Powerful PCs on intel core i9. Intel Core i9 - the next generation processor core i9 processors

Hi all! Today I would like to talk about a new line of processors IntelCorei9. After 2 years since the writing of the article, we decided to update the information about the existing models of Core i9 processors, because the information should always remain relevant for our readers.

In addition, the line of processors has been updated and acquired a new generation of processors, which have become even more productive (by 5-7% on average). The absolute leader in performance today is the Intel Core i9-9980XE. Well, it has a price to match.

Intel Core i9 - Specifications

We present to you the updated specifications processors IntelCorei9 7th, 8th and 9th generation. The 8th generation, by the way, only concerns the processor for laptops. And for desktop PCs, only 7 and 9.

Technical characteristics of the entire line of processors IntelCorei9.

Processor Model	cores / threads	Base frequency, GHz	Intel Turbo Boost 2.0/ Max 3.0, GHz	L3 cache, Mb	TDP, W	Price (approximate), rub.
Core i9-9900KF	8/16	3,6	5,0	16	95	43000 — 48000
Core i9-9900K	8/16	3,6	5,0	16	95	42000 — 50000
Core i9-9980XE	18/36	3,0	4,4	24,75	165	148000 — 169000
Core i9-9960X	16/32	3,1	4,4	22	165	120000 — 142000
Core i9-9940X	14/28	3,3	4,5	19,25	165	98000 — 112000
Core i9-9920X	12/24	3,5	4,5	19,25	165	86000 — 100000
Core i9-9900X	10/20	3,5	4,5	19,25	165	70000 — 85000
i9-8950HK (mobile)	6/12	2,9	4,8	12	45	Laptops from 200000
i9-7980XE	18/36	2,6	4,2/4,4	24,75	165	120000 — 160000
i9-7960X	16/32	2,8	4,2/4,4	22	165	91000 — 130000
i9-7940X	14/28	3,1	4,3/4,4	19,25	165	74000 — 107000
i9-7920X	12/24	2,9	4,3/4,4	16,5	140	60000 — 90000
i9-7900X	10/20	3,3	4,3/4,5	13,75	140	60000 — 75000

In addition to the characteristics presented in the table, there are also General characteristics for the entire line, so it is easier to describe them separately than to expand the table for them.

All processors in the lineIntelCorei9 (desktop):

• Work on socket LGA-2066
• Support 4 channels DDR4 2666GHz
• Support 44 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes
• They have an open multiplier. It's very good for lovers
• 14 nm manufacturing process (in all generations)

What are powerful processors like i9 for?

Yes, IntelCorei9 very powerful and very expensive processors. What are they needed for? Well, the i7 is definitely enough for you to enjoy all the modern games. And with your multitasking home computer even an i5 can handle it. It's all the past. But technology doesn't stand still. Take a look around. From all sides trying to penetrate our lives a virtual reality starting from virtual travel through interesting locations and virtual dramatizations for the purpose of education and ending with 3D-VR games that require more and more computing resources. This is on the one hand.

And on the other hand, artificial intelligence is no less resource-hungry “creature”. Of course, this animal is waiting for the first real quantum computers to appear in the world to show what it is capable of. But even now it is necessary to somehow prepare it for a new round of evolution. Therefore, processors will become more powerful and more powerful. AND IntelCorei9 And AMD Ryzen Threadripper confirmation of this.

Conclusion

And to summarize this article, I can say that I am glad that noticeable progress has finally begun. CPUs. I've been waiting for him for a long time. And then from year to year, minimal progress in this area was depressed and suggested: “ But what about our high-tech future? Will I live to see him at this rate?". Now more and more believe it.

As for your home computers, I doubt you'll have to upgrade to i9 in the next few years. So do not resent the prices of these processors. Those guys who need such performance will have the means to buy them, I'm sure.

Intel Core i9 is a new generation processor for solving modern resource-intensive tasks!

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In 2017, the global processor manufacturing giant introduced its top-end Intel Core i9 processor. It is a high performance processor that offers users unparalleled power. Computers with an intel i9 processor are an excellent solution for both an experienced gamer and a person who works on specialized software.

There are not many nuclei

The Core i7 line boasted powerful processors, but Intel decided not to stop there and create processors that would eclipse even the i7. This is how the Core i9 line appeared, the key advantages of which include:

• from 10 physical cores and 20 threads;
• high clock speed and support for Turbo Boost 3.0 technology;
• L3 cache level from 13.75 megabytes;
• support for quad-channel memory mode;
• increased number of lines PCI Express 3.0.

