Intel Core i9-10900K Benchmarks Leak Out: 5.4 GHz Makes it Intel’s Fastest Processor with Overclocking?

Intel’s 10th Gen Desktop CPUs were announced recently and we’ve previously gone over them here. Since then everyone has been waiting for the benchmarks of the processor. Finally, the wait is over just a few days before the Comet Lake lineup was made available for the pre-orders. The benchmarks were leaked by the Twitter user OldSKol (via Videocardz). The benchmarks show the capabilities of Intel’s flagship Core i9-10900K.

Leaked Core i9-10900K Benchmarks

Intel’s flagship Core i9-10900K 10 core processor was benchmarked on Cinebench. If we refer to the benchmarks, the processor is an impressive overclocker. The processor can be overclocked to 5.4 GHz across all 10 cores. The interesting fact is that the overclocking was done on standard cooling (air/liquid) rather than LN2 (Liquid Nitrogen) which makes it more impressive. Coming to the scores, the chip scored 3002 points in Cinebench R15 on the 1.350V voltage supplied to it. The same overclocker’s stock score was 2347 which means there was a 27% increase in the multithreaded performance.

Comparing the processor to AMD’s Ryzen 9 3900X, Intel’s flagship processor still lacks behind in some areas. AMD’s score was 3200-3300 points compared to Intel’s Core i9-10900K. AMD is also better with the cores and threads that it is offering. However, Intel has an advantage in clock speeds. This shows Intel is doing better than AMD in overclocking as Intel’s 10th gen processor was overclocked to 5.4 GHz on standard cooling. On the other hand, AMD achieved a 4.9 GHz overclocked frequency which also comes with thermal velocity, power, and frequency boosting algorithms.

If we refer the thermal and power consumption figures of Core i9-10900K, it has a PL2 limit of 250W at stock but it could have broken the limits and it could have gone very high by applying those algorithms. Since standard cooling was applied rather than liquid nitrogen then the temperature may result in a high 80’s to mid 90 degree celsius temperature under high-end cooling.

What’s the 10900K’s Value for Money?

The flagship processor is priced at $488. Intel is focusing on delivering better performance with the 10th Gen processor compared to its predecessors. The Core i9-10900K has 10 cores, 20 threads. It features a 20MB cache size and a TDP of 125W. The base and boost-up frequencies are 3.7 GHz and 5.1 GHz respectively. By using Intel’s Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology, the boost-up frequency can become 5.2 GHz on a single core. These figures are better compared to 4.9 GHz boost-up frequency on all core of AMD.

It gets more interesting when we think about the thermal velocity boosting algorithms that will be used in this chip. The thermal velocity boost will give even faster boost-up frequencies. The algorithms only work with high-end cooling environments or a closed-loop setup. However, a sustained velocity boost should not be expected, rather shorts bursts will be held until the threshold is hit.

We will have to wait for Intel’s next announcement to see what cooling system they are going to provide. The benchmarks have shown what the chip is capable of. The wait must yield good results and the cooling system must be up to the mark to give the maximum boost-up frequency.