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

[ttechf]

I buy who ever has the best product. Price comes second usually.

Buying a 50% less performing product based on brand makes no sense what so ever. But looks like marketing brainwashing works on you. Embarressing

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

Intel has done no marketing on me to make me want to buy their products. It's called using them and never been wronged by them. Or reputation if you want to call it that. A lot of people are quick to switch from one company or brand to another because suddenly this year or today they are doing better. I'm not like that. For example, I have a Samsung tv. And Samsung makes some of the best tvs in the world, along with their technology. Let's say they fell to being 3rd best tomorrow, I'm not going to run right out and get whoever number 1 is. That's just absurd.

In other words, AMD has a LOOOOOOOOOONG way to go before they 1. Impress me and 2. Make me buy one of their products again.

 

[PotatoWithEarsOnSide]

Brand loyalty is overrated.
We used to live in a society where loyalty was rewarded, but nowadays you get more for being disloyal.
Bar compatibility issues, switching supplier should come down to price, performance, or a combination of both.
This applies to all components within a system.
I regards to performance, the 9900k is the best we'll see from Intel for the next 2-3 years. That may justify the choice to go all in now, or it may sway towards waiting for the next gen Ryzen. For me, that's where price comes into it; if you don't care about cost then you buy the 9900k now, otherwise you wait to pick up the 3700X.

 

[ttechf]

Brand loyalty is overrated.
We used to live in a society where loyalty was rewarded, but nowadays you get more for being disloyal.
Bar compatibility issues, switching supplier should come down to price, performance, or a combination of both.
This applies to all components within a system.
I regards to performance, the 9900k is the best we'll see from Intel for the next 2-3 years. That may justify the choice to go all in now, or it may sway towards waiting for the next gen Ryzen. For me, that's where price comes into it; if you don't care about cost then you buy the 9900k now, otherwise you wait to pick up the 3700X.

Well, I am "going all in now" with a $2,500+ build so it's okay if Intel's next processors "arent that good" for 2 years or so. I am also not being loyal. I'm not an idiot but I am not going to another company because something may be cheaper or 5% better. Doesn't really make sense to me. Too many people get what they NEED and a lot of people get "enough" or a system that is "good enough" when it comes to technology and computers. I can get anything I want. Money isn't a factor. So I might as well get the best 2018 has to offer. And by the way, when I say money is no factor, I could easily get the 18 core $2,000 Intel CPU. It's just a lot of those cores would be wasted based on my workload.

 

[Vattila]

Personally, I can understand brand loyalty, even if it has little rational basis when it comes to product quality or value. If you have shares in the company, or your aunt works at the company, or you simply have a good experience with the product, and don't have the time to research alternatives, nor want to take the risk, brand loyalty is understandable. However, I cannot let unreasonable statements about the competitor stand. In particular, it is time to lay the reliability myth to rest when it comes to AMD and Intel.

Personally, I'm unashamedly loyal to AMD. As a young and naive CPU enthusiast I was fascinated by Dirk Meyer's Athlon back in 1999 and invested a fair amount of my savings in AMD. I was then shocked to see Intel's anti-competitive business practices winning out in the market with inferior products, misleading marketing and dodgy deals. Since then my rule has been to buy AMD unless Intel has at least 50% better performance at my price point. Which of course Intel never has offered.

I respect the Intel engineers a lot, e.g. the i9-9900K is an impressive chip. Intel's business ethos and marketing? Not so much.

 

[ttechf]

Personally, I can understand brand loyalty, even if it has little rational basis when it comes to product quality or value. If you have shares in the company, or your aunt works at the company, or you simply have a good experience with the product, and don't have the time to research alternatives, nor want to take the risk, brand loyalty is understandable. However, I cannot let unreasonable statements about the competitor stand. In particular, it is time to lay the reliability myth to rest when it comes to AMD and Intel.

Personally, I'm unashamedly loyal to AMD. As a young and naive CPU enthusiast I was fascinated by Dirk Meyer's Athlon back in 1999 and invested a fair amount of my savings in AMD. I was then shocked to see Intel's anti-competitive business practices winning out in the market with misleading marketing of inferior products and dodgy deals. Since then my rule has been to buy AMD unless Intel has at least 50% better performance at my price point. Which of course Intel never has offered.

I respect the Intel engineers a lot, e.g. the i9-9900K is an impressive chip. Intel's business ethos and marketing? Not so much.