Such processors are ready to unleash the potential of any modern video card. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 10 series. This means that you will be able to try out any modern games in high resolution and stable 60 frames per second (subject to sufficient performance of the video card). Also, with such processors, you can not only play, but also simultaneously stream, encode or record gameplay.

The i9 gaming computer will be useful not only for gamers. Graphics and video often require multi-threading, which greatly speeds up rendering times. i9 processors are the best in this regard. You can find an extensive catalog of i9-based computers in our store.

We offer the best

The range includes computers in various price categories. For gamers, there are systems with top-end graphics cards from Nvidia. If you need an i9 machine to run custom software, you'll find builds with more RAM and high-speed SSD storage.

One of the main features of such processors is high heat dissipation. Only top-notch air-cooled or water-cooled systems can handle it. Depending on your funds and preferences, you can buy an i9 computer from us with either one type of cooling or another. Liquid systems are able to handle the hottest "rocks" and also have a low noise level.

Choose professionals

Our store specializes in the sale of first-class gaming systems capable of demonstrating maximum performance in games and other resource-intensive applications. We use modern components from famous brands. You can always change the assembly you like to suit your needs thanks to our convenient online configurator. The store provides computers with pre-installed software and warranty for each product.

A powerful gaming PC with Core i9 is the choice of real gamers, and you can buy such a computer in the Edelweiss store. Our customers will find competitive prices and a free consultation.

Intel strikes back. The developer response to AMD's Ryzen Threadripper has been two incredible, overcrowded processor cores: the 18-core Core i9-7980X and the 16-core Core i9-7960X.

However, has Goliath-Intel really recovered from the recent crushing defeat inflicted by David-AMD? Have the unflattering rumors about clock speeds and CPU overheating been refuted?

One of the recognized experts on "hardcore" testing, the executive editor of PCWorld magazine Gordon Ma Ung figured it out. He also tested the performance of the new Intel Core i9 chips in real conditions to answer the question of whether they are worth paying SUCH a price for them.

Since there is so much to talk about Core i9, prices, bells and whistles and answers to the most obvious questions this time we will leave aside. In our review, we'll go over some of the internal, not-so-obvious aspects directly related to performance, and then dive into benchmark comparisons.

Intel Core i9: what is hidden "under the hood"

Core i9 - the first new processor"Core i" released by Intel in the last 10 years. The company kept the secret so zealously that it even deliberately mislabeled the first batch of chips, signing them "Core i7" to confuse the traces of leak seekers. However, our experimental 16- and 18-core samples are signed correctly.

CPU-Z thinks Core i9 is Core i7

Like most of Intel's global developments, the Core i9 family is not just a new processor, but a completely new platform, which means a completely new X299 chipset, as well as a new LGA2066 socket that is incompatible with previous processors.

The new platform also provides something that no other has done before, unifying the two families of processors. Previously, if you chose a Kaby Lake chip, it required a motherboard with an LGA1151 socket. If, say, you wanted to purchase a 6-core Skylake, that is, an Intel Core i7-6800K, you had to buy a motherboard with a V3 base and an LGA2011 platform in the kit.

With X299 boards and the LGA2066 socket, you can choose after you buy the motherboard, as this platform supports all new CPUs from the 4-core Core i5 Kaby Lake to the 18-core Core i9 Extreme Edition of the Skylake line. To be clear, the Kaby Lake series, also called Kaby Lake-X, includes the new Core i5-7640X and i7-7740X chips. The remaining Core i7 and Core i9 chips belong to the Skylake family, and are collectively referred to as Skylake-X.

The Core X series consists of processors made up of Skylake-X cores and Kaby Lake-X cores. The 18-core monster from this line came out in October

This union we expect with some confusion and anxiety. It seems that motherboards X299 will be quite expensive. I wonder who would want to buy a $350 motherboard to install a $250 processor on it.

Intel's motives for continuing the Kaby Lake-X line may actually be a nod to overclockers. Unlike older Kaby Lake processors for the LGA1151 socket, the new Kaby Lake-X chips do not have integrated graphics on board. In fact, they are physically devoid of integrated graphics processors. This will allow the two new Kaby Lake-X processors to overclock potentially significantly higher than the LGA1151 versions. At the recent Computex show in Taipei, Intel claimed that the Kaby Lake processor and X299 boards set the highest overclocking record.

In an ideal world, we would all have 18-core processors, but the truth is that there are indeed people in the world who buy relatively cheap processors for high-end motherboards. Kaby Lake-X is for them.

