Review: Core 9th Series 9900K, 9700K and 9600K Processors

On topic, has any guru's got a 9900k yet? This thread needs more of that kind of discussion and less mudslinging.

I ordered the 9900K in early October (South Africa). Did a followup with the dealer a few days ago, I was told they haven't received stock and there is no ETA No idea how long I'm going to wait for it. I read somewhere that the UK has a 1 month delay before they expect shipments. Hopefully I don't have to wait longer than that

 

Opinion. Taste in music is Opinion. That's fact.
Fact is that you take your opinion and claim it is fact. Fact is that you do not distinct opinion from fact. That's just step from being unable to distinct reality from fiction.

Till you stop using opinions and facts interchangeably, anything you claim to be fact may very well be opinion. And you are going to do that till you realize that you do have trouble distinct those two apart.

@vbetts : Sorry, I think some things have to be addressed for mental health reasons. It happens to be root cause of this entire off-topic anyway.
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As for the topic, would be nice to have actual owners to share their initial experience.
(And I do not mean on how awesome CPU 9900K is in terms of performance. I mean technical information. Like temperature of VRMs on particular board under heavy stress and so on.)

 

When there is a CPU review it finish like oil on fire

 

Zen 2 is on the way. I'll stick with that. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to drop in a new Zen than buy all new hardware..........

 

Thats probably fully Intel fault. Its their "stupid" decisions thats raising more and more (mostly negative) emotions.

 

Fanboys are hard beaten in every camp. AMD has the price/performance ratio but be real fellows.

Intel offers you the top gaming performance as Nvidia does. But you can use them also for other activities. You can absolutely use them for computing and creativity.

All over the world is widely known that the absolute gaming machine now has 2080ti and 9900k.

The point is, if you want smooth gaming, you buy those two brands and their models, Intel gives you the absolute max potential here. If you do not want to bother with thousand of windows 10 tweaks to get 5-200fps more, you buy this CPU and its over. King/Queen without a fight.

 

That could be true for those with endless pockets, we, the poor ones, need to look for the best bang for the buck, and the 9900 is out of that race.

 

That would realy depend on specific Board.

I can only say about second hand experience with MSI MEG Z390 howering just bellow 50c on VRM, but CPU is another story, hitting 100+ when encoding x265 videos with AVX. (28c room ambient using Noctua NH-u14S)
Without AVX temperature was on 84. (It would have probably be OK outside of case (10+ degrees drop), but thats not practical or even option with Maine Coon cats in house).

Unfortunately can't provide any pictures as he returned it two days after purchase (14 days return no question ask in europe) and ordered MSI MEG x399 and TR 2950x instead.

PS: He is kind of mad at me atm because convinced me to ordered same mobo+CPU, but my payment went faster and I got last mobo piece. Now he needs to wait (delivery unknown but accoring to shop they expect new shipment in 1-2 weeks).

Can't wait to see how big improvement for video processing is 2950x over 1800x.

Anyone can tell me if NOCTUA NH-U14S TR4-SP3 will be enough for full load (got it free with mobo and new waterblock will take at least 1 more week to arrive)?

If I play at 1080p and have deep pockets maybe, but I use either 3440x1440 on my G-sync monitor or 4k at 40" TV and there its not more difference compared to 2700x. Also Not going for 2080ti because it have for me zero value at $1600+ (EU price with tax) compared to 1080ti that cost half.
Its bad deal already if are looking at new GPU, but totaly terrible deal if you want to upgrade from 1080ti.

Not to mention that either 9900k or 2080ti is at moment not available with availability date unknown.
And no offense but similar can be said about ThreadRipper, "its absolute beast for productivity and compute and good at gamming as well".

And seriously asking us to be real??, how many you think will buy 9900k with 2080ti over 2700x(8700k) and 1080ti? Little bit more performance double price? No thank you.
I will enjoy my brand new 2950x with 1080ti for video encoding as well as other stuff and will not cry over little bit lower fps in games @high resolutions.

I am not exactly looking necessary for 100% best for the buck, but 9900k and 2080ti are so far away from it that they are realy out of sight.

 

So I received my 9700k and its a real lemon. On all AUTO (manual OC, but AUTO ratio and voltage) it never boosts past 4600mhz and I see voltage spikes well into 1.4xxx (Asus Tuf Z390 Pro Gaming).

Realbench wont run steady on anything other than AUTO where voltages spike heavily and again it doesn't boost much. I have to lock all cores to 46 to get it to pass Realbench.

Heat is not an issue in my case as it crashes well before it even gets into the 80s with manual voltage.

Getting an 8700k to see if it might be the board, but so far the most disappointing chip I got.

 

That's what silicon lottery is about. Luck is not always with everybody, but if you can, do not accept anything less than average performing/clocking CPU perhaps it might get worse in the distant future, find a way to ditch it.

 

Strange to see Auto running better than a manual tweak for the voltage, don't understand that. Also Auto used to be well known for providing excessive voltage and it looks like you're seeing exactly that with spikes well into 1.4xx - I'd run it on a manual tweak rather Auto. 1.4xx volts for 4.6Ghz is rubbish, that's more volts for the same frequency than my Skylake 6700K CPU!

 

Myself, and a fair few other people if what I read across the blue nowhere is anything to go by.

Your logic is sound and it works for you but the problem with some of you proponents of price/performance is that you have a habit of applying your logic to everyone else and not everyone thinks like you and that doesn't make you right and them wrong, or vice versa.

