Discussion Intel 9900KS review and availability thread

[Hitman928]

Since the other thread was started specifically for the Tom's preview article, here's a thread for actual review discussion. I'll add links to this post as more come out. If you see a review posted in the thread not posted in the OP just send me a PM and I will update.

I haven't seen the CPU in stock anywhere yet but will update this post when I do.

In stock at newegg for $570 and at amazon for $613.75

https://bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/cpus/intel-core-i9-9900ks-review/1/
https://www.computerbase.de/2019-10/intel-core-i9-9900ks-cpu-test/
https://www.techspot.com/review/1936-intel-core-i9-9900ks/
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-9900ks-special-edition-review/
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-corei9-9900ks&num=1

 

[DrMrLordX]

I have my doubts that Zen3 or Intel 10th gen will notch past a 5+GHz 9900ks in gaming.

Comet Lake-S is a question mark. Rocket Lake and Zen3 will put 8c Coffee Lake out to pasture, though.

 

[maddogmcgee]

.

 

[Arkaign]

Almost no one has bought a 1700, 2700 and 3700 for year on year gaming PC upgrades. That's crap. That's like upgrading from a 2500k to a 3770k.

If you spent the same money on a mobo and CPU in early 2017 you would be roughly looking at a
2 core i3-7350K/7320 or a 8 1700....who is going to be getting the higher performance today from those two options?

Almost no one buys top end parts either so it's kinda of a silly argument to say, this $1000 AUD Intel part is better than the top AMD part, so buy Intel if you are going to build any gaming PC.

I would also love to see some benchmarks of the 3700 abba bios vs the 8700. I would guess that the 3700 might actually be the faster cpu for gaming after the improvements which have been made to applications using lower numbers of threads.

Ehh, in April 2017 the Ryzen 1700 was $330 (just look at any of the reviews).

Still way better at general PC use, encoding, yadda than a 7700K (Intel CPU at the price at the same time). But not i3 priced lol.

I have a 3700X and an 8086k. I don't know about stock, but at both OCed, the 3700X is not really even that close to the 8086k (and 8086k is just a binned 8700k tbh) for gaming, though it blows the Intel to smithereens in encoding despite the clock disadvantage. Like monumentally better.

 

[Arkaign]

Some 1080p at gamersnexus channel on youtube.

As someone who follows a ton of PC hardware channels, this guy might be the best. He doesn't mess around kissing butts of companies, he pretty brutally tells it like it is even if it offends a sponsor. And he gets the most out of the stuff he tests, and shows how to do the same.

It's nice compared to seeing some tests where people are just making 'Verge' style cringe reviews running garbage ram, bad settings, improper cooling, etc.

He even helped case manufacturers revise their cases for huge gains in cooling lol.

'Tech Jesus' nickname is well earned haha.

 

[maddogmcgee]

.

 

[Arkaign]

My bad. I googled rrp price 2017 and must have got the discounted price towards the end of sales.

No worries 👍

I remember those sales fondly lol. That's one thing I really like about AMD, when they move to a new gen, the last gen stuff tends to stay out there a bit at incredibly good prices. Intel otoh simply EOLs things and they vanish from retail or languish at stupidly high prices for no reasonable explanation.

 

[jpiniero]

Intel otoh simply EOLs things and they vanish from retail or languish at stupidly high prices for no reasonable explanation.

Oh it's pretty reasonable. Intel slows down/stops binning the K/X parts when the replacement part comes out. Supply isn't much but demand is essentially zero, so you have some amount of unsold inventory that retailers don't want to eat losses on.

 

[Gideon]

I told this same story once before back when the AMD 1700 vs the 8700k debate was hot.
What's happen since then?
Those who bought a 8700k are now enjoying top speed gaming from a 2080 or 2080ti gpu, where the 1700 buyers ,have since bought a 2700 and now a 3700 and still can't match a overclocked 8700k.
Meanwhile the argument back then was but AMD motherboards and cpu's combos are $165 cheaper.
Fast foward 2 year to now, That same AMD buyer that saved $165 has bought 2 more cpu's and another motherboard for about $500 ,while the 8700k guy still has the fastest gaming system.
Who made the better choice?

While I agree that the AMD camp is definitely biased at times (particularly during the mentioned Ryzen 1xxx vs Core 8xxx series timeframe), there are use-cases where such an uprade makes sense. For one, you are skipping the fact that Zen existed quite a while before 8700K. Almost a year in fact, once you factor in that it wasn't really available @ MRSP till early 2018, unless you immediately snagged it on release.

For instance, I bought a 1700X in May 2017 (at a discount) and upgraded to a (drop in replacement) 3700X in August this year.

I had to upgrade at that time, cause my i5 2500K memory died (due-to my own stupidity). I didn't want a 7700K as I knew it would be a dead end product and I could make use of the 8 cores for software development stuff (compiling motly) and the occasional encoding.

