Discussion Comet Lake Intel's new Core i9-10900K runs at over 90C, even with liquid cooling TweakTown

[Markfw]

Higher than what dense TSMC 7N needs. But actually better than many expected.
A lot of people on this forum, including those who criticize Comet Lake the most, probably have cooling solutions easily capable of handling at least 10700K.

These -K chips are by definition limited supply and super binned. Nothing changes.
And for now we only have that in retail, since OEMs have priority for the OEM SKUs.

That said, it's far from "paper launch".
I'm writing from Poland and all -K chips are available from the largest Intel partners.
It seems 10700K is the one easiest to get. I could have one tomorrow morning. 10900K and 10600K - delivery in 1-3 days.

Prices are also in-line with MSRP. at the moment 10900K costs ~$50 more than 9900K.

Anandtech said that a $150 280 mm AIO would not keep it from throttling. So custom water if you want full power. I have a 280mm on my 3950x, and its not over 70c at 100% full load 24/7 running DC apps. My 3900x's did fine on the stock included cooler, but I upgraded those to 240mm AIO's to run cooler.

As far as supply, newegg is OOS and Amazon does not even have it listed when I looked this morning. Somebody might but right now its no where I can find in the US.

 

[Topweasel]

Adding extra cores will not help Intel with their supply shortage.

No it won't. Honestly Covid couldn't have happened at a better time for CPU stock for them giving them a chance to play catchup on their supply. I have to assume at this point that they are mixing adjusted Coffee Lake and Coffee Lake -R dies because if a significant amount of Comet Lake are 10c cores it's just going to make it worse. The needing to increase core count on consumer CPU's has to be a bit of a killer. We are already seeing situations where they either have to double up on dies (Cascade Lake 9k) and make them not really available. Or Lower price on high core products (10980xe) and not make them available. Knowing both if actually available in a normal way on the market would kill their margin and strain the supply even more. Having to increase die size on these high volume chips will tank the platter count they will have for their server chips. More than performance this is where Intel will be playing catchup the most. Intel didn't even want to move to 6 cores till they got on 10nm. To keep up with AMD they will have to keep the core counts going up at every level. Where AMD can utilize on multiple ways with die shrinks in their configurations, Intel will be so far behind on each change that compared to their original roadmaps they won't be getting much in the way of relief on die size per core that they had with KabyLake and earlier. Intel has peaked on their margins and there may not be a way to get back there, even if AMD has another BD moment.

 

[Rigg]

Anandtech said that a $150 280 mm AIO would not keep it from throttling. So custom water if you want full power.

Based on the benchmarks I saw there isn't much justification to run them above Intel's recommended power limits. Paying more money for high current motherboard VRM's and water cooling is just stupid for the performance gained.

 

[Markfw]

Based on the benchmarks I saw there isn't much justification to run them above Intel's recommended power limits. Paying more money for high current motherboard VRM's and water cooling is just stupid for the performance gained.

I have not really looked at all the reviews, no review thread yet.

 

[Panino Manino]

People are praising these new CPU but I can't help but see then as Intel's "swan song".
For all we know nothing went wrong with Zen 3 and the improved IF, and the first silicon came with 100-200mhz more clocks. No matter how good the Skylake arch still is, this current advantage is achieved with a much higher clock, ranging from 500mhz to 1000mhz. Now, for what I remember the new arch on 10nm that Intel managed to fab till now all have a much lower clock. If Intel fails to change this until the end of the year, how can their future be bright?!

It's sad that AMD doesn't own their own fabs anymore, and have limited fab capacity, because this is Intel last resort that I can see for the next year. I know that Intel still is in the game, they have a few new archs in the pipeline, but what does it matter if they can't put they in the market with decent clocks and reasonable price?

 

[Rigg]

I have not really looked at all the reviews, no review thread yet.

This one is pretty thorough
https://www.gamersnexus.net/hwreviews/3587-intel-core-i9-10900k-cpu-review-benchmarks

 

[Hitman928]

I have not really looked at all the reviews, no review thread yet.

If you just want it for gaming today, it performs well at stock and beats out a stock 9900K. If you have an overclocked 9900K to 5 GHz +, there's no noticeable difference in gaming. If you actually want to push all 10 cores, then you'll lose about 10 - 15% performance running "stock" (~4.3 GHz all core) versus MCE (~4.9 GHz all core). But if you want that last 600 or so MHz fully loading all 10 cores, you better bring a hefty cooler (something better than 280 mm AIO) as you'll need to dissipate upwards of 250 W to sustain that speed, depending on the particular load.

