Discussion 10th Gen Intel desktop CPUs (i9-10900K) - performance numbers and thoughts

The performance reporting embargo has been lifted so we're about to be flooded with charts, graphs, numbers, and a lot of hootin' and hollerin'.

https://hothardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-10900k-and-i5-10600k-benchmarks?page=1

I'm trying not to form a solid opinion until I've seen a dozen plus reviews as I think some sites taint results to lean one way or another, but my first impression is, "meh". Some fancy boosting gives the artificial benches a gain at the cost of A LOT of heat.

What are your thoughts?
 
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The actual temperatures are not as bad as you may think due to some changes Intel made like a thinner die, and thicker and larger heat spreader. The power draw at stock is not great, but its not horrific.

That said, if you even think of removing the power limits on a CPU like a 10900k, expect it to draw 320+ Watts.
 
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InvalidError

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Some fancy boosting gives the artificial benches a gain at the cost of A LOT of heat.
No need for fancy boosting or artificial benchmarks, lighter-threaded stuff with higher dependency on lower latency like games and Premiere favor Intel all day long even at stock all-cores TDP limit boost.

The only problem I see with 10th-gen is that you can get mostly equivalent performance (or better for heavily multi-threaded productivity stuff) from AMD for $50-100 less.
 
No need for fancy boosting or artificial benchmarks, lighter-threaded stuff with higher dependency on lower latency like games and Premiere favor Intel all day long even at stock all-cores TDP limit boost.

Yup.
I meant fancy boosting gives the artificial benches a gain 'compared to previous gen Intel chips'. AMD is the way to go for anything except a straight gaming rig, and even then there are still some good arguments for AMD.
 

Cem Goker

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I will still be going for the i7 10700K despite knowing I would get more value and performance from Ryzen. I will only be gaming on my PC anyway so I want the highest frames possible. I am also afraid of switching over to AMD as there will be a lot of learning to do again when it comes to overclocking, tightening timings on RAM, tuning more settings on Ryzen Master software, and the reasons go on. Not that its a bad thing, I am just lazy I suppose.
 
The 10 core is just there for Intel to close the gap with AMD's 12-core. It's not good for anything. The 6/12 i5s will game/handle single thread workloads as well, yet in rendering it gets destroyed by AMD's cheaper 12/24.

Artificial boost are stupid. 100W more power consumption while not even matching AMD's 12-core? Intel shouldn't have had this implemented in the first place.

However, the power management Intel employed @stock is better than I expected. It seems that you are going to do as well with a $50 cooler such as the Scythe Fuma 2. Still not better than 3900X that generally runs fine on a dirt cheap Gammax 400 V2, though. But all these expectation that it needs a closed loop to not throttle was definitely proven to be false.

I'm more interested on the 10700KF and 10600KF, they seem to be much better buys for their prices.
 
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Yeah, the stock performance isn't that bad at all.
The problem comes in with MCE, removing the power limits, and overclocking.
Even though the out of box performance is great, it's not going to stop people wanting to push these chips even further, only to get caught off guard by the increased power and thermals afterwards.
There's also the choice of motherboard. Some of the vendors are adhering to Intel's TDP guidelines, and some aren't.
 

Gintama69

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Although I personally prefer 9900K over 3900X any day.. and i7 10700K > i9 9900K.
View: https://i.imgur.com/EHu6aGrl.jpg


10700K is AU$750 and 3900X is AU$780, so obviously I prefer 10700K.. (9900K is AU$999)

Having said that, I wish 10900K still only had 8 cores like 9900K but with faster clock speed.. rather than having extra 2 cores.
i.e. similar to 9900KS but 5.2GHz on all cores and maybe 5.3-5.4GHz single core boost clock.
 
The problem comes in with MCE, removing the power limits, and overclocking.
Even though the out of box performance is great, it's not going to stop people wanting to push these chips even further, only to get caught off guard by the increased power and thermals afterwards.
But isn't that true for every CPU out there? A 3950X OC'd to 4.4 GHz will consume more or less the same amount of power as a 10900K OC'd to 5.0 GHz. Not trying to defend Intel here, performance figures will favour AMD indefinitely. What I was trying to say is there's no need for a closed loop cooler if you're using the 10900K under normal circumstances.
 

Phaaze88

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But isn't that true for every CPU out there? A 3950X OC'd to 4.4 GHz will consume more or less the same amount of power as a 10900K OC'd to 5.0 GHz. Not trying to defend Intel here, performance figures will favour AMD indefinitely. What I was trying to say is there's no need for a closed loop cooler if you're using the 10900K under normal circumstances.
1)No, it's not.
2)A 3950X - Ryzen 3000, period - is a bad example due to how trippy they are with frequency OCs, and people managing to degrade and destroy their cpus within months.
From what I understand so far, it's not so much the voltage, but the current going through those cpus during heavy loads that the cpu normally regulates on it's own.
Manual OC'ing throws that away, making the cpu draw higher current even during heavy load.
It doesn't matter if the user set a 'low vcore', but how much current is being drawn during the likes of Cinebench R20, Prime95, CoD Warzone, or some other heavy cpu load.

3)I do agree that from a general standpoint, that performance figures will favor AMD.
As I play games on a 1440p monitor, Intel's current offerings are laughable to me.

4)As for the last point: that is absolutely true. I can't disprove nor deny that, but with one exception: PEBKAC.
We can't do anything about the PEBKACs, and neither can the cpus. How many PEBKACs that will own the 10900K NOT attempt to push this cpu at some point or other?
 
View: https://youtu.be/H0vLYcPa3uk?t=933


Hey, at least it's not a 4.9ghz 10980xe drawing a chill 521w. I find the 10980xe 521w more acceptable than the 10900k 320+ watts since the 10980xe is hedt.


I would put a 10 core 10900k with MCE on close to the 64 core Threadripper 3990x power consumption.

I will give credit to intel, their new CPUs aren't that bad thermals. Heck, power consumption isn't even bad. Just don't touch ANY overclocking options in the bios, and you're oh well if your board by default runs the CPU past intel spec.
 
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How many mainstream cpus do you know that pull upwards of 300w when unlocked? That's a stretch even for the 9900K.
Oh, I see. I was looking into Techspot's data, and they were able to load 300W.
OC-3.png


Not that it matters though, it's probably silicon lottery or methodology stuff. I think you can still agree with the main points what I said.
 
Eh,it's fine if you have enough moneys there is no reason to choose AMD unless you can make use of the additional cores of the 3950x.

https://hothardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-10900k-and-i5-10600k-benchmarks?page=4
The 10900k draws less power than even the 3700x on idle and on one core at 5.3Ghz
power-10-intel-10th-gen.png

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-10500k-10900k&num=10
And the 10900k is faster than the 3900x,a CPU with 20% more cores.
While the average power draw of the 10900 is actually exactly at 124W.
Yes it will peak much higher but that's the whole point of velocity boost and turbo PB/PBO/XFR ,to boost as high as possible if overall power draw allows.
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