Ethics are a whole different animal. And personally I don't care if a company murders people for it's profit. Maybe that makes me a horrible person but I am not financially invested in these companies on a stock level or employee level. And you kind of hit what I was saying - I've had great experiences with Intel, and I have had a lot of time to research heavily, and I am not saying AMD are bad processors at all in 2018, but I also do not want to take the risk and it's just a matter of choice and preference. Maybe it's "stupid" to others that I'm willing to pay double for a processor, so be it. But I believe myself personally, I'm getting value. And value isn't always determined by dollars.

 

[Vattila]

But I believe myself personally, I'm getting value.

Yeah. As far as I understand, you are looking at getting the best performing desktop chip there is. Today that's i9-9900K. If I was in the same boat, I would have to consider it and try to set aside my bias. So, I don't fault you for your choice.

That said, we can all be fair and demand fairness. I am very happy that so many spoke up against unfair marketing with the recent controversy over the PT study. It had a real effect. PT redid their testing and republished a revised report. And the world got a little bit fairer.

 

[Pandamonia]

Personally, I can understand brand loyalty, even if it has little rational basis when it comes to product quality or value. If you have shares in the company, or your aunt works at the company, or you simply have a good experience with the product, and don't have the time to research alternatives, nor want to take the risk, brand loyalty is understandable. However, I cannot let unreasonable statements about the competitor stand. In particular, it is time to lay the reliability myth to rest when it comes to AMD and Intel.

Personally, I'm unashamedly loyal to AMD. As a young and naive CPU enthusiast I was fascinated by Dirk Meyer's Athlon back in 1999 and invested a fair amount of my savings in AMD. I was then shocked to see Intel's anti-competitive business practices winning out in the market with misleading marketing of inferior products and dodgy deals. Since then my rule has been to buy AMD unless Intel has at least 50% better performance at my price point. Which of course Intel never has offered.

I respect the Intel engineers a lot, e.g. the i9-9900K is an impressive chip. Intel's business ethos and marketing? Not so much.

They just sold people a 4 year old technology which clocks the same as it did 4 years ago pretty much.

I'd say marketing is exactly their business.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

 

[maddie]

Intel has done no marketing on me to make me want to buy their products. It's called using them and never been wronged by them. Or reputation if you want to call it that. A lot of people are quick to switch from one company or brand to another because suddenly this year or today they are doing better. I'm not like that. For example, I have a Samsung tv. And Samsung makes some of the best tvs in the world, along with their technology. Let's say they fell to being 3rd best tomorrow, I'm not going to run right out and get whoever number 1 is. That's just absurd.

In other words, AMD has a LOOOOOOOOOONG way to go before they 1. Impress me and 2. Make me buy one of their products again.

Sometimes I see posts that make me truly question if I was transported to another reality.


Edit:
"Ethics are a whole different animal. And personally I don't care if a company murders people for it's profit."
OK, you have to be trolling us here.

 

[DooKey]

Sometimes I see posts that make me truly question if I was transported to another reality.


Edit:
"Ethics are a whole different animal. And personally I don't care if a company murders people for it's profit."
OK, you have to be trolling us here.

It's called hyperbole.

 

[ozzy702]

They just sold people a 4 year old technology which clocks the same as it did 4 years ago pretty much.

I'd say marketing is exactly their business.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

And yet it's still the best gaming CPU on the market. Intel hasn't had a reason until very recently to do anything but small incremental changes to their lineup.

Thankfully AMD is back in the market and we have competition to push innovation. It doesn't change the fact that for gaming, Intel is still king if you want high FPS gaming.

 

[TheELF]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-review/9
Here this one test explains it all,you want something that will run most thing pretty ok?You can go with AMD.
You want something that will run anything as well as possible no matter how bad it's written?You have to go with intel.
And don't be fooled,this is pretty much all of the professional market, they run piles of code that get's passed from one person to the next and everybody just makes it run investing the least amount of coding time to it.

Yeah it's a 50% difference in bad code ( cough cough CSGO)

 

[DrMrLordX]

The next 10nm intel 8 core will be faster and cooler and more future proof and new technology. Not old crap running at 100c for £600.

With amd on their heels they have to do something special next time around or amd will catch them and take the performance crown back. It's just a matter of time.

And when will you be able to buy that chip? 2020?

