LABS TEST / PROCESSORS
I
ntel’s Core i9-10920X costs only a
little bit more money than AMD’s
Ryzen 9 3950X, at least from some
retailers (supply of Cascade Lake-X chips is still
short, see p114). However, it has four fewer
cores than the Ryzen 9 3950X– that’s not quite
as big a deficit as with the Core i9-10900X, but
it immediately puts this Cascade Lake-X chip at
a disadvantage against the 3950X in many
multi-threaded tasks, which isn’t great from a
value point of view.INTEL CORE
i9-10920X /£712 inc VAT
SUPPLIER novatech.co.ukUnlike the Core i9-10900X, the 109020X
is also based on Intel’s High Core Count
(HCC) die, which is also used in the top-
end Core i9-10980XE, except several of
its cores are disabled in the 109020X. Like
its Cascade Lake-X counterparts, it uses
a 14nm++ manufacturing process, has
19.25MB of L3 cache and 12MB of total
L2 cache. It has a 165W TDP, and at stock
speed, it can hit a peak boost of 4.8GHz,
while loading all cores will see each one
hitting 4.3GHz, which is the same as the
Core i9-10900X.
It’s worth reiterating some X299 platform
statistics in case you haven’t read the review
of the Core i9-10900X, which are that Intel
has increased the PCI-E lane count from
44 to 48, giving it more of an advantage
over AMD’s X570 platform. The latter does
offer PCI-E 4 support, but it has fewer lanes
at its disposal and you only get the extra
bandwidth if you’re using PCI-E 4 devices,
which doesn’t include any of Nvidia’s current
top GPUs. If you want to run many PCI-E
devices with the maximum number of
lanes, X299 is still a better option than X570
in some cases.
Comparatively, the price of AMD’s 3rd-gen
Threadripper CPUs and X399 motherboards
means AMD now has limited options for
high-end desktop systems below its mighty
TRX40 platform, especially with the early
demise of the Threadripper 2920X.
While the 10920X stormed to fourth
place in our video encoding test, it was
still outperformed by the cheaper Ryzen
9 3900X, which was also quicker in every
other RealBench test, as well as Cinebench.
However, in Adobe Premiere, the Corei9-10920X was faster than every AMD CPU
and was a match in games too, although it
was a little slow in Far Cry New Dawn.
Incredibly, we got all 12 cores up to 4.9GHz
using a 1.3V vcore, which transformed
performance. It then bettered the Ryzen 9
3900X in our video encoding test and nearly
matched it in Cinebench, while putting itself
out of reach in Adobe Premiere. It also leaped
ahead of the Ryzen 9 3950X in Metro Exodus
and matched it in Far Cry New Dawn. However,
this overclock resulted in huge power
consumption, which at 517W, was more than
double that of our system with the 16-core
Ryzen 9 3950X running at stock speed.Conclusion
Had the Core i9-10920X arrived at this
price a year ago, Intel would have had a
winner on its hands, but the CPU market
is now quite crowded and there are better
options. The Ryzen 9 3950X offers similar
or better performance in most tests for the
same cash, while the Ryzen 9 3900X is
much cheaper and quicker in some tests,
which puts the Core i9-10920X in a difficult
situation. It’s fast when overclocked, but it
needs to be cheaper to really compete.SPEC
Base frequency 3.5GHz
Turbo frequency 4.8GHz
Core Cascade Lake-X
Manufacturing process 14nm
Number of cores 12 x physical (24 threads)
Hyper-Threading Ye s
Cache 19.25MB L3 cache, 12 x 1MB L2 cache
Memory controller Quad-channel
DDR4, up to 2933MHz
Packaging LGA2066
Thermal design power (TDP) 165W
Features Turbo Boost Max Technology 3,
Turbo Boost 2, FMA3, F16C, SHA, BMI /
BMI1 + BMI2, AVX-512, AVX2, AVX, AES,
SSE4a, SSE4, SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMXVERDICT
Worth considering for a video editing PC, but
otherwise, there are several better options.STICKY TOFFEE
PUDDING
+^ Decent overclock^
potential
+^ Loads of PCI-E lanes
+^ Good Premiere Pro
performanceSTICKY FINGERS-^ High power
consumption
-^ Ryzen 9 3950X is
faster in most tests
-^ Poor at stock speed
PERFORMANCE
41 / 50FEATURES
13 / 15OVERALL SCORE
74 %%
VALUE
20 / 35LABS TEST / PROCESSORS
I
ntel’s Core i9-10920X costs only a
little bit more money than AMD’s
Ryzen 9 3950X, at least from some
retailers (supply of Cascade Lake-X chips is still
short, see p114). However, it has four fewer
cores than the Ryzen 9 3950X– that’s not quite
as big a deficit as with the Core i9-10900X, but
it immediately puts this Cascade Lake-X chip at
a disadvantage against the 3950X in many
multi-threaded tasks, which isn’t great from a
value point of view.