IMO my upgrade path makes perfect sense. The new CPU only cost me an extra 240€ (350€ - the price for the sold 1700x + prism cooler, as I had a Noctua already)
While you can probably still find some games where an overclocked 7700K will beat te 3700X, it isn't anywhere as good in compiling and will still lose in games that scale to 8+ cores.

If I regret anything is that 12 cores weren't really available at the time I upgraded for a sane price, cause I could use those as well.

 

[Blockheadfan]

Those who bought a 8700k are now enjoying top speed gaming from a 2080 or 2080ti gpu, where the 1700 buyers ,have since bought a 2700 and now a 3700 and still can't match a overclocked 8700k.
Meanwhile the argument back then was but AMD motherboards and cpu's combos are $165 cheaper.
Fast foward 2 year to now, That same AMD buyer that saved $165 has bought 2 more cpu's and another motherboard for about $500 ,while the 8700k guy still has the fastest gaming system.
Who made the better choice?

Man, what an elaborate fantasy scenario. Hard to argue with fiction.

 

[tamz_msc]

Man, what an elaborate fantasy scenario. Hard to argue with fiction.

To be honest, he is kinda right. The 9900KS is 20-30 percent faster than anything AMD has in CPU-limited scenarios.

 

[Markfw]

To be honest, he is kinda right. The 9900KS is 20-30 percent faster than anything AMD has in CPU-limited scenarios.

I think 10% is more like it.

 

[Blockheadfan]

To be honest, he is kinda right. The 9900KS is 20-30 percent faster than anything AMD has in CPU-limited scenarios.

Sorry, I was replying to the part I quoted. "Who made the better choice?" in his fan fiction hypothetical. I have no real interest in gaming so that may be correct.

 

[tamz_msc]

I think 10% is more like it.

Nah, in very CPU-limited scenarios, the gap is pretty large:

GTA V ~20%

Far Cry 5 ~25%

Shadow of the Tomb Raider ~25%

 

[TheGiant]

Nah, in very CPU-limited scenarios, the gap is pretty large:

GTA V ~20%

Far Cry 5 ~25%

Shadow of the Tomb Raider ~25%

and it will get bigger when 3080TI comes out
however, r3x lineup is finally capable and good at gaming, no problems of recommending it

 

[AtenRa]

9900KS only has one year Warranty ??

 

[krumme]

Nah, in very CPU-limited scenarios, the gap is pretty large:

GTA V ~20%

Far Cry 5 ~25%

Shadow of the Tomb Raider ~25%

All those examples is more or less latency bound. So you would as well use a 7700k.
The basic problem as shown by computerbase.de is when you enter a mp64 battle in game like bf1/bf5 those cores is severily throughput limited and you get 0.1-1% mins in the order below 40fps. That makes those fast quad 8t cpu outright unusable. Sure if you dont game those cpu heavy games you dont need to worry but if you do its utterly killing the gameplay. Even If you are 144 or 60 hz gamer.
While you can game on a 3600 everything fine.

 

[Zucker2k]

All those examples is more or less latency bound. So you would as well use a 7700k.
The basic problem as shown by computerbase.de is when you enter a mp64 battle in game like bf1/bf5 those cores is severily throughput limited and you get 0.1-1% mins in the order below 40fps. That makes those fast quad 8t cpu outright unusable. Sure if you dont game those cpu heavy games you dont need to worry but if you do its utterly killing the gameplay. Even If you are 144 or 60 hz gamer.
While you can game on a 3600 everything fine.

I don't know whether I should call this post OT, strawman, or something else unpleasant. Or, are you seriously trying to imply these so called problem that afflicts the 7700K also affects the octocore 9900xx processors?

 

[tamz_msc]

All those examples is more or less latency bound. So you would as well use a 7700k.
The basic problem as shown by computerbase.de is when you enter a mp64 battle in game like bf1/bf5 those cores is severily throughput limited and you get 0.1-1% mins in the order below 40fps. That makes those fast quad 8t cpu outright unusable. Sure if you dont game those cpu heavy games you dont need to worry but if you do its utterly killing the gameplay. Even If you are 144 or 60 hz gamer.
While you can game on a 3600 everything fine.

I did not say anything about quad cores. Quad cores, even with HT are pretty much obsolete today. However the problem with high latency isn't something that is going to go away anytime soon.

 

[krumme]

I don't know whether I should call this post OT, strawman, or something else unpleasant. Or, are you seriously trying to imply these so called problem that afflicts the 7700K also affects the octocore 9900xx processors?