 

[Markfw]

If you just want it for gaming today, it performs well at stock and beats out a stock 9900K. If you have an overclocked 9900K to 5 GHz +, there's no noticeable difference in gaming. If you actually want to push all 10 cores, then you'll lose about 10 - 15% performance running "stock" (~4.3 GHz all core) versus MCE (~4.9 GHz all core). But if you want that last 600 or so MHz fully loading all 10 cores, you better bring a hefty cooler (something better than 280 mm AIO) as you'll need to dissipate upwards of 250 W to sustain that speed, depending on the particular load.

I think I said or eluded to all of that before, so, yea, I agree with all of that.

But even gamersnexus said the 3900x is better except gaming. And they said look for the 10600x review later today vs the 3600 for gaming.

The 10900k is just a failed product IMO.The 9900k is almost the same in gaming, the 10600k is a better value in gaming, and the 3900x or better for everything else (their words, and I agree with it)

 

[RetroZombie]

For example... laptops became slim, light with workday-long battery life. Much faster too.

That's stuff outside intel, it's the laptop chassis builders and battery makers that you must praise, not intel.
Just imagine what to say of all the smartphones cpu makers, with all those cpu cores and gadgets integrated into a very small thermal envelope and size.

And the much faster too, take a look at the intel 3rd gen into the 4th gen when the u series was set the standard over the m series, cpu performance have gone from 2.6Ghz base clock down to 1.8Ghz, even ipc couldn't close the gap in cpu performance regression.

For example... in 2011 high performance Xeons topped at 10 cores, but in 2016/early 2017 (before EPYC launched) it was 24 cores.

And in 2010 amd opteron was released with 12 cores.
Intel to get into 24 cores took too long with small 2 extra cores per year, amd migrating into a new process doubled cpu cores amount.

 

[Rigg]

I think I said or eluded to all of that before, so, yea, I agree with all of that.

But even gamersnexus said the 3900x is better except gaming. And they said look for the 10600x review later today vs the 3600 for gaming.

The 10900k is just a failed product IMO.The 9900k is almost the same in gaming, the 10600k is a better value in gaming, and the 3900x or better for everything else (their words, and I agree with it)

It's pretty niche. For someone who uses Adobe software and wants to do high refresh gaming I could see it being attractive.

You should be able to tune the CPU to your cooling solution. You could dial in the PL1 to the limits of your cooling in a high current workload then manually set the turbo speeds higher. That way when you are running a light gaming load you can get the benefit of more clock speed while throttling it back to your PL1 in hi current loads. Seems to be a much more logical way to overclock one of these. You could probably get better than stock performance without throwing $1000 worth of custom loop/motherboard at the heat/power usage problem (in heavy workloads) created by a fixed all core OC.

I wish I could do something similar with my 3900x. I can't dial in the clock speed without disabling my ability to throttle it back in heavy work loads. My CPU's FIT seems happy to let itself use 100 amps for days in heavy all core loads on auto settings. I'd like the ability to do that with more clock speed in lighter loads.

 

[amrnuke]

The 10600K GamersNexus review is also showing the chip to be, well... lackluster. At stock it consistently trails the 3600 in most productivity tasks, and only barely beats it when overclocked 5 GHz vs the 3600 @ 4.3 GHz. And all that, the 3600 does at far less power draw. And the 3600 can be had for $50-75 cheaper depending on the deals you can get (3600 is $159 at MicroCenter).

AMD has what appears to be a substantial IPC lead (~10%) and a substantial efficiency lead at this core/thread count level, and that's scary for Intel since their generational improvements even adding SMT to the range can just barely edge Zen2 in productivity tasks when overclocked.

 

[lobz]

You said: "Going from 4 cores to more cores gives you... guess what... the difference between being playable and unplayable. You won't see a big difference in average fps, but a tremendous difference in minimum fps. If you really insist, we can do this all day - all night."

You didn't expound upon that, which is why I said "I assume" instead of actually putting words in your mouth, but whatever.