PCI Express tires: distribution by coupons

And yet, the location of Kaby Lake-X and Skylake-X on the same socket is somewhat disappointing. The most convincing argument is the allocation of PCI Express lanes. For example, with the Core i9-7900X chip, you get quad-channel RAM support and 44 PCI Express Gen 3 lanes directly from the processor. If you choose to attach a Core i7-7740K to this socket, the motherboard will drop memory support to two channels. And, perhaps even worse, the number of PCI Express lanes will be reduced to 16, since this is the maximum supported by Kaby Lake cores. Whence it follows that some slots on the motherboard will give up in performance or completely stop working.

While the 16-lane Kaby Lake limit depends on the processor device, the number of PCI Express lanes for Skylake-X is deliberately reduced by Intel. Although the 10-core version also gets 44 lanes, the 6- and 8-core variants of Skylake-X already only have 28 lanes available. As far as we understand, there are no technical reasons for this - there is a pure "market segmentation", which, translated from business language into ordinary, means "so we can rip off more money from you." Oops.

You may need to buy a special dongle dongle if you want to use the X299 VROC option to enable RAID on up to 20 NVMe drives.

Intel VROC

Even more dubious than PCI Express allocation is another option from Intel, VROC, or Virtual RAID on the processor. This is a great Skylake-X feature that allows you to collect up to 20 NVMe PCIe RAID drives into a single boot segment.

What is the problem? Intel seems to be intent on squeezing even more money out of users of this option. Exact details are not yet known, but Computex sellers believed that RAID 0 would remain free, RAID 1 would cost $99, and RAID 5 and RAID 10 would cost users $299. By paying the required amount, the user will receive a special stub key that will unlock this option.

And even worse: VROC will only work with Intel SSD drives and more expensive CPUs from the Skylake-X line. By purchasing Kaby Lake-X, you are out of the game. VROC is also only applicable to PCIe RAID, which can be connected directly through the PCIe processor lanes. X299 continues to support RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 options via the chipset, but chipset RAID will not have any impact on the performance provided by VROC.

AVX 512 in the Skylake-X series promises more performance - but only if the code supports it

How the Core i9 is changing the Skylake series

Having overcome the confusion and disagreements about the platform, you still get a hefty reward. The Skylake-X processor itself is a thing to be admired, as it is designed somewhat differently than previous high-end consumer processors.

Previous CPUs, whether "enthusiasts" or "extreme", were basically similar in design. For example, the 4-core Haswell Core i7-4770K is not particularly different from the 8-core Haswell-E Core i7-5960X, except perhaps for the support of 4-channel RAM.

With Skylake-X, Intel is breaking that tradition with some very serious design changes. Most notable is the increase in Mid-Level Cache (MLC), or L2 cache: Intel has brought it up to 1GB per core, up four times the 256MB of last year's Broadwell-E models and most Intel processors. The Last-Level Cache (L3) is getting smaller, meanwhile, at 1.375MB per core versus the previous Broadwell-E chip's 2.5MB, but Intel makes up for this loss with larger MLC caches as well as the use of a non-inclusive cache design. Compared to Broadwell-E's inclusive design, which can keep storing data no longer needed, a non-inclusive cache tries to keep track of what's worth keeping, so it promises to make more efficient use of available space.

Skylake is very different from the previous Skylake-X line, and this is largely dependent on the AVX512 cache and the new mesh architecture

Intel is also changing the ring bus architecture that has been in use for several years (including Kaby Lake and Skylake) to a new mesh architecture. Think of a 4-core processor as four houses connected by a bus line that stops at each house. This all works fine as long as there are 12 to 18 houses in the area. You can run two bus routes, but still it will not be as fast as just moving from one house to the next, which is implemented in the new cellular architecture.

The ring bus architecture of recent processors has been retired in favor of a mesh architecture that promises to provide best speed for a large number of cores

Intel's use of honeycomb design clearly puts the company in a better position to successfully compete with Threadripper as more and more cores are added to processors. AMD's Ryzen series uses what the company calls Infinity Fabric, which is essentially a super-high-speed mesh network.

And the last feature worth mentioning is the improved Turbo Boost Max 3.0. Intel recognizes the "best" best processor cores at the factory and gives them a bit more extra speed. On Broadwell-E processors, only one core is selected. In the Skylake-X series, two cores are already labeled as “best” and can run at speeds a couple of hundred megahertz faster.

