I9 9900k Official Reviews from Anandtech, Tomshardware. Add your own links to others !

[TheGiant]

Thank you The Stilt, finally a post more about the power just one number.
But still, the 9900K looks like overclocked from factory to achieve the magic 5GHz.

Can you please test 4,5GHz all core, reduce the voltage to the level its stable and post results?

thank you very much

at this power lvl I am not going to buy it, its too much

 

[epsilon84]

Not impressed so far. Looks like a hot power hungry cpu.

AMD is striving for lower power while the other guys are pushing the envelope. I see the goas posts once again shifting in favor of the other guys.

Yet it has superior performance/watt compared to the 2700X, according to Tech-report? Hmmm...

 

[TheGiant]

Calculation of power consumption and thermals, it looks really as expected. Intel misled everyone with TDP 95W, which is base clock power.
9900K just demonstrates "we can do 5GHz 8C/16T", but this is really above the absolute sweet spot
The oced 2700X to 4.2GHz (or the 1800X to 4.1 GHz) consumes about the same as 9900K at 4.7GHz.

No magic going here. IMO Intel should have released 9900K with all core 4.4GHz, lower voltage to be faster at default than everything and let people OC it to 5GHz. Now they made fool of themselves. Even as said its more power effective then 2700X or the skl-x chips.

 

[Markfw]

Calculation of power consumption and thermals, it looks really as expected. Intel misled everyone with TDP 95W, which is base clock power.
9900K just demonstrates "we can do 5GHz 8C/16T", but this is really above the absolute sweet spot
The oced 2700X to 4.2GHz (or the 1800X to 4.1 GHz) consumes about the same as 9900K at 4.7GHz.

No magic going here. IMO Intel should have released 9900K with all core 4.4GHz, lower voltage to be faster at default than everything and let people OC it to 5GHz. Now they made fool of themselves. Even as said its more power effective then 2700X or the skl-x chips.

On power consumption.... Since I have 2 2700x's and 4 1950x's, I can say those numbers are too high. I think the real numbers on the 9900k are higher, but not as high as some as posted here.

 

[LTC8K6]

Calculation of power consumption and thermals, it looks really as expected. Intel misled everyone with TDP 95W, which is base clock power.
9900K just demonstrates "we can do 5GHz 8C/16T", but this is really above the absolute sweet spot
The oced 2700X to 4.2GHz (or the 1800X to 4.1 GHz) consumes about the same as 9900K at 4.7GHz.

No magic going here. IMO Intel should have released 9900K with all core 4.4GHz, lower voltage to be faster at default than everything and let people OC it to 5GHz. Now they made fool of themselves. Even as said its more power effective then 2700X or the skl-x chips.

What does the chip do at base clock? Probably in the 95W ball park.

 

[epsilon84]

That looks like an outlier..
2700x consumes about 110-140w....9900k about 2-225w..
Taking a look at all the data, neither the 9900k or the 9700k makes any sense what so ever.
This is the end of the line for skylake and 14nm...if zen2 can't best this then AMD has got problems.

Is this an outlier as well?
https://techreport.com/review/34192/intel-core-i9-9900k-cpu-reviewed/13

THIS is what I would call an outlier, I think TPU stuffed up the stock figures big time, did they set it at a 95W TDP limit?
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i9_9900K/images/power-multithread.png

Edit - just found this, I swear the power figures are all over the place depending on the review
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/10/19/intel_core_i99900k_9th_generation_cpu_review/5

What to believe... what to believe...

 

[Markfw]

What does the chip do at base clock? Probably in the 95W ball park.

And I don't believe that either. I DO believe when Anandtech said an AIO would be at 85c full load normal, and it could not do the job with AVX both at 4.8. That makes me think that the 221 full load (Anandtech) is correct. These power number are all over the board, since they use all sorts of ways to determine that.

 

[Asterox]

That looks like an outlier..
2700x consumes about 110-140w....9900k about 2-225w..
Taking a look at all the data, neither the 9900k or the 9700k makes any sense what so ever.
This is the end of the line for skylake and 14nm...if zen2 can't best this then AMD has got problems.

AMD has no problems at all, R7 2700X is price-performance ratio Gold Medal owner.

Zen 2 is a little bit diferent story, much beeter performanse but significantly higher price or 7nm is not cheep as 12nm.

Buyers or users, when you can buy 6/12 CPU for only 150$ "a problem is extinct or absent word".