What is clear is that the 4 cores of 3100 and 3300X seems mighty capable of keeping up with more cores of the 3600 in a large portion of games tested at KitGuru and other reputable sites.

So I'm wondering if you could explain what you meant by your statement. I mean, of course if the game won't run on 4 cores, it might run on 6 cores. But your statement seemed very much like a one-size-fits-all statement, not a special situation statement.

Man. That was not my original post, for Christ's sake......

 

[lobz]

I don't think he meant it as one size fits all. But as early as late 2016 we were seeing games that had very visible performance issues 4c4t. During the review run on the 3300x there were several that tested it against the 3600x. Again we are now seeing games where 4t8c might not be enough. Right now averages might be close but lows drop significantly.

A 3300x is great for showing what a couple of years of competition can do with pricing. But new games are also showing us what the lack of confidence competition has done to game development. The new consoles will push that even farther. They are certainly starting to use more resources as those resources normalize on most equipment.

The end result is even today you can see that difference meaning playable to unplayable (though that can be a bit subjective).

Thank you. I also specifically said 4 cores and modern multiplayer games.

 

[chrisjames61]

Intel has peaked on their margins and there may not be a way to get back there, even if AMD has another BD moment.

Agreed. There is no way Intel will ever be able to have as high as margins as they had prior to Ryzen. Too much pressure on all fronts from competitors that are executing extremely well.

 

[TheELF]

Gaming is currently heavily limited by GPUs,the gaming question will be answered in a decade or something when we will have fast enough GPUs.
But referring to this

The 10900k is just a failed product IMO.The 9900k is almost the same in gaming, the 10600k is a better value in gaming, and the 3900x or better for everything else (their words, and I agree with it)

For the industry the 10900k kills anything AMD has to offer including the 3950x,individual benchmarks don't matter much if the cumulative industry standard benchmarks say something completely different.

The Intel Comet Lake Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K, i5-10600K CPU Review: Skylake We Go Again

www.anandtech.com

A popular industry standard comparison tool between processors are the range of SPEC benchmarks. We use SPEC2006 and SPEC2017 in our major microarchitecture analysis pieces as a way to determine where certain processors might be bottlenecked given a particular microprocessor design decision.

Agreed. There is no way Intel will ever be able to have as high as margins as they had prior to Ryzen. Too much pressure on all fronts from competitors that are executing extremely well.

Yes poor intel,ever since they have to compete with ZEN they are only making twice the net income (money in the pocket) they did before ZEN came out.

 

[lobz]

Gaming is currently heavily limited by GPUs,the gaming question will be answered in a decade or something when we will have fast enough GPUs.
But referring to this

For the industry the 10900k kills anything AMD has to offer including the 3950x,individual benchmarks don't matter much if the cumulative industry standard benchmarks say something completely different.

The Intel Comet Lake Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K, i5-10600K CPU Review: Skylake We Go Again

www.anandtech.com

Yes poor intel,ever since they have to compete with ZEN they are only making twice the net income (money in the pocket) they did before ZEN came out.

Yes, we know, the 10600K kills everything too, right?

What a pathetic joke it is for you to draw your conclusion from a 1T spec sheet.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Power consumption is not as bad as I thought, still bad though. And this is a classic paper launch or at best very limited supply I'm betting this is a super binned chip to try and save face.

It's 250W if you want 4.9 GHz. I'm with @Markfw on this, for gaming the 5 GHz overclocked 9900k CPUs that have been out there since 2018 are no worse. For productivity, it's not really that good (get a 3950x). I don't see the 10900k having any reason to exist. The rest of the lineup may or may not entice buyers based on prices being lower than what you had to pay to get a similar Coffee Lake CPU. That's something, I guess. Also the die thinning was interesting. Intercore latency problems, I did not expect. That's embarrassing for Intel.

 

[phillyman36]

Yeah I came to my senses on this. Wanted a 10900k couldn't find one so got the 10700k. Will build a second pc later this year. Now just have to refuse UPS delivery lol.

 

[chrisjames61]

Gaming is currently heavily limited by GPUs,the gaming question will be answered in a decade or something when we will have fast enough GPUs.
But referring to this

For the industry the 10900k kills anything AMD has to offer including the 3950x,individual benchmarks don't matter much if the cumulative industry standard benchmarks say something completely different.

