Custom PC - UK (2020-08)

predecessor, but a heatspreader that’s thicker, resulting in
a CPU that maintains compatibility with older LGA115x-
compatible CPU coolers.
The die is less thermally conductive than the
heatspreader, so it makes sense to keep it as thin
as possible, while the heatspreader is made from
nickel-plated copper, making for an excellent
heat conductor. This arrangement, Intel hopes,
will allow the CPU to scale further with more
cooling power, so better cooling may well
yield more overclocking headroom. We’ll be
investigating this in a future issue.

Performance
When overclocking the Core i9-10900K, we managed to
get our system to boot at 5.2GHz with a 1.35V vcore, but this
failed our stress test. In the end, we reined in the clock speed
to 5.1GHz using a vcore of 1.3V, where temperatures sat in
the low 80s (°C) with our liquid-cooling system, compared to
10-15°C lower at stock speed. This highlights just how much
Intel is pushing the limits, as usually we can match Intel’s stock
speed peak boost frequency with an all-core overclock quite
easily, but there’s very little overclocking headroom here.
In our RealBench tests, the Ryzen 9 3900X was faster than
the Core i9-10900K, beating the Intel CPU everywhere except
our heavy multi-tasking test. However, despite a 2-core
deficit, the Intel CPU held its own and was never far behind,
with its system score sitting just 12,000 points adrift. It was
significantly faster than the Ryzen 7 3800X, Core i9-9900K
and Core i5-10600K overall too. Overclocking the Core
i9-10900K helped to boost its image editing score hugely too,
where it closed the gap on the Ryzen 9 3900X.
The extra clock speed also saw the Intel chip top the
single-threaded Cinebench R20 graph with a score of 532.
Once overclocked, that score fell by 11 points thanks to our
overclocking dipping below the stock speed boost frequency.
AMD still has an advantage in the multi-threaded Cinebench
test with the Ryzen 9 3900X, but the Ryzen 7 3800X came a
very distant third place here, with overclocking doing little to
change the situation.
Games are clearly still Intel’s domain, although a lot of the
benefits depend on your settings and setup. Even without a
monstrous RTX 2080 Ti at the helm, we still saw much better
performance in Far Cry New Dawn from the Core i9-10900K
than with any AMD CPU at 1080p at ultra settings, and the
game still prefers CPUs without Hyper-Threading, giving
the Core i7-9700K the lead. Interestingly, the cheaper Core
i5-10600K was never far behind here either. Overclocking
helped the AMD CPUs in this test, but ultimately, you’ll need
a far more GPU-limited situation than our RTX 2070 Super to

see a closer gap between

these CPUs in this game at

these settings.

In our more GPU-limited Metro Exodus test, the

differences in percentage terms persisted, with the Core

i9-10900K’s 43fps 99th percentile minimum frame rate

being 5 per cent higher than the Ryzen 9 3900X’s result,

and 15 per cent higher once overclocked. Meanwhile, power

consumption was high, but not enough to warrant buying a

new power supply, peaking at 300W at stock speed for our

Core i9-10900K test system, and 349W overclocked.

Conclusion

The Core i9-10900K is a beast of a gaming CPU; it’s also rapid

in content creation, closely following the Ryzen 9 3900X in

many tests, despite having fewer cores. AMD’s 3rd-gen Ryzen

CPUsofferbettervaluewhenit comestocontentcreation,but

theylacktheall-roundchart-toppinggamingperformanceof

theCorei9-10900K.

However,if gamingis yourtoppriority,youcangetvery

similarperformancefromthenewCorei5-10600K,which

alsooffersAMD-beatinggamingperformanceandwasa

matchforAMD’s6-coreand8-coreCPUsinmanymulti-

threadedtests.If youwanttheabsolutefastestgamingCPU,

alongwithdecentmulti-threadingperformance,theCore

i9-10900Kis atthetopofitsleague,butif fundsarelimited

andgamesareyourtoppriority,you’dbemuchbetteroff

buyinga cheaperCPUanda fastergraphicscardinstead.

ANTONYLEATHER

TENNER

+ Massive gaming

performance

+ Same launch price

asCorei9-9900K

+ Decent multi-

threaded

performance

10 p COIN

• Needs new
  motherboard


• AMD better value
  formulti-threading


• Core i5-10600K is
  nearly as fast

VERDICT

Ridiculously fast in games, but AMD’s 3rd-gen Ryzen CPUs

offer much better value, especially for multi-threading.

OVERALLSCORE

86 %%

PERFORMANCE

47 / 50

FEATURES

13 / 15

VALUE

26 / 35