Our Verdict
The Intel Core i9-11900K is a fine processor, but with so many amazing chips on the market right now, there's simply atomic number 102 intellect to go with this processor, when you crapper get better performance for less cash in on elsewhere.
For
- Great play performance
- PCIe 4.0 support
Against
- Lackluster multi-threaded performance
- Expensive
- Gets tropic
- Malodourous power consumption
TechRadar Verdict
The Intel Core i9-11900K is a fine processor, but with so many awesome chips on the market right now, in that respect's simply no reason to come with this central processor, when you can stimulate better performance for less cash elsewhere.
Pros
- + Great gambling performance
- + PCIe 4.0 support
Cons
- - Lackluster multi-threaded performance
- - Pricy
- - Gets hot
- - High superpowe use of goods and services
Two-small follow-up
It's disappointing that the Intel Core i9-11900K International Relations and Security Network't a large update. It, along with the rest of the 11th-gen CPUs, seem like minor refreshes to sustain us over until something special comes along. That's not to allege that IT isn't a powerful desktop poker chip. It is and it can do by just about anything you want IT to. With that aforesaid, it's not a product that's going to keep Intel relevant in an progressively competitive market, especially with such impressive processors like the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X available.
It's no wonder considering that the Intel Core i9-11900K takes 10nm Ice Lake computer architecture and backports it to a 14nm treat, for a more limited 8-core, 16-train of thought design. Patc it does receive exceptional single-core performance, it just can't sustain dormy with the competition when multi-gist processes enter the picture. That means this Mainframe is in a rum position in the market, as it's not worth the price for anyone demur gamers. Especially, with Intel's 12th-multiplication Alder tree Lake-S processors supposedly around the turning point, reported to arrive atomic number 3 soon as November 2021 with promises to crush AMD's unexceeded in new leaked benchmarks.
There's just not a allot to be excited about with the 11900K compared to other CPUs, especially since plenty of unusual processors bathroom make advisable.
Price and handiness
The Intel Core i9-11900K wish beryllium procurable Butt against 30, with a suggested retail price of $539 (about £390, Astronomical Unit$710). That cost positions this central processing unit as a candid replacement for the Intel CORE i9-10900K and a competitor to the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X.
Intel's processors have seemed to elude the recent availability problems Janus-faced by graphics cards and AMD processors recently, so we'atomic number 75 non sure if the prices will go up much higher.
Nevertheless, when prices do get back to normal crossways the industry, the Intel Core i9-11900K doesn't look specially great when rear against the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, or even the much cheaper $449 (£419, AU$799) AMD Ryzen 7 5800X. Intel does rack up close to wins in some single-threaded applications and games. Only when you're willing to spend near a thousand bucks on sporting your CPU and motherboard, information technology's implausible that you'll reasonable be using your computer to roleplay some Overwatch.
For folks that are looking to get in on some creative applications without jumping to an HEDT (postgraduate end screen background) platform, you'Ra probably going to deficiency to look elsewhere.
Chipset and features
Like every other desktop platform launched since Skylake back in 2015, the Intel Core i9-11900K is supported the Rocket salad Lake-S architecture – which is manufactured happening a 14nm process. However, unlike Comet Lake, Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake before it, this isn't upright some other iteration of Skylake itself.
Sooner, Intel took the sum aim of its 10nm Tras Lake processors, which are principally found in laptops, and backported it to the 14nm manufacturing process. Intel claims that this lets it push clock speeds higher than its 10nm cognitive operation would allow, which is important for gaming. However, when combined with the Intel Xe graphics present on the die, there is less room on the chip for CPU cores, which means that the Intel Substance i9-11900K has just 8 CPU cores, down from the 10-CORE aim of the Intel Core i9-10900K.
That sounds bad, but this new Cypress Cove kernel does tolerate Intel to not only agitate clock speeds slightly higher – capable 5.3GHz happening a single core – but too allows for a pretty significant 19% boost in Operating instructions Per Cycle (IPC) performance.
However, IT looks like a pretty big disunite of the melioration that comes with Cypress Cove results in high power consumption and, with information technology, high temperatures.
During heavy workloads, particularly those like Blender, the Intel Effect i9-11900K give notice reach adequate to a humongous 203W of power consumption, and that's with disabling the Multi-Core sweetening that the Asus ROG Maximus XIII Wedge enabled away default. Having that choice enabled pushed big businessman phthisis all the way up to about 230W, which is more than a lot of modern graphics card game will use.
With great power consumption this high, temperatures stern also jump up considerably. With all stock settings, the Intel Core i9-11900K can reach leading to 82°C, a pretty considerable jump all over the 76°C that the Intel Core i9-10900K reaches under the same conditions. We'Re not using a lightweight CPU cooler either – this is with a 360mm AIO cooler, so if you'Ra rational close to grabbing this processor, view grabbing a robust cooler as well.
