghz or 5.5Ghz 6core 12thread will be slightly faster completing work - long manuscript searches, transferring text, reformatting text in Word 2019.

Maybe just splitting hairs, but you never know. Only writers working 24/7 may actually see a real time-saving benefit. lol

Great review W1izzard, and that's a sweet 9900KS CPU at 5.2Ghz.

Wondering about the heat though, not sure I could run even a cherry-picked 9900KS at 5.4Ghz on air - especially inaudible ambient air. I've heard the 9900K(S)s need a water loop for 5.3Ghz and above.

I'm most likely STUCK with an 8086K until Rocket Lake or Sapphire Falls 2021, no real single thread performance improvements from Intel arriving for quite awhile. :oops:

Easy Rhino · Nov 11, 2019

$500-$600 for a "gaming" cpu. No wonder people love their consoles.

E-curbi · Nov 11, 2019

Easy Rhino said:
$500-$600 for a "gaming" cpu. No wonder people love their consoles.

You can also get a great deal of WORK completed with a 9900KS at 5.2Ghz 8cores 16threads in very little time.

Not everyone using a computer is gaming, or at least not 100% of the time, lol

Everyone loves to play BL3 over lunch.

Deleted member 158293 · Nov 11, 2019

Easy Rhino said:
$500-$600 for a "gaming" cpu. No wonder people love their consoles.

and best paired up with a $900-$1,000 GPU...

W1zzard · Nov 11, 2019

E-curbi said:
8086K running at 5.4Ghz or 5.5Ghz 6core 12thread will be slightly faster

Agreed, unless you run workloads that fully load all cores to max. Nice oc btw

Easy Rhino · Nov 11, 2019

E-curbi said:
You can also get a great deal of WORK completed with a 9900KS at 5.2Ghz 8cores 16threads in very little time.

Not everyone using a computer is gaming, or at least not 100% of the time, lol

I agree. However the marketing gurus over at Intel are busy annointing this CPU as the fastest gaming processor. Regular folks see gaming cpu and that price tag and think that anything less than spending $500 on a processor will make their games suffer which is why they buy a cheap dependable console.

W1zzard · Nov 11, 2019

yakk said:
and best paired up with a $900-$1,000 GPU...

That's exactly who I think they are targeting this at. And that market is not small considering all the 2080/2080 ti owners I see online

Deleted member 158293 · Nov 11, 2019

W1zzard said:
That's exactly who I think they are targeting this at. And that market is not small considering all the 2080/2080 ti owners I see online

Agreed, there is apparently a good market for that price bracket. The general increases in high end CPU & GPU prices does indicate the market can most likely support much higher prices for the whole system.

On the enthusiasts side, AMD is pushing their high-end Ryzen and new Threadripper prices up this generation, curious to see how high Nvidia will increase prices on their upcoming generation of GPUs.

kapone32 · Nov 11, 2019

It is interesting that this is $200 US up from the 3700X but is only about 10% faster overall with a 5.1 GHZ OC in Gaming. I wonder where the 3950X will be placed vs this one.

trparky · Nov 11, 2019

Only but the people who absolutely must have the best of the best performance and have money to burn will buy this chip. As for the rest of us? Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 for you really can't get any better than that when it comes to getting the best bang for your hard-earned dollar.

heflys20 · Nov 11, 2019

LOL. This review just reminded me what an excellent bang-for-buck the 3700x is.

kapone32 · Nov 11, 2019

trparky said:
Only but the people who absolutely must have the best of the best performance and have money to burn will buy this chip. As for the rest of us? Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 for you really can't get any better than that when it comes to getting the best bang for your hard-earned dollar.

True but only if they are just pure gamers.

trparky · Nov 11, 2019

kapone32 said:
True but only if they are just pure gamers.

Unless you're a pure gamer there's absolutely no reason anywhere on this Earth that you should buy this chip. I can't help but see this launch as nothing more than an "Oh crap" kind of moment to try and steal some thunder away from AMD.

Vayra86 · Nov 11, 2019

Utterly pointless product. 700mhz gets 'the gamer' 6% in FPS at the most favorable resolution compared to CPUs that cost half or less than this one.

300 W minus GPU, versus half the amount or way less.

I guess there is new 'gullible fool' badge and it has KS in it.

kapone32 · Nov 11, 2019

trparky said:
Unless you're a pure gamer there's absolutely no reason anywhere on this Earth that you should buy this chip. I can't help but see this launch as nothing more than an "Oh crap" kind of moment to try and steal some thunder away from AMD.

Exactly they are trying to take everything out of AMD as the 3950X looks like it will be the final nail in the coffin for Intel's 14+++++.

Chrispy_ · Nov 11, 2019

Easy Rhino said:
$500-$600 for a "gaming" cpu. No wonder people love their consoles.

There's the $700 budget build guide you guys just released, which is a pretty good console-killer that also happens to do all the things a console can't do, with all the games that a console can't have, and can be upgraded incrementally in all the ways a console never will

W1zzard said:
[$1100 GPU owners are] exactly who I think they are targeting this at. And that market is not small considering all the 2080/2080 ti owners I see online

Aye, but nobody is going to pair a 2080Ti with a 1080p screen (well okay, some idiots will).
Realistically, even at 1440p the GPU/resolution bottleneck is so serious that a 2080Ti basically doesn't care what CPU its paired with. Any current-gen i5 or R5 is up to the job according to your charts

Steevo · Nov 11, 2019

Intel more dollars for more performance where it really doesn't matter.

