Intel Core i9-9900K CPU Review: 8-Core 9th Gen Coffee Lake Benchmarks

Name: Intel Core i9-9900K
Brand: Intel

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, October 19, 2018, 09:05 AM EDT

For our next series of tests, we moved on to some game-related metrics with 3DMark, specifically the physics benchmark that's part of the Fire Strike test, along with a couple of actual games. For the 3DMark Physics test, we simply create a custom 3DMark run consisting solely of the physics test, which is CPU dependent, and report the results...

Gaming: 3DMark Physics

Taking the GPU out of the Equation

*AMD Threadripper 2990WX (b) Results = 16 Cores Enabled, With UMA Memory Configuration

The Core i9-9900K put up a strong number in the 3DMark Physics test. Though this test is multi-threaded, it doesn't seem to play well with the different cache hierarchy and mesh configuration of Core X processors, but it excels on the Core i9-9900K. The 8-core Core i9-9900K actually catches a 16-core Threadripper and pulls ahead of the Core i9-7980XE.

High Resolution Gaming And Graphics Tests

1080P and 4K Gaming With GeForce GTX 1080

We also ran some high-resolution game and graphics tests on our test rigs 3DMark, Middle Earth: Shadow Of War and Rise Of The Tomb Raider. We used 3DMark's Fire Strike Extreme preset, and both of the games were run in two different configurations -- either 1080p with Medium details, or 4K with High/Very High details. The lower resolution tests are more CPU bound, while the higher resolution tests are more GPU bound.

*AMD Threadripper 2990WX (b) Results = 16 Cores Enabled, With UMA Memory Configuration

sow1

*AMD Threadripper 2990WX (b) Results = 16 Cores Enabled, With UMA Memory Configuration

The Core i9-9900K took the pole position in both of our 1080P game tests, outpacing the previous leader -- the Coffee Lake-based Core i7-8700K -- by a few percentage points. The processor's combination of high clocks, high IPC relative to the competition, and larger cache are very well suited for gaming.

Cranking the resolution up to 4K and increasing in-game image quality levels the playing field, however, as you would expect. As we shift the bottleneck onto the GPU, high-end CPUs are typically waiting around while the GPU catches up, and as such, framerates level off.

*AMD Threadripper 2990WX (b) Results = 16 Cores Enabled, With UMA Memory Configuration

fire2

*AMD Threadripper 2990WX (b) Results = 16 Cores Enabled, With UMA Memory Configuration

3DMark Fire Strike jibes with our high resolution game tests. The Core i9-9900K performs near the top of the charts, but because this benchmark is almost completely GPU-bound (save for the Physics portion of the benchmark), the deltas separating the high-end processors are relatively small.

Tags: Intel, CPU, Core i9, (NASDAQ:INTC), core i9-9900k, 9th-gen

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com