The 9900K is a fantastic desktop CPU.

The only real downside is pricing

The real downside is that you can't buy one.

Yeah it's a 50% difference in bad code ( cough cough CSGO)

I'm glad Dr. Cutress is still making use of his older 3DPM benchmark, and also using 3DPM v2.1 to show what's in play here.

 

[Pandamonia]

And when will you be able to buy that chip? 2020?



The real downside is that you can't buy one.



I'm glad Dr. Cutress is still making use of his older 3DPM benchmark, and also using 3DPM v2.1 to show what's in play here.

Given that skylake can run 4.8ghz I see no reason waiting till 2020 is an issue at this rate.

4 cores and 8 threads are fine with a 1080 Ti.

Let's face it cpus are a waste of money that offer no real world advantage at 100 fps 1440p or 4k or gaming in general for a long time.

Games are just not coded very well and even these claims of 64 player battlefield benefits I don't ever see frames below 80 or 90. I'd even say that cpu has been so crap for so long that games are not building in speed increases unlike expected gpu performance gains so it doesnt matter. In fact it would be suicide for a game to need more than 4 cores.

The cpu just isn't a bottleneck which more cores will ever fix.

Anything professional related.. Who gives a crap. You just buy it and put it through the business anyway and claim the tax back on it so what ever.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

 

[TheGiant]

So anyone spotted a review with memory scaling? like from 2666 to 4500 MHz with proper timings?
thanks

 

[beginner99]

I have to disagree unfortunately as I think the i9-9900k isn't going to be "obsolete" in 18 months,

True. The CPU itself won't be. But pcie 4/5 are on the horizon as is DDR5. With current DDR4 prices it makes little sense to pour money into it unless you already own the RAM (but hopefully it's also fast RAM as something like ddr4-2133 will have a negative performance impact). Add to that the terrible GPU market, RX580 barley beats 290x from early 2015 fire-sales so barley better performance/$.

 

[coercitiv]

I have to disagree unfortunately as I think the i9-9900k isn't going to be "obsolete" in 18 months, lol. Processor technology isn't, especially it's speed isn't improving THAT MUCH.

It will be obsolete in less than 12 months actually, it will be Intel doing that in response to whatever 7nm chips will bring to the table. People who bought into Kaby Lake have witnessed this firsthand, as their i7 and i5 KBL were soon to become an i5 and i3 CFL respectively. Next year will be no different, as we transition to a new node.

This doesn't mean the 9900K will not be a top performer in the next 18 months, just that a similar Intel SKU will do the same at a significantly lower price point. People who buy the 9900K need to acknowledge they're likely paying a $200-300 fee to get that performance in advance. (availability price hike included)

That being said I don't agree with anyone criticizing a 9900K buy decision as long as the buyer understands both the product and the context: it's their money, it's an informed decision, I'd rather discuss performance, overclocking, undervolting, cooling, build options etc.

 

[dlerious]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9900k-i7-9700k-i5-9600k-review/9
Here this one test explains it all,you want something that will run most thing pretty ok?You can go with AMD.
You want something that will run anything as well as possible no matter how bad it's written?You have to go with intel.
And don't be fooled,this is pretty much all of the professional market, they run piles of code that get's passed from one person to the next and everybody just makes it run investing the least amount of coding time to it.

Yeah it's a 50% difference in bad code ( cough cough CSGO)

I see the 7900X. Why no 2950X, especially if you're talking professional market?

 

[ttechf]

True. The CPU itself won't be. But pcie 4/5 are on the horizon as is DDR5. With current DDR4 prices it makes little sense to pour money into it unless you already own the RAM (but hopefully it's also fast RAM as something like ddr4-2133 will have a negative performance impact). Add to that the terrible GPU market, RX580 barley beats 290x from early 2015 fire-sales so barley better performance/$.

I hope you realize when it comes to RAM and DDR5 memory specifically that when DDR5 releases, it will NOT be better than DDR4 memory for quite some time. Probably 2 years. Same happened with the transition from DDR3 to DDR4. DDR4 4000mhz memory will be better than DDR5 memory for at least 18 months so there's no rush at all to get out and grab DDR5 memory. Secondly, NOT a lot of people need PCIE 4.0.

