We’ve just got information about Intel’s upcoming i9 flagship processor: The Intel Core i9-9900KS will arrive in just a month. While we still haven’t gotten to tenth generation parts in the desktop space, this monster processor will give even the best Ryzens a run for their money, particularly in terms of gaming performance.
The Core i9-9900KS, as the name suggests, isn’t a wholly new part. It’s not even, well, kinda new. Ironically enough, it’s very similar to AMD’s ill-fated FX 9590. It’s essentially a premium-binned version of the i9-9900K, which is guaranteed to boost up to 5 GHz on all cores. Intel raises the TDP significantly to make this possible: The 9900KS features a 127W part.
This makes it by far the most power-hungry processor Intel has released in recent years. It underscores the efficiency gains that AMD capitalized on, courtesy of the 7nm process with Ryzen. We’re really in a tables-turned situation today where Intel’s fighting off a process node advantage by churning out expensive, hot, and power-hungry parts at the high end that pack a punch thanks to clock-speeds being cranked way up.
We have no idea of the price of the 9900KS, but it’s not going to be cheap, that much is certain. Between this and the Ryzen 9 3900X, buyers at the higher end will have a tough decision to make. While the Ryzen does offer 8 more threads and 4 more physical cores, clock speed and IPC are still a bit behind Intel. The 9900KS offers absolutely the best single-threaded performance available, and eight cores are still plenty.
We’ll let you know how the 9900KS performs once it comes out. Watch this space til then.
Further Reading:
Intel Core i9-10980XE Cascade Lake-X CPU Beats AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2950X in Leaked Benchmark