Nuclear War: Episode IV (Can you spot the mistake in this picture?)

18-core Core i9 performance

For performance testing, we pulled a 10-core Core i9-7900X from its socket on the motherboard Asus motherboard Prime X299-Deluxe and placed an 18-core Core i9-7980X there. Other test kit components include a GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphics card, 32GB DDR4/2600 RAM, and HyperX 240GB Savage SATA SSD storage. For our Adobe Premiere CC 2017 test, we used a Plextor M8pe PCIe SSD as both the source and destination drive, in all cases except Core i5 and Ryzen 5 processors. They had to make an exception due to an issue with motherboard under Ryzen 5, which flatly refused to recognize the Plextor drive. Instead, I had to use the Samsung 960 Pro NVMe SSD. The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X is still the same one we originally used to review this chip, where it was tested on a motherboard Asus ROG Zenith Extreme X399 with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, Samsung 960 Pro SSD and 32GB DDR4/3200 RAM.

Due to the time limit, some of the tests recorded data obtained with the Core i9-7960X processor, the 16-core version of this chip. The processor was used on a pair of identical Falcon Northwest Talon systems, assembled specifically for the planned Threadripper vs. Core i9 test match. Although these systems are equipped with completely different GPUs, the operation of the system processors is not affected in any way, so data on them can be compared.

Performance in Cinebench R15

Our first benchmark is CineBench R15, a free 3D visualization benchmark based on Maxon's professional Cinema4D engine. It is almost completely tied to the computer's CPU, and is also very sensitive to an increase in the number of cores and processes.

The winner is perhaps no surprise: Intel's 18-core Core i9-7980X, its smaller sibling, the 16-core Core i9-7960X came in second place. AMD's Threadripper 1950X, until recently the undisputed leader among custom CPUs, had to settle for bronze.

However, there is nothing shameful for the Threadripper 1950X in third place. Yes, AMD fans, yes, we know and remember: its cost is significantly lower. Let us immediately announce this publicly so that you can safely read our review to the end without a constant desire to yell: “But it is many times cheaper!” Just repeat this phrase to yourself after you see the results of each test, okay?

Cinebench R15 awards 18-core Core i9 a gold medal, 16-core Core i9 a silver medal, and bronze goes to AMD's Threadripper 1950X

But multi-threaded activity is far from the salt of the earth. The sad truth is that the vast majority of programs and applications simply don't use all of these cores, so we also ran our chips through CineBench to measure single-threaded performance. And here a surprise awaits us: the Core i9-7980X processor takes the first place again, overtaking even the more overclocked Core i7-7700K. For the most part, we see three performance tiers here, with Kaby Lake and Skylake-X chips at the top, followed by Broadwell processors and other Zens.

Just to keep things in perspective, we're not looking at the huge difference between Skylake-X and Broadwell-E or Zen processors right now. But the winners in this competition, of course, are the Core i9 and the Skylake-X series.

Cinebench R15 single-threaded activity evaluation is valuable for predicting how the processor will handle the vast majority of games and applications.

Performance in POV Ray

The Persistence of Vision Raytracer actually traces its history back to the days of the Commodore Amiga and it continues to be supported by an active developer community. Like Cinebench, it also favors multi-core and high-threading chips. The test results are quite predictable, with the 18-core Core i9-7980X at the top of the list. The 16-core Ryzen Threadripper 1950X performed well enough, but a few extra cores pay real dividends.

Since we still want to know how the processors will behave under a significantly lower load, we run the POV Ray test on a single thread. And again, high-speed quadratic architecture chipsets come up, however, Skylake-X chips are almost catching up with the leader, and Zen with Broadwell-E is practically breathing down the back of the head. The only really lagging behind here is AMD's almost outdated Vishera-based FX processor.

POV Ray 3.7 puts the fastest chips with the highest inter-process communication in the first places in the list of results

Performance in Blender

Our next test is the free 3D modeling program Blender. This popular app, which is used to create effects in many indie films of independent cinema. Blender productivity results can vary greatly, depending on the task at hand. For example, the results of some tests conducted on 4-core Kaby Lake from Intel and Ryzen from AMD are practically independent of the number of cores. For the same task, we ran Mike Pan's popular BMW test file. And again, the winners were two new CPU Core i9 from Intel, followed closely by the Threadripper 1950X.

And again, all three main processors in our study have excellent performance. And again, the speed indicators in Blender are very dependent on both the chip model and what we actually do with it. In addition, we found Blender to be quite sensitive to the operating system.

