Intel Core i9 9900KS CPU assessment: beating the silicon lottery with a really restricted version

Intel’s restricted version Core i9 9900KS is the quickest gaming CPU on this planet, a chip designed particularly by Intel to ship “the ultimate gaming experience.” Its eight cores of HyperThreaded goodness run all day lengthy at a stable 5GHz. That’s not some fancy, oft-mentioned, never-met, Turbo Boost frequency, that’s a cast-iron promise of 5GHz processing efficiency.

Which should be super-exciting, however the Core i9 9900KS is a CPU that’s surprisingly exhausting to get keen about. Essentially we’re speaking a few bin-sorted Core i9 9900K processor that’s assured to hit the height clock pace the unique Coffee Lake octa-core promised, principally as a result of it’s pleased chugging down a heap extra energy than the unique.

And Intel isn’t simply throwing that ‘limited edition’ tag round calmly both. It’s not there to make it sound extra unique than it’s, Intel actually is limiting the supply of the 9900KS and also you’re unlikely to have the ability to purchase one previous the vacations this yr. The excellent news is that hopefully means Intel’s Comet Lake isn’t too far-off now… although that’s not notably encouraging for anybody contemplating dropping $525 on a Core i9 9900KS proper now.

As it’s utilizing the identical silicon because the Core i9 9900Okay earlier than it, the KS is an eight-core, 16-thread CPU constructed on the Coffee Lake 14nm++ manufacturing course of. By extension meaning it’s additionally the identical important processor structure that Intel launched with the Skylake chips again in 2015. It does embrace hardware-based mitigations for the assorted safety vulnerabilities which have come to mild over the intervening years, nevertheless, though that in itself has caused its own issues…

A have a look at the specs desk for the 9900Okay versus the 9900KS might need you scratching your head, with each reportedly providing a Turbo clock pace of 5GHz. The factor to say is that’s a finest case situation for the 9900Okay, the place if solely a handful of processing threads are getting used it is going to dynamically dial the silicon as much as 5GHz, but when each fibre of its being is taxed you’ll usually see it knocking round 4.7GHz.

Where the Core i9 9900KS stands out then is that 5GHz mark is assured irrespective of how taxed these cores get. Even at 100% CPU load throughout all 16 processing threads it is going to nonetheless run them at 5GHz.

And meaning you possibly can make certain that no matter you’re doing together with your PC, whether or not you’re gaming, recording, and streaming on the similar time, your 9900KS will probably be hitting its most clock pace.

Intel has achieved this by choosing probably the most sturdy of the eight-core Coffee Lake chips, the 14nm silicon that’s positively able to hitting 5GHz on all cores with out batting a metaphorical eyelid. And then ensuring it has entry to all the facility it may probably want to keep up that degree of efficiency it doesn’t matter what. As such the 9900KS has a TDP ranking of 127W in contrast with the 95W ranking of the usual 9900Okay.

To be truthful to the 9900Okay it was doable to overclock the unique Coffee Lake octa-core, however reportedly solely across the prime 30% of retail chips have been truly capable of hit that mark. It was additionally already doable to buy bin-sorted variations that have been assured to nail a 5GHz all-core frequency from the likes of Silicon Lottery, however for a enormously inflated worth. You may count on to should drop over $700 only for the privilege, which I suppose truly makes the very fact you possibly can choose up the pre-binned 9900KS for lower than the unique MSRP of the 9900Okay truly fairly good.

Intel Core i9 9900KS benchmarks

So, what distinction does having the quickest gaming processor truly make, and is it actually the final word gaming expertise? Let’s be sincere right here, a processor alone can’t make for the final word gaming expertise. So a lot of your PC’s in-game efficiency is right down to the graphics card and the decision that you simply run your monitor at, which makes the GPU way more accountable in that regard.

But each little helps, and within the absolute strictest phrases the Intel Core i9 9900KS does present the very best gaming efficiency in comparison with both the unique 9900Okay or AMD’s rival 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X. Though the place it does it’s not by a lot, and therein lies the rub. Making positive you’ve acquired the quickest gaming CPU in the marketplace is all properly and good, however don’t count on it to immediately flip your rat rig right into a gaming monster all by itself. Using the identical graphics card the efficiency distinction between the $525 9900KS and the $180 AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is negligible.

The largest distinction may be seen if you’re working your games at decrease resolutions, right here represented by our 1080p benchmarks. There is commonly clear water between the 9900KS and the competitors at this degree… although it’s not essentially consultant of a real-world scenario. If you’re going to spend the money on a $500 CPU you’re unlikely to be working your games at 1080p.

At 1440p and above the efficiency delta shortly evaporates, and there’s nothing to select from between the highest chips in our check. In truth within the 3DMark check the additional cores of the Ryzen 9 3900X give it the sting due to that benchmark’s predilection for multithreading, one thing precise games are nonetheless to reap the benefits of.

And if you have a look at the facility draw and temperature metrics of the 9900KS you see how Intel is ready to keep the efficiency it does throughout all eight cores. Both platform energy and peak temperatures are greater even than the notoriously scorching and heavy 12-core Ryzen chip. For the additional tempo you recover from the 9900Okay alone it appears fairly excessive.

But the restricted version Intel Core i9 9900KS is just not a chip for individuals preserving a watch how a lot energy they’re utilizing. It’s a CPU for individuals who merely should have the quickest gaming processor and grasp the sense of it. And in that the KS has acquired it sewn up, it’s simply that having the quickest gaming processor is now not notably related.

It might need been had the 9900KS provided extra overclocking headroom than its forebear, however we may barely get one other 100MHz all-core tempo out of our pattern from Intel. Despite early reports suggesting 5.2GHz was a breeze, plainly solely round 3% of KS chips can truly hit that frequency reliably, in accordance with Silicon Lottery’s stats. Which I suppose is why it’s planning on promoting binned 9900KS chips with guaranteed 5.2GHz performance for $1,200. Selling them to chumps, I’d wager.

That restricted overclocking is just not an enormous shock, although, as a result of it is only a bin-sorted 9900Okay. And simply because it’s rated to hit 5GHz, that doesn’t robotically imply it could go any additional.

But the references to the Silicon Lottery gross sales are nonetheless essential when interested by the 9900KS. Sure, it appears like a little bit of an oddity in a world the place the 10-core Comet Lake desktop processors are possible simply six months away, and it’s not likely delivering that a lot additional gaming efficiency for all it’s 5GHz secret sauce. But the truth that Intel is promoting a bin-sorted CPU, the equal of earlier $700 chips, for lower than the MSRP of the unique 9900Okay remains to be fairly good.

That mentioned, the market has modified within the 12 months since that chip launched. And AMD has made severe inroads into Intel’s gaming processor dominance with its Ryzen 3000-series CPUs. The IPC hole hasn’t essentially been utterly bridged, however it’s been closed to a degree that makes the comparability a much more beneficial one for the more-affordable AMD processors.

And that every one makes the severely restricted version Core i9 9900KS a troublesome chip to suggest, even with that ‘fastest gaming processor’ tagline.