AMD has made a great comeback but the fact remains that if you want the fastest gaming processor (I am talking purely performance), it's Intel and if you want the fastest GPU (again, performance only), It's Nvidia.

Let's not deviate and start down the price/performance path, I'll be the first to admit that AMD is always the better choice when that is the primary consideration.

But if it is purely performance, regardless of cost, then AMD is not the first choice and many people just want the fastest kit period.

If AMD keep plugging away, there is a very good chance that they may surpass Intel at some point where gaming is concerned but equally, I wouldn't count Intel out just yet. They have made some mistakes, largely born of complacency, but I think there is a growing awareness within the company that they need to smarten up, sharply (of course, I wouldn't count on any public admissions of negligence )

 

If it is used mainly for encoding. Difference will be monstrous. 1080p encoding can use like 20 threads efficiently regardless of frame rate if it is for offline encoding. For 4K, you can use up to 80 threads.
It is kind of voodoo to find how many threads one should use on particular resolution with particular number of physical/logical cores/threads.

I have spent quite a few hours tuning x264 for OBS Studio... shame there is no x265 for online streaming. But even on x264 one can get very good image at reasonable bitrate if tons of parameters are used.
For x264 and performance (CPU load control) most important parameters end up being "me" and "merange". If one knows type of content and expected motion vector length, one can set pretty efficient values. Or choke any CPU out there badly.
For "me" UMH with large "merange" is usable even for online streaming on 2700X. Depending on content and expected change between frames "me" ESA can be used on some content with 16~32 "merange".
Then there are values like "ref" which for normal content can be as small as 1 and they are fully sufficient, Higher values quite increase CPU demands. And are needed only in case there are many flashing images (something not good for referencing as it does not contain much of valuable information).
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Sorry for moving away, 2950x will be great for encoding. (bit of envy here even while I do not need that CPU)

 

I find it funny how you treated his post as a pro-AMD post when he included only Nvidia GPUs and mentioned the 8700K as an alternative. His question is a fair one: how many would choose a 9900K and 2080 Ti over a 2700X or 8700K with a 1080 Ti? The answer: very little. Even if you go purely Intel, the 8700K (or 9700K) is a much better option.

This discussion over the best gaming CPU is also kind of moot since the 9900K doesn't actually seem to exist anywhere - it's out of stock at virtually all retailers and doesn't even show up on Amazon's best-selling CPU list (the 9700K and 9600K are there, but not the 9900K). I've seen no one who actually has it, either here or on reddit, and it's looking increasingly likely that the 9900K was just a paper launch.

Can anyone confirm if this CPU actually exists in the wild?

 

Couple of people over on notebookreview forums gonna get a 9900K (Johnksss and Talon): http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-2nd-gen-coffee-lake-cpus-z390.811225/page-84
Talon is getting delivery tomorrow.

 

Well at least two were available in my country (likely from unofficial distribution) but disapeared pretty much instantly and seems Newegg sold few as well...

How many were in wild ? Could be hundred or few thousands but deffinetly not many. Public availability here have estimation in two weeks from now without guarantee, and it can again be just few pieces sold out within hour.

Thing is.... what I stated was not just based on my logic, It was based on experience and discusions I had with people I know from whose many spent $1-2000 every year on PC upgrades and not single one is planning buy 9900k or 2080ti.
Few are getting 8700k or its 9th gen variant, some thinks about 2600/2700x but rest decided either that their old 4-6th gen i7 is still ok to wait for next year, and some are simply waiting on what AMD shows at CES next year. There might be one or two that could consider 9900k but, as they said "maybe later".

I am not considering Intel out yet either, but if AMD next year surpprise with Zen2 (and there is good chance they can unless TSMC not deliver) and Intel won't fix their 10nm process in time, it can get realy uggly for Intel.

Talking just about performance can be very missleading, Intel best CPU can win in some performance metric just to be demolished by AMD Threadripper in another one or someon can even get Talos2 Power9 based desktop with up to 48 cores and 192 threads and 64 PCI-e gen 4 slots which can host a lot of realy fast stuff and that would run circles around anything intel can offer at light speed (given thats used with compatible app).


So once and for all let me explain how I am weighting value of CPU/platform, its not just about price/performance or just gaming performance. (percentages being just for demonstration as its impossible to define how much I value some generic things that change over time)

60% Compute/gaming performance per $$
25% Platform Longevity (5 years AM4 vs probably just 1 more year for 9th gen on intel - it's very likely that next gen, maybe on 10nm get new socket and will not be backward compatible)
15% Platform advantages/Disadvantages (PCI-e lanes..) etc

I maybe upgrading as much as every 1-2 years, but components are handed down to family line with many being used by as much as 10 years.

 

Yah, I made it clear I was talking about gaming but outside of that, AMD has the better performing product in a lot of cases.

Other than that, I agree with you

 

I've seen a few posts by people who ordered one and others planning on ordering it, but I've never actually seen someone who had it. The 2080 Ti is pretty rare as well but I've seen plenty of posts on reddit of people showing off their 2080 Ti build. Can't say the same for the 9900K.

If Amazon is anything to go by, I would say the 9900K is in extremely short supply (to not even appear in the top 100 CPUs might indicate that only a handful exists). It's about as close to a paper launch as I can imagine.