The Intel Comet Lake Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K, i5-10600K CPU Review: Skylake We Go Again

www.anandtech.com

Yes poor intel,ever since they have to compete with ZEN they are only making twice the net income (money in the pocket) they did before ZEN came out.

You can spin it any way you like it but they have been forced to cut prices by up to 50% across the board on the price of their line of cpu's. That isn't a bad sign?

 

[piokos]

I'm with @Markfw on this, for gaming the 5 GHz overclocked 9900k CPUs that have been out there since 2018 are no worse.

Which doesn't make much sense unless we see a significant drop in 9900K price.
At the moment these CPUs have identical MSRP and also more or less the same prices in stores.
And of course the more modern platform brings a few perks as well (for example: many boards will offer WiFi 6 and 2.5Gbps LAN).

For productivity, it's not really that good (get a 3950x).

Averaged over wide range of loads, 10900K almost matches 3900X (of course with MCE, so pulling 250W).
For specific cases it will beat 3950X as well.

Pricing (in stores):
10900K: $530
3900X: ~$450
3950X: ~$700

If the workstation doesn't utilize GPGPU, i.e. Intel's IGP is enough, you'll have to spend extra $50 going with the Ryzen.

So there's no obvious winner on value and you'd have to dig deep into savings on PSUs, cooling and electricity...

I don't see the 10900k having any reason to exist.

For you it didn't have any reason to exist even before we've seen any benchmarks. I can't imagine how good an Intel CPU would have to be to change that...

 

[amrnuke]

Which doesn't make much sense unless we see a significant drop in 9900K price.
At the moment these CPUs have identical MSRP and also more or less the same prices in stores.
And of course the more modern platform brings a few perks as well (for example: many boards will offer WiFi 6 and 2.5Gbps LAN).

Averaged over wide range of loads, 10900K almost matches 3900X (of course with MCE, so pulling 250W).
For specific cases it will beat 3950X as well.

Pricing (in stores):
10900K: $530
3900X: ~$450
3950X: ~$700

If the workstation doesn't utilize GPGPU, i.e. Intel's IGP is enough, you'll have to spend extra $50 going with the Ryzen.

So there's no obvious winner on value and you'd have to dig deep into savings on PSUs, cooling and electricity...

For you it didn't have any reason to exist even before we've seen any benchmarks. I can't imagine how good an Intel CPU would have to be to change that...

You also have to consider that for the 10900K you'll need a much more expensive cooling solution in order not to be thermally limited.

So yes, if you throw a $150 cooling solution on the 10900K, it almost matches the 3900X over a wide range of loads.

 

[Topweasel]

Which doesn't make much sense unless we see a significant drop in 9900K price.
At the moment these CPUs have identical MSRP and also more or less the same prices in stores.
And of course the more modern platform brings a few perks as well (for example: many boards will offer WiFi 6 and 2.5Gbps LAN).

But really doesn't the 10700k already really accomplish all of this at an actual price decrease.

Averaged over wide range of loads, 10900K almost matches 3900X (of course with MCE, so pulling 250W).
For specific cases it will beat 3950X as well.

Pricing (in stores):
10900K: $530
3900X: ~$450
3950X: ~$700

If the workstation doesn't utilize GPGPU, i.e. Intel's IGP is enough, you'll have to spend extra $50 going with the Ryzen.

Okay so we are either talking OEM systems. In which a 10900k will never be in a system without a discreet graphics. Or you are talking about a system you have to configure yourself. One which will compared to the 3900x, where you comment you need MCE to beat it. You need an extra $100 cooler to even get stock rating performance on it or a $150-$200 cooler to maintain the MCE performance to cool it.

For you it didn't have any reason to exist even before we've seen any benchmarks. I can't imagine how good an Intel CPU would have to be to change that...

I guess the point is it isn't the fastest multi threaded CPU. To get it close you have go nearly exotic cooling. It might be the fastest in games. But they could have done that with the chip that is now called the 10700k. It's this quest not to lose the Halo gaming rating that has them in this whole mess in the first place. Pushing 10nm density to crazy levels, while still requiring clock performance to keep up with 14nm. If they just wrote it off, offered the 10900k with 9900k clocks or maybe a little less. As their MT performance champion and priced it below the 3900x. They would have a really good high performance gaming with competitive MT performance CPU and could still own the gaming record with the 10700k. Instead they want to have their cake and eat it too, with AMD pressuring them on all sides but the out right best gaming CPU (ignoring the fact that most people still game with a GPU bottleneck). The 10900k just really doesn't fit well in the market.

