userbenchmark.com is, and has always been, a very weird, very flawed 'benchmarking' tool.
"Way below expectations" and "Excellent" on the same component in the same system.
Which is it?
The results actually make sense, but are perhaps not presented in the best way. You can have a Core 2 Duo, for example, that's performing "way above expectations" for that processor, but it's performance will still be "poor" relative to most other processors currently in use. The one stat reflects performance relative to that piece of hardware, while the other reflects performance relative to all hardware in that category. Likewise, as per your example, you could have a 9900K that's performing "way below expectations" for that processor, perhaps due to thermal throttling, but compared to other processors out there, its performance may still be considered "excellent". The one example is indicating a problem with the choice of hardware, while the other is indicating a problem with the configuration of that hardware. They explain what these stats mean at their site, but those explanations are kind of tucked away behind tooltips and on other pages where they are not immediately noticeable, which can lead to some confusion, and that's something they could definitely improve.
I actually like Userbenchmark though. It's an excellent tool for quickly and easily assessing whether there might be any issues with the performance of a system, even if you don't have access to that system. Ask someone to run the benchmark and post a link to their results, and you get a pretty full picture of how the hardware in their system is performing, complete with charts depicting how performance of that hardware compares to the overall curve of results from other systems using that hardware. It's also good at providing a rough picture of how one piece of hardware compares to another, even when it's not possible to find detailed benchmarks directly comparing those components. You just have to keep in mind that it's a synthetic benchmark, and the results won't necessarily align perfectly with performance in real-world software.
However, again, the way that information is presented could definitely be improved. They provide a lot of useful data about how hardware performs, but then go on to combine that data to create a generalized number that can in many cases be misleading. That "effective CPU speed index", for example, was never particularly good, ranking processors by a one-size-fits-all weighting system that ignores different use cases. The new changes just make it all the more absurd, but even before, the number wasn't very meaningful and was probably best ignored. Weighing anything more than four threads as just 2% of a processor's overall performance may be silly, especially now that an increasing number of games and applications are benefiting from access to more than four threads, but 10% is also an arbitrary number. Higher core counts may have made their ranking a bit less representative of performance in common software, but that's only because that ranking wasn't calculated in a meaningful way to begin with. I'd much rather see them get rid of that metric entirely, or at least hide it away so it's not top and center on the page.
A better solution would be to replace that single number with the three separate numbers reflecting single-core, quad-core, and multi-core performance, and leave it up to the user to determine which are more important for their usage scenario. Those results are provided, but they are tucked away further down the page, in smaller, less noticeable text. Those numbers are arguably far more indicative of a processor's performance though, so they should be featured at the top, perhaps with a brief description explaining what kind of software each benefits the most.
I will say that their response to the criticism was terrible though. You don't respond to negative feedback about questionable changes to your site by effectively dismissing anyone who complains about them as being an "organized army of shills". Maybe that's not how they intended that to sound, and they were just responding to others suggesting they might be getting paid to change their ranking system, but they really need to readdress their response either way, and reconsider the changes they made in favor of something better.
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