The open source Blender renderer also favors processors with the most cores. Mike Pan's popular BMW test file was used here

Since these are really fancy chips, we decided to test them with something more complicated, for example, test file from Gooseberry Production. This is a control shot from the upcoming Blender Institute movie Space Laundry. While the task of BMW takes only a couple of minutes, Gooseberry loads the electronic brain with work on processing the frame for a good 20 minutes.

Gooseberry's results on our Falcon Northwest Talon systems look great for the new Core i9s and definitely paint a worse picture for the 16-core Threadripper 1950X.

Gooseberry pushes new Intel Core i9 processors far ahead of AMD Threadripper 1950X

Performance in WinRAR

From our original reviews of the Core i9-7900X and Threadripper 1950X, we know that WinRAR doesn't seem to be particularly fond of the mesh architectures of these processors. So it will not be a surprise for us to see the same picture now, although it turned out to be quite unexpected to see how much older Broadwell-E chips outperformed them. Alas, Threadripper did not perform well here.

RARLab's popular WinRAR archiver doesn't particularly like the mesh architecture of the Skylake-X series, but it seems to hate AMD's Zen architecture

Performance in 7-Zip

We also used version 9.20 of another archiver, the free 7-Zip, to run a built-in multi-thread test on it. The clear winners, coming off the rest of the list by a larger margin than expected, were the new Core i9 processors.

Free and popular 7 Zip again moves the most multi-core chips to the first positions

Performance in Corona Renderer

Looking at Cinebench, Blender, and POV results, the performance difference between the 16-core Threadripper and the new Core i9s is visible, albeit small. In the results of testing with the help of Corona Renderer, we observe such a gap, from which it is simply breathtaking. The 16-core Core i9-7960X beats its counterpart, the 16-core Threadripper 1950X, by a 25 percent margin. For the 18-core Core i9-7980X, the difference is even greater.

Before anyone screams test programs deliberately chosen to glorify the Intel microarchitecture, we hasten to declare that this particular study was offered to us by AMD specialists for our original Threadripper review. To be honest, this graph looks very so-so.

Corona Render shows 16-core Threadripper smashed clean by 16- and 18-core Core i9s

Performance in Handbrake

Not every future user is involved in 3D modeling, but many people edit or convert video files, and this is exactly the area in which the multi-core processor is most useful. To evaluate the encoding performance of the new Core i9s, we used the popular and free Handbrake encoder to process a 30 GB 1080p video file using the Android tablet's built-in presets.

We draw your attention to one curious aspect that we encountered when analyzing the results of this study. The more the number of processor cores increases, the more the gap between file processing time decreases. You can see for yourself how dramatically the performance grew as we moved from 4-core to 10-core chips, but after this milestone, the speed increase became extremely insignificant, at least not as much as we would expect with 18 cores.

Once again, both Core i9s are ahead, although this time Threadripper also shows quite decent speed.

Our tests with the Handbrake encoder also confirm that more cores contribute to better performance, but still not as much as a professional 3D renderer would provide.

Performance in Premiere Creative Cloud

The other half of video processing is, of course, editing. For this specific test, we chose Adobe Premiere Creative Cloud 2017 and real footage from our video department's projects, so this test is as close to real conditions as can be. This material has been removed Sony camera Alpha at 4K and then exported with a Blu-ray preset at 1080p. We also set the rendering quality to the maximum level, which helps to keep the image level high when changing the resolution.

While this task is mostly CPU-intensive, we have made some efforts to ensure that other components do not affect the comparison. Therefore, for all systems except Ryzen 5 and Core i5, we used a Plextor PCIe NVMe SSD as the data source and destination drive. As in the previous test by Handbrake, the file processing speed does not decrease in direct proportion depending on the number of processor cores, although the 18-core Core i9 still continues to be the champion.

However, if you buy powerful processor for editing video files, you should carefully consider what kind of speed gain an overpayment for the number of cores will bring.

Snobs will say that CPU-based rendering is the most important and hardest of tasks, so if you're into it, you need more cores.

And one more thing we would also like to add. Many will say that in the age of GPU coding, system chips don't really matter. To prove or disprove this claim, we reconfigured Adobe Premiere from processing through the system processor to processing through the processor GeForce graphics cards GTX 1080 with CUDA technology. As you can see, using the GPU immediately gives a huge speed boost, but increasing the number of CPU cores also clearly pays off. And it would be strange to think that dual core processor will do a better job of editing video than a 10-core one.

