Intel claims Core i9 9900K is the “best gaming processor”

[DanceswithUnix]

Yea it's a matter of horses for courses, although I'd say there is a perfect way of connecting four cores, unfortunately that same perfect way may not apply to eight, sixteen, or more cores. IMO the ring bus has the advantage in lower core count scenarios but as you increase cores that advantage tails off and eventually vanishes entirely.

I did say "Over 4", supposedly the crossbar used on the Phenom II which worked well with 4 was an out of control monster bit of silicon on the 6 core version.

There's undoubtedly going to be an earlier eight core CPU but the oldest 'mainstream' one that springs to my mind is the FX-8150.

I would say yes, though some would argue they aren't real cores because they share some circuitry. There are plenty of 8 core mobile phones though which sold in high quantities so could really be called mainstream. If I can't afford one, the 9900K isn't mainstream.

Edit: And I don't mean big.LITTLE setups or like the Nvidia 8 core X1 where A53 cores shadow bigger A57 cores, some look like an 8 core. Some of the cores might be rated slower, but on Intel you can't drive all cores at full speed either so building a chip to run 4 cores at 2GHz vs 8 cores at 1.5GHz seems fair game to me. Heck, we live in a world of quad core raspberry Pi boards, 8 cores shouldn't seem special at PC prices.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would say yes, though some would argue they aren't real cores because they share some circuitry. There are plenty of 8 core mobile phones though which sold in high quantities so could really be called mainstream. If I can't afford one, the 9900K isn't mainstream.

They are 8 proper cores,since they are seperate integer cores - it is the FPU which is being shared.

[DanceswithUnix]

They are 8 proper cores,since they are seperate integer cores - it is the FPU which is being shared.

Core pairs also share instruction decode, so whilst I think of them as cores I acknowledge that it blurs the line. Later construction cores fixed that, but they only went to 4 cores.

[outwar6010]

https://www.patreon.com/posts/21950120



Only half the cores and threads were used on the 2700x....

[outwar6010]

[watercooled]

Edit: ignore post. Completely mis-read something.

[MrJim]

It's cheaper to buy this from Amazon.com and have it shipped

Order Summary
Items: $529.99
Shipping & handling: $5.33
Total before tax: $535.32
Estimated tax to be collected: $0.00
Import Fees Deposit: $112.20
Order total: $647.52

Which equates to roughly £496.00

If it's coming from outside the EU, I imagine you'd have to add import duty and VAT to that price though...

[watercooled]

Amazon include that now if shipping overseas AFAIK.

[Corky34]

Speaking of game mode i wonder how Intel's 'first ever' mainstream eight core CPU handles older games that barf when confronted with more than four cores and eight threads, IIRC AMD only implemented game mode because some games threw a wobbly and wouldn't run.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Speaking of game mode i wonder how Intel's 'first ever' mainstream eight core CPU handles older games that barf when confronted with more than four cores and eight threads, IIRC AMD only implemented game mode because some games threw a wobbly and wouldn't run.

TBH,I am questioning why you would need any more than the Core i7 9700K especially for gaming. Even with AMD the Ryzen 5 2600X and Ryzen 7 2700X are not massively different in gaming performance AFAIK.

[outwar6010]

[watercooled]

I can't imagine any games would perform better on the 'i9' given it's basically the same thing with SMT enabled. Most games don't benefit from SMT or slightly regress in performance unless they're really struggling for threads - and I don't see that being the case on an 8 core CPU for quite a while...

But e-peen is more important than ever it seems, so of course people will pay the extra £100 or so for worse performance...

[Iota]

If it's coming from outside the EU, I imagine you'd have to add import duty and VAT to that price though...

That's included. Essentially Amazon take care of paying that for you at customs, so you don't have to.

[philehidiot]

Whilst at the moment these chips are pointless for games (unless you value frame rates well beyond the point of limited returns at resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck) because the vast majority are GPU limited and on top of that those games which are more CPU reliant are configured to run well enough with around 4 cores. We've had loads of extra cores for years (FX6300, anyone - 6 cores) but games just don't tend to be able to produce enough meaty threads to expliot them, making clock speed more important for gaming. This s the same situation we've been in for a decade or more where lots of cores have been available but very few consumer level workloads can take advantage of them. I was hopeful with the PS4's 10 core chip but it turned out no.