INTEL CORE
i9-10920X/£712inc VAT
SUPPLIER novatech.co.ukUnlike the Core i9-10900X, the 109020X
is also based on Intel’s High Core Count
(HCC) die, which is also used in the top-
end Core i9-10980XE, except several of
its cores are disabled in the 109020X. Like
its Cascade Lake-X counterparts, it uses
a 14nm++ manufacturing process, has
19.25MB of L3 cache and 12MB of total
L2 cache. It has a 165W TDP, and at stock
speed, it can hit a peak boost of 4.8GHz,
while loading all cores will see each one
hitting 4.3GHz, which is the same as the
Core i9-10900X.
It’s worth reiterating some X299 platform
statistics in case you haven’t read the review
of the Core i9-10900X, which are that Intel
has increased the PCI-E lane count from
44 to 48, giving it more of an advantage
over AMD’s X570 platform. The latter does
offer PCI-E 4 support, but it has fewer lanes
at its disposal and you only get the extra
bandwidth if you’re using PCI-E 4 devices,
which doesn’t include any of Nvidia’s current
top GPUs. If you want to run many PCI-E
devices with the maximum number of
lanes, X299 is still a better option than X570
in some cases.
Comparatively, the price of AMD’s 3rd-gen
Threadripper CPUs and X399 motherboards
means AMD now has limited options for
high-end desktop systems below its mighty
TRX40 platform, especially with the early
demise of the Threadripper 2920X.
While the 10920X stormed to fourth
place in our video encoding test, it was
still outperformed by the cheaper Ryzen
9 3900X, which was also quicker in every
other RealBench test, as well as Cinebench.
However, in Adobe Premiere, the Corei9-10920X was faster than every AMD CPU
and was a match in games too, although it
was a little slow in Far Cry New Dawn.
Incredibly, we got all 12 cores up to 4.9GHz
using a 1.3V vcore, which transformed
performance. It then bettered the Ryzen 9
3900X in our video encoding test and nearly
matched it in Cinebench, while putting itself
out of reach in Adobe Premiere. It also leaped
ahead of the Ryzen 9 3950X in Metro Exodus
and matched it in Far Cry New Dawn. However,
this overclock resulted in huge power
consumption, which at 517W, was more than
double that of our system with the 16-core
Ryzen 9 3950X running at stock speed.Conclusion
Had the Core i9-10920X arrived at this
price a year ago, Intel would have had a
winner on its hands, but the CPU market
is now quite crowded and there are better
options. The Ryzen 9 3950X offers similar
or better performance in most tests for the
same cash, while the Ryzen 9 3900X is
much cheaper and quicker in some tests,
which puts the Core i9-10920X in a difficult
situation. It’s fast when overclocked, but it
needs to be cheaper to really compete.SPEC
Base frequency 3.5GHz
Turbo frequency 4.8GHz
Core Cascade Lake-X
Manufacturing process 14nm
Number of cores 12 x physical (24 threads)
Hyper-Threading Ye s
Cache 19.25MB L3 cache, 12 x 1MB L2 cache
Memory controller Quad-channel
DDR4, up to 2933MHz
Packaging LGA2066
Thermal design power (TDP) 165W
Features Turbo Boost Max Technology 3,
Turbo Boost 2, FMA3, F16C, SHA, BMI /
BMI1 + BMI2, AVX-512, AVX2, AVX, AES,
SSE4a, SSE4, SSE3, SSE2, SSE, MMXVERDICT
Worth considering for a video editing PC, but
otherwise,thereareseveralbetter options.STICKYTOFFEE
PUDDING
+Decentoverclock
potential
+LoadsofPCI-Elanes
+Good Premiere Pro
performance
STICKYFINGERS- High power
consumption - Ryzen 9 3950X is
fasterinmosttests - Poor at stock speed
PERFORMANCE
41 / 50FEATURES
13 / 15OVERALLSCORE
74 %%
VALUE
20 / 35