 

[piokos]

You also have to consider that for the 10900K you'll need a much more expensive cooling solution in order not to be thermally limited.

Not really.
10900K, 3900X and 3950X need more or less the same cooling for comfortable operation - a high-end air cooler or a decent AiO.

Phoronix tested 10900K using a relatively humble Noctua U9S with 2x92mm fans

Intel Core i5 10600K + Core i9 10900K Linux Performance Benchmarks Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

So yes, if you throw a $150 cooling solution on the 10900K, it almost matches the 3900X over a wide range of loads.

$100 should be enough.

Which leaves us with a difference in CPU price - most of which would need to be spent on a GPU for the 3900X.
But of course we don't know how 10900K will run on a more budget-friendly motherboards, so this could be the key factor.

Anyway, I'm not really takt much into these -K chips. But I'm really looking forward to the 10700 and 10900 - and how they compare to Ryzen 3700 PRO.

 

[Markfw]

Not really.
10900K, 3900X and 3950X need more or less the same cooling for comfortable operation - a high-end air cooler or a decent AiO.

Phoronix tested 10900K using a relatively humble Noctua U9S with 2x92mm fans

Intel Core i5 10600K + Core i9 10900K Linux Performance Benchmarks Review - Phoronix

www.phoronix.com

$100 should be enough.

Which leaves us with a difference in CPU price - most of which would need to be spent on a GPU for the 3900X.
But of course we don't know how 10900K will run on a more budget-friendly motherboards, so this could be the key factor.

Anyway, I'm not really takt much into these -K chips. But I'm really looking forward to the 10700 and 10900 - and how they compare to Ryzen 3700 PRO.

Here is the actual quote:"
When cooling the Core i9 10900K with a Noctua NH-U9S with dual fans, the core temperature was 29 degrees at idle, 56 degree average under load, and peaked at 96 degrees. The i9-10900K hitting in the 90s was only encountered during the most demanding multi-threaded workloads, but if you will be hitting the CPU often, it may be wise with water cooling. More power/thermal benchmarks forthcoming with the i9-10900K. "

So if you do what I do and thaty is 100% 24/7, you would be throttling. As it would be at 96c all the time, and throttle down. And it went up to 380 watts in the same tests. WOW !

 

[Topweasel]

Not really.
10900K, 3900X and 3950X need more or less the same cooling for comfortable operation - a high-end air cooler or a decent AiO.

Phoronix tested 10900K using a relatively humble Noctua U9S with 2x92mm fans

There is difference between using roughly the same level cooler and requiring it. For starters a 3900x comes with a cooler. So from the get go a $100 cooler means that to get close you are spending an extra $100, on a CPU that is already nearing $100 more expensive with current pricing (lets say about $50) more expensive. But and this is a big but. This is response to you talking about what it takes to be better than the 3900x. This requires MCE and removal of time limits on Turbo. That means you need a cooler that can on the later is rated for roughly 200w (and won't win consistently)of heat dispersal or ~300w for the former. All Intel did was make it easier for the die to feed that heat to the HSF (something AMD needs to work on), still need a cooler to do its job for it to work.

So $50-$75 to come close. $100-$120 to basically trade hits. $150-$200 to exceed. Now all of sudden you are spending $250-$300 more than a 3900x to get better performance. It's mostly academic as I doubt people are using the 3900x with a OEM cooler. Also the 3950x doesn't come with a cooler. But AMD has a general power limit on their CPU's. If you get a 90-105w CPU the limit is ~140w (with reporting and the slight variance on each cores power requirements allowing upwards of 10w additional). It's easier to manage. Hell for example can a H100i handle a 10900k with unlocked limits, well probably, but not at the same fan and therefore noise levels.

But that's the thing, sure if you start comparing every thing as a single function and start adding them up. You get a great CPU. But as a package its a really weird product that doesn't have a great fit. It is barely any better at games and only because of Intel's default settings for segmentation the 10700k, but honestly that lead is like hair thin anyways, specially once the cooler is heat-soaked and there isn't an TVB left and not any better then its MT price competitor till you spend a 10700k more on it.