Relax. The bf series is played by a huge number of people I just make a point saying lack of throughout in a processor kills it.
Those arguments seen that a future 3080ti whatever will expand the 9900 lead is under the assumption memory latency is the weak link. Its nonsense and history have shown us the opposite. The balance is slowly going towards throughput.
We have tens of millions of 8c zen2 consoles incoming so no one on 144hz gaming is safe for their 120hz mins. Heck look at 0.1-1 % mins today in mp64 bf on 8c 9900 or 9700/8700. Its 60fps.
The 7700k was useless in many bf1 mp64 situations 3 years ago. Looking at gta5 bm is not a safe way to guard you investment.
The arguments when 7700k arrived was the same. I just say. Look at your game portfolio, budget, how long time you keep hour machine, and see where it hurts most and if it important.

 

[krumme]

That said I am perfectly in line with Arkain how to evaluate the performance in the games.
Only look at 0.1/1% mins
Drop ultra settings. Select low/medium and tune settings to max k/d ratio not visuals.

 

[TheGiant]

The balance is slowly going towards throughput.

QFT
but latency stays as the second factor
throughput only wins when latency effective cores are killed by througput stuff (like the 4/8T and under CPUs today, definitely not in 2016, ofc you could buy 6800K, tune it to 4,3GHz and be done)
otherwise througput ends like with weak 8C in todays consoles- that is garbage
todays CPUs from AMD try to mitigate the latency disadvatage by clever architecture but not everything can be done
I dont think TR2950X or SKL -X (or CL-X) has a bandwitch or throughput problem

Those arguments seen that a future 3080ti whatever will expand the 9900 lead is under the assumption memory latency is the weak link. Its nonsense and history have shown us the opposite.

I dont agree here
history have shown us that latency with throughput always won- athlon64, core2 and later
in the situations you describe 1080P, low/medium, nothing will change even with rtx10080Ti with current CPUs
but there are lots of situations, where even the low 1% are GPU bound in the CPU testing, because lets say current CPU test is more of a mixed gameplay testing, not CPU test
I have yet to see a gaming CPU test composed of only the most intensive scenes and the percentile distribution is made from that results
but as I said, for most demanding gamers GPUs are already powerful enough to not be the bottleneck

We have tens of millions of 8c zen2 consoles incoming so no one on 144hz gaming is safe for their 120hz mins.

I will finally enjoy a console - I tried to play witcher 3 on a console and it was garbage in FPS mins
there is lot to be evolved in consistency
the gaming era won't be about 8K, but about 4K 144Hz

 

[krumme]

I think the supply of gamers cpu now is fantastic vs 6 years ago.
There is far more variety.
This is how I would rank it in the different budget classes for lasting 2-4 years:

144hz gaming
3600
9700
9900k
9900ks

60hz gaming
3600
3700x
9900k

Back in the old days since sb it was Intel quad core with or without ht.

 

[AtenRa]

I think the supply of gamers cpu now is fantastic vs 6 years ago.
There is far more variety.
This is how I would rank it in the different budget classes for lasting 2-4 years:

144hz gaming
3600
9700
9900k
9900ks

60hz gaming
3600
3700x
9900k

Back in the old days since sb it was Intel quad core with or without ht.

Why 3700x only for 60hz when its a little faster than 3600 and more future proof with 4 more threads ??

I would also consider the Intel 9400F as low budget CPU for 60/144hz e-sports and older fps games for someone that want an Intel CPU.

 

[DrMrLordX]

I think the supply of gamers cpu now is fantastic vs 6 years ago.

Comet Lake-S may improve the situation from a value angle. Dunno if those leaks are true - we'll find out soon enough. But I suspect Comet Lake-S will bring more value to the 8c and 6c Intel segments in terms of what performance you can get per dollar.

 

[krumme]

Why 3700x only for 60hz when its a little faster than 3600 and more future proof with 4 more threads ??

I would also consider the Intel 9400F as low budget CPU for 60/144hz e-sports and older fps games for someone that want an Intel CPU.

In computerbase testing the 3600 barely edges out the 9400f in total. But if you look at 99 percentile in more heavy loads like bf5 it wins. It's just a better gaming processor even for today's load. In 2 years the difference will just be bigger for sure. Yeaa on some older titles or engines the 9400f is a good deal faster, but getting that today means you really prioritize that. I mean if the 3600 cuts it it's the safer buy by far.

On 60Hz I would tilt more towards the 3700x due to its throughput vs the 9700 latency advantage. If you game on 60Hz and the 3700x can cut it now i would lean more towards it as the added throughput vs the 9700 can give an extra year or two. Like the old intel quads with or without ht. Those with HT lasted a good deal longer.

All nice cpu and personal game portfolio is important for right choice. Midrange buyers get a lot of gaming power for their money today.

I can see more and more people do other stuff while gaming. In that case add cores to the job. A 3700x is damn strong all over and is super lean at the same time. Cheap to boot on a b450 to.

I am really looking forward to all the new stuff coming.