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Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition review: Is this really Intel's fastest gaming CPU?

By Koh Wanzi - 10 Nov 2019

CPU rendering & encoding benchmarks

Test setup

The configurations of the test setups we used are listed below. All results were obtained with the Ryzen Balanced power plan and Precision Boost Overdrive disabled. For the Core i9-9900K and Core i9-9900KS, multi-core enhancement was turned off on the ASUS motherboard. 

Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition

  • Thermaltake Water 3.0 360 Riing RGB Edition with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
  • ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme
  • 2 x 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3000 (Auto timings: CAS 15-15-15-35)
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition
  • Samsung 860 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA SSD
  • Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

Intel Core i9-9900K

  • Thermaltake Water 3.0 360 Riing RGB Edition with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
  • ASUS ROG Maximus XI Extreme
  • 2 x 8GB G.Skill Trident Z Royal DDR4-3600 (Auto timings: CAS 16-16-16-36)
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition
  • Samsung 860 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA SSD
  • Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

Ryzen 9 3900X/Ryzen 7 3700X

  • Thermaltake Water 3.0 360 Riing RGB Edition with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut
  • ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero (Wi-Fi)
  • 2 x 8GB G.Skill Trident Z Royal DDR4-3600 (Auto timings: CAS 16-16-16-36)
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition
  • Samsung 860 EVO 500GB M.2 SATA SSD
  • Windows 10 Home (64-bit)

Test CPUs compared
  Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition Intel Core i9-9900K AMD Ryzen 9 3900X AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition Intel Core i9-9900K AMD Ryzen 9 3900X AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Processor Name
  • Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition
  • Intel Core i9-9900K
  • AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
  • AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Processor Model
  • Intel Core i9-9900KS Special Edition
  • Intel Core i9-9900K
  • AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
  • AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Rated Processor Frequency
  • 4.0GHz
  • 3.6GHz
  • 3.8GHz
  • 3.6GHz
Max Processor Frequency
  • 5.0GHZ
  • 5.0GHZ
  • 4.6GHz
  • 4.4GHz
No. of Cores
  • 8
  • 8
  • 12
  • 8
Base Clock
  • 4.0GHz
  • 3.6GHz
  • 3.8GHz
  • 3.6GHz
Bus Type
  • DMI 3.0
  • DMI 3.0
Bus Speed
  • 8 GT/s DMI3
  • 8 GT/s DMI3
L1 Cache (data + instruction)
  • 8 x 32KB (data)
  • 8 x 32KB (instruction)
  • 8 x 32KB (data)
  • 8 x 32KB (instruction)
  • 96K (per core)
  • 512 KB
L2 Cache
  • 8 x 256 KB
  • 8 x 256 KB
  • 6MB
  • 4 MB
L3 Cache
  • 16MB
  • 16MB
  • 64MB
  • 32 MB
Memory Controller
  • Dual-Channel DDR4-2666
  • Dual-Channel DDR4-2666
  • Integrated Dual Channel (up to DDR4-3200)
  • Integrated Dual Channel (up to DDR4-3200)
PCIe Controller
  • 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0
  • 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0
  • PCIe 4.0
  • PCIe 4.0
TDP (W)
  • 127W
  • 95W
  • 105
  • 65
Instruction Set Support
  • SSE4.1/4.2, AVX 2.0
  • SSE4.1/4.2, AVX 2.0
  • SSE 4.1/4.2, AVX 2.0
  • SSE 4.1/4.2, AVX 2.0
64-bit Processing Technology
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
  • Yes
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST) / AMD Cool 'n' Quiet
  • Yes
  • Yes
Virtualization Technology
  • Yes (VT-x)
  • Yes (VT-x)
Packaging
  • LGA 1151
  • LGA 1151
  • Socket AM4
  • Socket AM4
Process Technology
  • 14nm++
  • 14nm++
  • 7nm
  • 7nm
Processor Codename
  • Coffee Lake
  • Coffee Lake
  • Matisse
  • Matisse
No. of Transistors
  • 19.2 billion
  • 19.2 billion

Here's a list of the benchmarks used:

  • PCMark 10
  • SPECviewperf 13.0
  • Cinebench R15
  • Cinebench R20
  • Handbrake 1.2.2
  • Blender Benchmark
  • POV-Ray 3.7
  • 3DMark
  • Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation
  • Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
  • Far Cry 5
  • Metro Exodus
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of War
  • Shadow of the Tomb Raider
  • Tom Clancy's The Division 2

 

PCMark 10 Extended

PCMark 10 Extended assesses the performance of systems in a variety of workloads, including basic computing tasks, productivity applications, digital content creation, and gaming. Compared to PCMark 8, it also adds in new test metrics, such as app startup times, which quantifies how long it takes to launch a variety of real-world apps, and a rendering and visualization workload to simulate professional graphics and engineering applications. In addition, existing workloads have been updated to reflect modern usage.