 

[LTC8K6]

It will be obsolete in less than 12 months actually, it will be Intel doing that in response to whatever 7nm chips will bring to the table. People who bought into Kaby Lake have witnessed this firsthand, as their i7 and i5 KBL were soon to become an i5 and i3 CFL respectively. Next year will be no different, as we transition to a new node.

This doesn't mean the 9900K will not be a top performer in the next 18 months, just that a similar Intel SKU will do the same at a significantly lower price point. People who buy the 9900K need to acknowledge they're likely paying a $200-300 fee to get that performance in advance. (availability price hike included)

That being said I don't agree with anyone criticizing a 9900K buy decision as long as the buyer understands both the product and the context: it's their money, it's an informed decision, I'd rather discuss performance, overclocking, undervolting, cooling, build options etc.

You do still get two more threads and a 500mhz higher base frequency with a 7700K over a 9600K though.

 

[LTC8K6]

I hope you realize when it comes to RAM and DDR5 memory specifically that when DDR5 releases, it will NOT be better than DDR4 memory for quite some time. Probably 2 years. Same happened with the transition from DDR3 to DDR4. DDR4 4000mhz memory will be better than DDR5 memory for at least 18 months so there's no rush at all to get out and grab DDR5 memory. Secondly, NOT a lot of people need PCIE 4.0.

Most likely, the newer boards will be DDR5, so you will have to get it, and possibly suffer with lower bandwidth for a time.
I'm not buying any more boards that support two different ram types...

 

[ttechf]

Most likely, the newer boards will be DDR5, so you will have to get it, and possibly suffer with lower bandwidth for a time.
I'm not buying any more boards that support two different ram types...

Right. Newer boards will be DDR5 which will basically FORCE you to get DDR5. Which hey, that's fine but I'm glad I am building my system now and it should last me at least 4 years when DDR5 memory is way faster than DDR4. Not just on equal footing with it providing zero upgrade.

 

[coercitiv]

You do still get two more threads and a 500mhz higher base frequency with a 7700K over a 9600K though.

Two more threads, higher base frequency, zero performance advantage against CPUs that were up to $100 cheaper.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It will be obsolete in less than 12 months actually, it will be Intel doing that in response to whatever 7nm chips will bring to the table. People who bought into Kaby Lake have witnessed this firsthand, as their i7 and i5 KBL were soon to become an i5 and i3 CFL respectively. Next year will be no different, as we transition to a new node.

This doesn't mean the 9900K will not be a top performer in the next 18 months, just that a similar Intel SKU will do the same at a significantly lower price point. People who buy the 9900K need to acknowledge they're likely paying a $200-300 fee to get that performance in advance. (availability price hike included)

That being said I don't agree with anyone criticizing a 9900K buy decision as long as the buyer understands both the product and the context: it's their money, it's an informed decision, I'd rather discuss performance, overclocking, undervolting, cooling, build options etc.

It will be obsolete in less than 12 months actually, it will be Intel doing that in response to whatever 7nm chips will bring to the table. People who bought into Kaby Lake have witnessed this firsthand, as their i7 and i5 KBL were soon to become an i5 and i3 CFL respectively. Next year will be no different, as we transition to a new node.

This doesn't mean the 9900K will not be a top performer in the next 18 months, just that a similar Intel SKU will do the same at a significantly lower price point. People who buy the 9900K need to acknowledge they're likely paying a $200-300 fee to get that performance in advance. (availability price hike included)

That being said I don't agree with anyone criticizing a 9900K buy decision as long as the buyer understands both the product and the context: it's their money, it's an informed decision, I'd rather discuss performance, overclocking, undervolting, cooling, build options etc.

It certainly will not be "obsolete". In fact, it still could be the top performing gaming cpu. And even if it is 5% slower than Zen 2 (assumed by some, but not by me), the "cpu doesnt matter at high resolution, you cant tell the difference" could be applied, although that argument only seems to apply to AMD.

 

[coercitiv]

It certainly will not be "obsolete". In fact, it still could be the top performing gaming cpu.

The 7700K was launched in January 2017. The 8700K was launched in October 2017 and effectively rendered Kaby Lake obsolete.

 

[TheGiant]

The 7700K was launched in January 2017. The 8700K was launched in October 2017 and effectively rendered Kaby Lake obsolete.

Well we have a flow of getting obsolete

• 7700K to 8700K in 8 months (performance, price wasn't so different)
• 1800X vs 2700X (500USD vs 300USD, 11 months)
  
• etc...