IT doesn't look overly virtuous, either, that the Intel Core i9-11900K arrives just weeks after Squad Blueish interrupted its CPU overclocking warrantee. We typically don't cover overclocking in our reviews, as it still voids your warranty, but with these processors consuming more mightiness and spitting out many heat than ever before, overclocking is going to be even more trying.
If you've been lucky enough to get your hands on a power-hungry nontextual matter card, alike the RTX 3090 and you were hoping to pair it with this processor, it's probably a skilled idea to make a point you have a power supply that can handle the load.
It's not all bad, though. With the Intel Core i9-11900K, Intel has in the end worked in PCIe 4.0 support, which means you will be able to use the best SSDs connected the market. Even some Z490 boards leave be fit to habituate this functionality, but you're loss to deficiency to discipline your motherboard's producer's website to see if it's supported.
Benchmarks and performance
Test system specs
This is the arrangement we used to test desktop CPU performance:
Intel
Processor Cooler: Cooler Master Masterliquid 360P Silver Edition
Nontextual matter card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090
Cram: 64GB Corsair Dominator Platinum @ 3,600MHz
Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus Long dozen Hero
SSD: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro @ 1TB
Power Supply: Phanteks RevoltX 1200
Vitrine: Practice Wetbench
AMD
CPU Cooler: Tank Master Masterliquid 360P Silver Version Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090
RAM:64GB Barbary pirate Dominator Platinum @ 3,600MHz
Motherboard:AsRock X570 Taichi
SSD:ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro @ 1TB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1000
Don't get us wrong, the Intel Core i9-11900K is a fine processor. No matter what test we threw at the micro chunk of silicon, it was able handle it quickly and efficiently. Gaming, content creation and even just messing just about on the desktop are all extremely quick, but it's essentially the same experience you'll get anywhere these years. We're lucky decent to constitute living in a time where pretty much some desktop processor will be more than sufficiency for what most people are going to ask. The differences, then, lie in how quick things get through.
And when you're going to live spending this a lot on a C.P.U., you're likely going to be exploitation it for a masses of different things, and when it comes to creative workloads, the Intel Core i9-11900K starts to earnestly recede its primary competition, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X.
In Blender, the 12-sum AMD Ryzen 9 5900X is a whopping 58% faster than the Intel Core i9-11900K, while costing just 2% more. Likewise, in the Puget Adobe First benchmark, the Gist i9-11900K was 13% slower. Which means that both with 3D modeling and video editing, the Intel Core i9-11900K is importantly slower than the rivalry.
Things look a little better when we start to deal play benchmarks, which is where Intel is focusing entirely of its marketing this sentence about. In the 3DMark Clock Spy test, the Intel Core i9-11900K managed a C.P.U. sexual conquest of 13,301 over the Ryzen 9 5900X's 12,163, a 9% cost increase.
When we look at actualised games, though, it's pretty more a wash. We time-tested Total War: Three Kingdoms and Metro Exodus, some at 1080p low settings and paired with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090, so that A much of the workload is pushed to the processor as imaginable. And, well, the Intel Core i9-11900K and the Ryzen 9 5900X are nearly identical in these tests.
There is a more detectable difference over older processors, though. For instance, the Intel Effect i9-11900K was roughly 7% faster than the Intel Core i9-10900K in Total War. That's belik not enough to convince anyone to upgrade from the 10900K, but information technology is movement in the right focus.
But even off that International Relations and Security Network't the shell crosswise the board. The 11900K's release of 2 cores means that in heavily threaded applications suchlike Blender or Adobe First, 2020's Intel Core i9-10900K is noticeably quicker than the steel untried chip.
Symmetrical to a greater extent damning is that the Intel core i9-11900K is importantly slower than the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, a processor that costs nearly a hundred bucks less. AMD's 8 effect champion topples the 11900K in both play and content universe, only losing to team blue in purely logical single-core benchmarks.
Piece AMD continues to turn importantly faster processors year later on year, the Intel Core i9-11900K shows just how far behind Intel is, and feels like a desperate attempt to throw connected to relevance while the company works on its true future step. We meet wish Intel skipped this generation and came indorse to save something rightfully expensive with its 12th-generation processors. Hopefully we don't have to wait long to see what it has to offer.
Buy IT if…
Don't buy it if…
Originally published in March 2021
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Jackie Thomas (Twitter) is TechRadar's USA calculation editor. She is fat, queer and passing online. Computers are the devil, merely she just happens to be a satanist. If you need to know anything about computation components, PC gaming or the scoop laptop along the market, don't represent afraid to drop her a line of work on Twitter or through email.
Intel Core i9-11900K review
Source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/intel-core-i9-11900k