The Core i9-9900KS was barely faster than the Core i9-9900K in terms of overall scores. In fact, the difference is so minuscule – just under 1 per cent – that it's probably even within the margin of variance for different test runs. All things considered, there's also little meaningful difference between the Intel and AMD CPUs. 

 

SPECviewperf 13.0

SPECviewperf is used to assess the 3D graphics performance of systems in professional applications. Each individual workload, called a viewset, represents graphics and content from an actual real-world application. SPECviewperf actually runs a total of eight different viewsets, but we’ve picked the four which have the greatest performance variation across CPUs display here.

The new SPECviewperf 13.0 incorporates new models and raycasting for volume visualization. Select viewsets have also been updated with new models and fresh application traces. 

The Core i9-9900KS didn't do too well here, and it lagged behind all the other processors, including even the much lower clocked Ryzen 7 3700X at times.

 

Cinebench R15/R20

Cinebench R15 is a better indicator of multi-threaded performance because of its ability to utilize up to 256 threads to evaluate a processor’s performance in a photorealistic 3D rendering. We ran both single-core and multi-core benchmarks to evaluate single-threaded performance and multi-threaded scalability here.

The newer Cinebench R20 is even more demanding, featuring increased workload complexity, higher memory use, and the latest rendering engine from Cinema 4D R20. Under the hood, the R20 engine also supports AVX, AVX2, and AVX512 instruction sets and the benchmark now supports up to 256 render threads.

Single-core performance is the same for both Intel CPUs in Cinebench R15, which is not entirely surprising given that the Core i9-9900K also boosts to 5.0GHz, albeit on just two cores. The Core i9-9900KS inched ahead in Cinebench R20 though, edging out all the other CPUs. In terms of multi-threaded performance, it has just a small lead over the Core i9-9900K though, coming in at just under 3 per cent faster in Cinebench R15. 

I also used Cinebench R20 to check the boosting behaviour of all 8 cores in HWiNFO, and all 8-cores ramp up to 5.0GHz quite readily. There's no issues with the cores not boosting to their rated speeds, as there was with AMD's Ryzen 3000 chips, and I often saw all 8 cores running at 5.0GHz at the same time. 

 

Handbrake 1.2.2

Handbrake is a video transcoder that converts videos into a format for use on PCs and portable electronic devices, and is a good indicator of a processor’s video encoding capabilities. YouTube content creators, Twitch streamers, and other video creators will be most interested in this performance metric. For this benchmark, we used a 1.7GB .mkv file.

Both Intel CPUs are still behind their AMD counterparts, but the Core i9-9900KS manages to shave a bit more time off the Core i9-9900K's result. 

 

Blender Benchmark

Blender likes having many cores as well, and the open-source software has been used for modeling and to create effects in movies. The new Blender Benchmark offers the option between Quick and Complete runs, and the numbers seen here are from the Quick benchmark, which puts the CPUs through scenarios like the BMW and Classroom demos.

AMD still has the edge in the Blender benchmark, but as in Handbrake, the Core i9-9900KS manages to post a slightly faster timing than its lower-clocked counterpart. 

 

POV-Ray 3.7

POV-Ray's built-in benchmark also favors having more cores. The Core i9-9900K again managed to inch ahead of the Core i9-9900K, but it wasn't quite enough to overtake the Ryzen 7 3700X.

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7.5
  • Performance 7.5
  • Features 8
  • Value 7.5
The Good
Boosts to 5.0GHz on all 8 cores
Decent gaming performance
The Bad
Doesn't quite beat the Core i9-9900K in games
Not significantly faster in heavily-threaded workloads
Only comes with a 1-year warranty
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