When AMD fixes the latency in cache they will get another 20% IPC boost for worst case scenario gaming, like at 720 and pure math tests. As is they have better performance at everything that 90% of users want.

Nater · Nov 11, 2019

Easy Rhino said:
$500-$600 for a "gaming" cpu. No wonder people love their consoles.

Um. The Ryzen 3 1200 that launched 2.5 years ago at $109 is only about 7% slower than this CPU at 4K.

And you can get 90% of it's performance at half the price going w/ an i5 9400/9600 or Ryzen 5 3600. Dump all that extra money into the $1200 video card

Anyone buying this CPU for gaming doesn't care what it costs, and probably isn't just gaming.

GoldenX · Nov 11, 2019

Worst CPU since the 9000 series FX.

QUANTUMPHYSICS · Nov 11, 2019

This CPU went on sale immediately before I even bought it from Microcenter. The CPU war between Intel and AMD is more pronounced than the GPU war between AMD and Nvidia because AMD has no competition whatsoever for Nvidia on the high end, and only can score points on the low end for cheap budget builds.

This CPU is a beast. 5.0 GHz across all cores.

AMD can outperformit on paper or benchmarks...but there is no doubt who's on top when the GAMES start being played.

Most people want a Gaming computer and multitask to editing (like Youtubbers).

AMD CPU are for people who WORK on their computers rather than game.

Most games now are GPU intensive rather than CPU intensive and most gamers are running in 1080p or 1440p rather than 4K. It's easy to buy a powerful CPU with future proofing for a few years.

You can still game on an i5 or i7 4790 just fine with an RTX card.

Nater · Nov 11, 2019

^ You didn't seriously spend $700 on that did you? It's $525 at BestBuy last I looked.

Processor	Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory	48 GB
Video Card(s)	RTX 4080
Storage	2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s)	30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software	Windows 10 64-bit

System Name	Bragging Rights
Processor	Atom Z3735F 1.33GHz
Motherboard	It has no markings but it's green
Cooling	No, it's a 2.2W processor
Memory	2GB DDR3L-1333
Video Card(s)	Gen7 Intel HD (4EU @ 311MHz)
Storage	32GB eMMC and 128GB Sandisk Extreme U3
Display(s)	10" IPS 1280x800 60Hz
Case	Veddha T2
Audio Device(s)	Apparently, yes
Power Supply	Samsung 18W 5V fast-charger
Mouse	MX Anywhere 2
Keyboard	Logitech MX Keys (not Cherry MX at all)
VR HMD	Samsung Oddyssey, not that I'd plug it into this though....
Software	W10 21H1, barely
Benchmark Scores	I once clocked a Celeron-300A to 564MHz on an Abit BE6 and it scored over 9000.

Processor	Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory	48 GB
Video Card(s)	RTX 4080
Storage	2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s)	30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software	Windows 10 64-bit

System Name	Batman's CaseLabs Mercury S8 Work Computer
Processor	8086K 5.3Ghz binned delidded by Siliconlottery.com 5.5Ghz 6c12t 5.6Ghz 6c6t on ambient air
Motherboard	EVGA Z390 DARK
Cooling	Noctua C14S for all overclocking so far Noctua Industrial PWM fan 2000rpm rated (700rpm inaudible)
Memory	Gskill Trident Z Royal Silver F4-4600C18D-16GTRS running at 4500Mhz 17-17-17-37 (new mem OC) : )
Video Card(s)	AMD WX 4100 Workstation Card (AMD W5400 7nm workstation card coming soon)
Storage	Intel Optane 900P 280GB PCIe card as Primary OS drive / (4) Samsung 860Pro 256GB SATA internal
Display(s)	Planar 27in 2560x1440 Glossy LG panel with glass bonded to panel for increased clarity
Case	CaseLabs Mercury S8 open bench chassis two-tone black front cover with gunmetal frame
Audio Device(s)	Creative $25 2.1 speakers lol
Power Supply	Seasonic Prime Titanium 700watt fanless
Mouse	Logitech MX Master 3 graphite / Glorious Model D matte black / Razer Invicta mousing mat gunmetal
Keyboard	HHKB Hybrid Type-S black printed keycaps
Software	Work Apps text and statistical
Benchmark Scores	Single Thread scores at 5.6Ghz: Cinebench R15 ST - 249 CPU-Z ST - 676 PassMark CPU ST - 3389

System Name	Desktop
Processor	i5 13600KF
Motherboard	AsRock B760M Steel Legend Wifi
Cooling	Noctua NH-U9S
Memory	4x 16 Gb Gskill S5 DDR5 @6000
Video Card(s)	Gigabyte Gaming OC 6750 XT 12GB
Storage	WD_BLACK 4TB SN850x
Display(s)	Gigabye M32U
Case	Corsair Carbide 400C
Audio Device(s)	On Board
Power Supply	EVGA Supernova 650 P2
Mouse	MX Master 3s
Keyboard	Logitech G915 Wireless Clicky
Software	The Matrix

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