We got our hands on 20 of the worlds rarest and most expensive CPUs in the world, but is it enough to beat the silicon lottery and be the fastest CPU rendering farm in the world? Let’s find out.

The Z390 chipset has only been slightly tweaked, now including native support for USB 3.1 Gen.2, increasing the bandwidth up to 10Gbps max, and support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi. With the Intel Wireless-AC 9560 NIC and the corresponding front-end design of the motherboard, a Gigabit wireless network can be achieved, although, it might not be possible on the NBN.

The chipset interface is still the LGA1151, the 9th generation Core is still compatible with the existing 300 series chipset, which including the Z370, B360, H310, etc., while the Z390 motherboard can also support the 8th generation Core series.

Intel 9th Generation Core Family CPU Official Specifications:

THE INTEL i7 9700K

The i7-9700K has 8 cores 8 threads, the L3 cache has 12MB (cut from 2MB to 1.5MB per core), the frequency range has been taken from 3.6GHz to 4.9GHz, with the price coming in at roughly 659 AUD, its 60 dollars more expensive than the i7-8700K.

Package appearance

Package Front

Package Back

Package Bottom Side

Opening the box

The CPU chip

The CPU front

The CPU back

Run-time Benchmark Test
CPU-Z

HWiNFO64

Intel XTU

Cinebench

Unfortunately, we found it difficult to get a stable reading with all cores running at 5.1Ghz during the overclocking test, but a single core can be pushed out to 5.5Ghz.

THE INTEL i9 9900K

The flagship model for the 9th generation is the i9-9900K, with 8 cores and 16 threads (the only hyperthreading available in the 9th generation), 16MB for the L3 cache (sharing for all cores), the reference frequency is 3.6GHz, the turbo frequency acceleration is up to 5.0GHz, and the integrated graphic is the UHD 630, memory supports dual-channel DDR4-2666 and TDP consumption is 95W.

Its price has reached 859 AUD, which is also the new price record for mainstream CPUs. Compared with the i7-8700K, that costs 599 AUD, its 30% more.

It is worth noting that the 9th generation Core has fixed some of the Meltdown and Spectre bugs on the consumer processors for the first time, including the Rogue Cache Data Load and the L1 Terminal Fault/L1TF, other bugs still need to be resolved by updating the BIOS.

Interestingly, the i9-9900K also offers a specially designed box, a dodecahedron shape with transparent glass material.

Package appearance

ES Package

Open the package

The CPU chip

The CPU front

The CPU back

Run-time Benchmark Test
CPU-Z

HWiNFO64

PC MARK 10

Cinebench

According to Intel’s official statement, the performance of the 9th generation Core is up to 15% faster compared to the overall performance of the 8th generation, the gaming performance is improved by about 10%, and the video editing performance is improved by up to 34%, compared to older chipsets (such as i7-6700K) you could see increases of up to 40%, 45%, and 97% respectively.

We tried to boost all cores to 5.1Ghz, and fortunately, it’s stable and passed the cinebench test

I9 9900K@4.8GHz, 3D MARK FSE, physics score is 24129 points, the graphics card is 18789 (ASUS ROG STRIX 2080TI O11G)

I9 9900K@4.8GHz, 3D MARK FSU, physics score is 24098 points, the graphics card is 9223 (ASUS ROG STRIX 2080TI O11G)

Overall
After a bunch of tests, the i7 9700K, i9 9900K and i7 8700K have the same single-core frequency performance, the theoretical multi-threading gap of the i9 9900K which has an extra 2 cores 4 threads over the i7 8700K, offers a performance bump of about 33%. In gaming performance, there is basically no difference between the three CPUs. Unfortunately, the potential of overclocking performance is not as good as the i7 8700K and i7 8086K.

If the CPU is being utilised for a small workstation, the reasonable price of the i9 9900K is definitely an excellent choice to replace the i9 7900X. Even with the i7 8700K, the extra 33% of theoretical performance is a big improvement for rendering. However, pure game users do not have to choose the i9 9900K, the i7 9700K is definitely a better choice.

INTEL ARK FOR I7 9700K:
https://ark.intel.com/products/186604/Intel-Core-i7-9700K-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-4-90-GHz-

INTEL ARK FOR I9 9900K:
https://ark.intel.com/products/186605/Intel-Core-i9-9900K-Processor-16M-Cache-up-to-5-00-GHz-