The next step down is the Core i9-10940X, which has a
4.8GHz peak boost speed and 14 cores. There are now no
CPUs below the 10-core mark, with the Core i9-10900X
bringing up the rear with ten cores and 20 threads.
This is a sensible move from Intel, as its mainstream 8-core
CPUs have long offered more performance than the lower-
end HEDT CPUs. Instead of a £1,000+ price tag, though, the
new 10-core CPU now has a price of around £600 inc VAT. It’s
still expensive, but it now offers a much more affordable way
of getting those extra PCI-E lanes, especially compared with
AMD’s 3rd-gen Threadripper CPUs.
Performance
Out of the box, the Core i9-109080XE’s higher boost
frequencies offered tangible performance boosts over Core
i9-9980XE, with 2,000 being added to the single-threaded
image editing score. Our score in our heavily multi-threaded
Handbrake video encoding test also rose from 871,664 to
885,376 and the system score increased by nearly 4,000
points too.
CinebenchR20revealed
asimilar story, with the
single-thread score increasing
from 421 to 454 and the
multi-threaded score going
from 8,259 to 8,742, while
Blender saw the benchmark
time fall from 40 seconds
to 38 seconds. Far Cry 5
was marginally quicker, but
overall, upgrading from a Core
i9-9980XE is rather pointless
for gaming.
Compared with the Ryzen 9
3950X, the Core i9-10980XE
was slower in most tests,
including Far Cry 5, so at stock
speed, the AMD CPU is a far
better buy for most tasks. It
was also much more power-efficient, drawing just 242W
under load compared to 376W for the Intel CPU.
However, the Core i9-10980XE is massively overclockable,
and our sample smashed the limits of the previous two
18-core CPUs we’ve tested from Intel, managing a huge
4.7GHz clock speed across all 18 cores using a vcore of 1.165V.
You’ll want at least a 240mm all-in-one liquid cooler to
cope with this overclock, as the heat load was rather large, but
this overclock saw the Core i9-10980XE topple the Ryzen
9 3950X in our Handbrake test, narrow the gap in the image
editing test and offer a higher Cinebench multi-threaded score
too. Intel also held the high ground in Far Cry 5 with a similar
minimum frame rate and much higher average frame rate,
while also beating the AMD CPU convincingly in Blender. The
downside to this added grunt is that the power consumption
rocketed to 595W, compared to just 296W for the AMD CPU.Conclusion
The Core i9-10980XE was written off by many in the lead-
up to the Ryzen 9 3950X’s launch, but the situation is more
complicated when you get below the surface. It has more
overclocking headroom than the AMD CPU, and its platform
offers far more PCI-E lanes than X570, as well as quad-
channel memory support. Conversely, of course, the X570
chipset has the bonus of PCI-E 4 support but fewer lanes.
The AMD CPU is by far the better bet at stock speed, and
it offers much better value for money too. However, thanks
to some savvy price cuts, there’s still a place for the Core
i9-10980XE if you’re prepared to overclock it.
ANTONY LEATHERVERDICT
Beaten by the Ryzen 9 3950X at stock speed, but Intel’s
new flagship is still a powerful chip if you’re prepared to
overclock it.CASCADE
LAKE-X
+ Huge all-core
overclock
+ Loads of PCI-E
lanes
+ Faster than Ryzen
9 3950X once
overclockedCASCADE
FAILURE- High power
consumption - Ryzen 9 3950X
faster at stock
speed - Little innovation
from previous
generation
OVERALLSCORE
84 %%
PERFORMANCE
44 / 50
FEATURES
15 / 15VALUE
25 / 35