The big question is that now Intel have finally climbed aboard the silly core count train, does this mean games devs will get on board? Given a CPU, mobo and RAM combo is a multi year investment these days, it might well be worth looking at chips with lots of cores for gaming.

That said, I think the price is silly and is trying to normalise a perception of a "requirement" for these insane parts which are really only going to be used these days for workstation tasks. They're pitching at gamers parts which simply can not produce the kind of performance increases they're advertising except in very specific circumstances. When was the last time you saw a gamer with a high end CPU and GPU running it at 720p? Never except if they wanted the GPU to not bottleneck. It's going down the route of Nvidia - build it, make it expensive and high margin and then convince idiots they need it. It's a crying shame as, at this level, the customers do not tend to be quite so stupid and people like me actively take offence at being treated like a moron.

The simple fact is that it's still mostly single threaded performance, IPC, etc for the majority of games that matters. Anyone who is going to be buying these kinds of parts knows this or should know it because you don't shell out this kind of cash without significant amounts of research.

Intel are trading on their name and reputation in an attempt to get orders in before the real benchmarks come out. When they do, I expect we'll see these chips are great for workstation tasks but provide little to no real advantage over cheaper chips for gaming. I also expect that Intel won't lower themselves to dropping prices and that AMD will continue to provide the better value proposition, even if AMD's performance isn't quite top of the table.

</mildly_drunk_ramble>

[Tunnah]

Whilst at the moment these chips are pointless for games (unless you value frame rates well beyond the point of limited returns at resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck) because the vast majority are GPU limited and on top of that those games which are more CPU reliant are configured to run well enough with around 4 cores. We've had loads of extra cores for years (FX6300, anyone - 6 cores) but games just don't tend to be able to produce enough meaty threads to expliot them, making clock speed more important for gaming. This s the same situation we've been in for a decade or more where lots of cores have been available but very few consumer level workloads can take advantage of them. I was hopeful with the PS4's 10 core chip but it turned out no.

The big question is that now Intel have finally climbed aboard the silly core count train, does this mean games devs will get on board? Given a CPU, mobo and RAM combo is a multi year investment these days, it might well be worth looking at chips with lots of cores for gaming.

That said, I think the price is silly and is trying to normalise a perception of a "requirement" for these insane parts which are really only going to be used these days for workstation tasks. They're pitching at gamers parts which simply can not produce the kind of performance increases they're advertising except in very specific circumstances. When was the last time you saw a gamer with a high end CPU and GPU running it at 720p? Never except if they wanted the GPU to not bottleneck. It's going down the route of Nvidia - build it, make it expensive and high margin and then convince idiots they need it. It's a crying shame as, at this level, the customers do not tend to be quite so stupid and people like me actively take offence at being treated like a moron.

The simple fact is that it's still mostly single threaded performance, IPC, etc for the majority of games that matters. Anyone who is going to be buying these kinds of parts knows this or should know it because you don't shell out this kind of cash without significant amounts of research.

Intel are trading on their name and reputation in an attempt to get orders in before the real benchmarks come out. When they do, I expect we'll see these chips are great for workstation tasks but provide little to no real advantage over cheaper chips for gaming. I also expect that Intel won't lower themselves to dropping prices and that AMD will continue to provide the better value proposition, even if AMD's performance isn't quite top of the table.

</mildly_drunk_ramble>

Games have been and always will be console first. As their hardware improves, so does the baseline PC capability. I for one can't wait for the next gen of consoles, which no doubt will be 8 core parts, and we're gonna see some amazing things being done.

[DanceswithUnix]

Games have been and always will be console first. As their hardware improves, so does the baseline PC capability. I for one can't wait for the next gen of consoles, which no doubt will be 8 core parts, and we're gonna see some amazing things being done.

Erm, but the current generation are already 8 core parts? The next gen will likely be Ryzen cores rather than the current Jaguar cores and will do way more in the same power budget, so they might even go 4 core/8 thread in future consoles to give more die space over to shaders. Who knows