 

[LTC8K6]

And I don't believe that either. I DO believe when Anandtech said an AIO would be at 85c full load normal, and it could not do the job with AVX both at 4.8. That makes me think that the 221 full load (Anandtech) is correct. These power number are all over the board, since they use all sorts of ways to determine that.

Apparently the hotter the chip gets, the more leakage you get, and the higher the power use.

So, better coolers also get you lower power numbers.

 

[Markfw]

Is this an outlier as well?
https://techreport.com/review/34192/intel-core-i9-9900k-cpu-reviewed/13

THIS is what I would call an outlier, I think TPU stuffed up the stock figures big time, did they set it at a 95W TDP limit?
https://tpucdn.com/reviews/Intel/Core_i9_9900K/images/power-multithread.png

Edit - just found this, I swear the power figures are all over the place depending on the review
https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/10/19/intel_core_i99900k_9th_generation_cpu_review/5

What to believe... what to believe...

Yes, I think the second one is an outlier. I still believe the 221 by Anandtech.

 

[french toast]

Calculation of power consumption and thermals, it looks really as expected. Intel misled everyone with TDP 95W, which is base clock power.
9900K just demonstrates "we can do 5GHz 8C/16T", but this is really above the absolute sweet spot
The oced 2700X to 4.2GHz (or the 1800X to 4.1 GHz) consumes about the same as 9900K at 4.7GHz.

No magic going here. IMO Intel should have released 9900K with all core 4.4GHz, lower voltage to be faster at default than everything and let people OC it to 5GHz. Now they made fool of themselves. Even as said its more power effective then 2700X or the skl-x chips.

If you are comparing power consumption of ryzen 1800 at OC 4.1ghz and 2700x @ 4.2ghz...surely you should be comparing 9900k @ 5.1ghz??

Or to put it more accurately...Ryzen 2700x at all core turbo stock(4.1?) Vs 9900k all core turbo stock? (4.7ghz).
Massive difference.
9900k is essentially a factory overclocked card like the FX 9590...both couldn't be overclocked past their 5ghz single core turbo if memory serves me correctly...at least AMD owned up to the power consumption and bunged in an appropriate water cooler..even if it was not an all round performance leader and was initially overpriced.

 

[TheGiant]

Apparently the hotter the chip gets, the more leakage you get, and the higher the power use.

So, better coolers also get you lower power numbers.

I think its about the VRM efficiency. It is above sweet spot and the board just must handle the load current.

This reminds me of the Prescott days. The room heater.

But absolute performance of the chip is excellent. the 7900X as 10C is tied, except pure AVX workloads.

For me from pure performance this the the real upgrade for my 6600K@4.4GHz. Higher single threaded enough to be visible, multithreaded no comment. Games the same top performance.
I would even run through this power with avx workload but I don't want a water cooler.

 

[Hitman928]

I think Anandtech's write-up makes a lot of sense:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-review/21

The bottom line, the cooling limit, is effectively the TDP value. Here the power (and frequency) is limited by the cooling at hand. It is the lowest sustainable frequency for the cooling, so for the most part TDP = PL1. This is our ‘95W’ value.

The PL2 value, or sustained power delivery, is what amounts to the turbo. This is the maximum sustainable power that the processor can take until we start to hit thermal issues. When a chip goes into a turbo mode, sometimes briefly, this is the part that is relied upon. The value of PL2 can be set by the system manufacturer, however Intel has its own recommended PL2 values.

In this case, for the new 9th Generation Core processors, Intel has set the PL2 value to 210W. This is essentially the power required to hit the peak turbo on all cores, such as 4.7 GHz on the eight-core Core i9-9900K. So users can completely forget the 95W TDP when it comes to cooling. If a user wants those peak frequencies, it’s time to invest in something capable and serious.

It seems intel's own suggested turbo power limit is 220W for 4.7 GHz on all cores. However, motherboard makers might not have designed for that much power or just don't want to deal with it so they set a lower PL2 value.

Hardware Unboxed (Techspot) did a test on a lower end Z370 board and found major power throttling issues. If they disabled the power limit, performance pretty much matched the top of the line Z390 board. https://www.techspot.com/review/1730-intel-core-i9-9900k-core-i7-9700k/page5.html

It seems power use will be highly motherboard and work load dependent.

 

[Markfw]

One more note on how I address my power consumption. I use kill-a-watt. at idle, I don't really case, but I observer the number. Then I load the CPU full. The power use is somewhere more than that delta. (15,20 watts ??)
I think I will have to retry this on my 2700x's when I get home.

 

[TheGiant]

If you are comparing power consumption of ryzen 1800 at OC 4.1ghz and 2700x @ 4.2ghz...surely you should be comparing 9900k @ 5.1ghz??

As I see it now.

1. compare the absolute performance and the wattage to get it done- here the 9900K wins, ryzen cannot compete, even intels skl-x cannot compete with the frequency, the 9900K absolute performance its a monster in everything (paid by 200W power draw), only 2950X is faster in pure and very pure multithreading (with less power, which is expected as it runs on its sweet spot while 9900K is oced above it)
2. the same power in the top performance level (not extreme)- if 2700X is oced to like 4.2 GHz, its above its sweet spot, with the same power the 9900K wins
3. most power efficient with "acceptable performance"- reduce the clock and undervolt and with like 3.8GHz all core the ryzen power will be imo much lower than 9900K- here ryzen wins big time

 

[epsilon84]

As I see it now.

1. compare the absolute performance and the wattage to get it done- here the 9900K wins, ryzen cannot compete, even intels skl-x cannot compete with the frequency, the 9900K absolute performance its a monster in everything, only 2950X is faster in pure and very pure multithreading (with less power, which is expected as it runs on its sweet spot while 9900K is oced above it)
2. the same power- if 2700X is oced to like 4.2 GHz, its above its sweet spot, with the same power the 9900K wins
3. most power efficient with "acceptable performance"- reduce the clock and undervolt and with like 3.8GHz all core the ryzen power will be imo much lower than 9900K- here ryzen wins big time

Just on point 3 - couldn't you just undervolt a 9900K and run it at 4.0GHz or something and achieve a similar effect?

You are right that a 9900K is running far above its optimal performance/watt window, but so is a 2700X.

 

[The Stilt]

Thank you The Stilt, finally a post more about the power just one number.
But still, the 9900K looks like overclocked from factory to achieve the magic 5GHz.

Can you please test 4,5GHz all core, reduce the voltage to the level its stable and post results?

thank you very much

at this power lvl I am not going to buy it, its too much

I've already mapped the minimum V/F curve for this chip in the past, but I added 25mV margin (1.070 >> 1.095V) for 24/7 reliability for this one.
~105W average in non-256b workloads.

 

[TheGiant]

Just on point 3 - couldn't you just undervolt a 9900K and run it at 4.0GHz or something and achieve a similar effect?

You are right that a 9900K is running far above its optimal performance/watt window, but so is a 2700X.

I think you can not. Ryzen is better in the lower clock area and far more efficient there. But it can not reach as high clocks and has single digit lower IPC. For now.
What I would like to see is the pure performance of 5GHz 9900K while consuming 100W, not 200W.

Any experts here. Can it be done with Intel's 10nm?

 

[LTC8K6]

Maybe someone will get Intel to comment on the numbers we are seeing from the different reviewers?

 

[TheGiant]

I've already mapped the minimum V/F curve for this chip in the past, but I added 25mV margin (1.070 >> 1.095V) for 24/7 reliability for this one.
~105W average in non-256b workloads.

Thank you

this is excellent. 105W at 4,5GHz with typical workload.

 

[The Stilt]

Maybe someone will get Intel to comment on the numbers we are seeing from the different reviewers?

I'd imagine they come from the different motherboards and the different methods used to measure the power consumption.

According to Intel specs these CPUs should have PL2 set to PL1 * 1.25 (== 119W), not 210W like some motherboards configure them.

 

[The Stilt]

Thank you

this is excellent. 105W at 4,5GHz with typical workload.

Yeah, as long as your typical workload does not include a single 256-bit instruction

 

[TheGiant]

Yeah, as long as your typical workload does not include a single 256-bit instruction

What about excel and Numeric math (monte carlo etc). Where does it fit?

 

[krumme]

I'd imagine they come from the different motherboards and the different methods used to measure the power consumption.

According to Intel specs these CPUs should have PL2 set to PL1 * 1.25 (== 119W), not 210W like some motherboards configure them.

Well that would also explain the high perf seen in the AT review. There is no free lunch here.

Imo it makes sense to configure this cpu with high pl2 for it's intended market. If you buy this cpu you can afford expensive cooling no probs. An air dh15 can handle it fine. This cpu is about raw perf.

And btw. Surely this thing will run avx256 e.g. hevc encoding. Its a typical usecase. If not get an 9700k or 9600k For the gaming.

 

[The Stilt]

What about excel and Numeric math (monte carlo etc). Where does it fit?

Excel supposedly uses AVX, but I'm not certain if its 256-bit or not.
Impossible to say about math as it is highly application / library specific, but possibly.