Even if you use GPU, more cores of the system chip significantly reduces the processing time of video files

Performance in Rise of Tomb Raider

Stop. If you're buying a 16- or 18-core processor primarily for gaming, you're doing it wrong. It would be much wiser to spend this money on a more advanced graphics card. But if you're also into 3D modeling in addition to gaming... and wondering which processor will give you the most better performance… we suspect you already know the answer: it is, of course, the Core i9.

We say this because we already know how good both chips released a little earlier, both the 10-core Core i7-6950X and the 10-core Core i9-7900X, are good for computer games. The new Core i9 models don't break this once established routine.

The first game to explore was Rise of the Tomb Raider, tweaked to work effectively on Ryzen and Threadripper platforms. We ran the game at 1920x1080 and medium settings in DirectX 11 mode.

The 18-core Core i9-7980X is back at the top of the standings, but for the most part, it doesn't stray too far from the 10-core Core i9-7900X. Threadripper performs quite well in Game Mode, but even in this case it fails to overtake the Core i9.

The Intel Skylake-X series continues to deliver the best performance in most PC games, but the Threadripper 1950X isn't out of the game either.

Performance in Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege

In fact, we tested a few games on our processors, but for the most part, the 18-core Core i9-7980X either led the list or was very close to the first place. We saw a similar trend with Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege running at medium quality at 1920x1080. We chose these settings in order to exclude the influence of limitations on the capabilities of the video card on performance testing.

Core i9 scores top marks in Rainbow Six

Performance in 3D Mark Time Spy 1.0

Our last game test- 3D Mark's Time Spy 1.0 test. Only the share of the chip is counted, since there is nothing more than us in this moment not interested. Once again, the power of the Core i9-7980X remains undeniable.

3D Mark's TimeSpy once again places the 18-core Core i9-7980X at the top of the list, although it's clear that the numbers here are not directly related to the number of cores at all.

Energy consumption and speed

What also interests us about the Core i9-7900X is its power consumption, as well as how much more power it uses compared to AMD. This is usually not the easiest question to answer due to the different test equipment, but this time, as we noted earlier, Falcon Northwest sent us two nearly identical, state-of-the-art Talon chassis for testing. Both are equipped with 128 GB of DDR4/2400 RAM, Samsung 960 Pro SSDs and Titan Xp SLI graphics cards, and their power units, coolers and cases are just the same. The only difference between these system blocks- motherboards and processors.

This kit allows us to measure the energy consumed by the processor on various tasks right on the socket. Because most of test items does not actually load all the cores, we decided to take measurements while increasing the load from one to 32 threads. The results confirmed what everyone already knew: the Core i9 consumes more power.

Using a pair of nearly identical 16-core systems, AMD's Threadripper 1950X has confirmed to be more power efficient than its competitor, Intel's 16-core Core i9-7960X.

These energy consumption measurements are not completely accurate, but close enough to give us an interesting idea. Curiously, the Threadripper 1950X seems to freeze at 20 threads, while the Core i9 continues to climb.

Threadripper certainly has a power advantage, but that's not the most important factor. When multi-threaded performance is extremely important to you, a couple of extra kilowatts spent is unlikely to matter to you.

This is very reminiscent of Threadripper's gaming performance. Yes, of course, the advantage of the Core i9 is undeniable, but, frankly, hardly anyone will take this into account. Obviously, a person who buys a CPU of this class has somewhat different priorities, and the decisive factors are such productive characteristics of the processor as the ability to produce and process the necessary content.

We'll end up with a summary comparison chart of the 18-core Core i9-7980X under various workloads.

We originally compiled it for our review of the Threadripper chip, and we think it's a great way to visualize what you can expect from these processors in reality. When only the 10-core version of the Core i9-7900X was compared against the 16-core Threadripper 1950X, the Core i9 pulled ahead under light load, but in heavy tasks, the AMD processor was in the lead.

With the advent of the new Core i9, the situation has become completely different. Now Intel products break ahead not only with light tasks, but under the heaviest load they are not inferior to superiority. If you take a look at the Cinebench R15 results below, you can see that Intel's 18-core chip is an inch behind AMD's.

Using CineBench R15, we changed the processor load from one thread to 36 - just to visually demonstrate performance peaks.

Intel i9 price - if you really want to know

The question mark that looms over the Core i9 and the entire Core X series is price offer. Ever since we released our first reviews of the Core i9-7900X and Threadripper 1950X, we've been pretty confident that Intel will end up as the performance leader without question.

The problem is that his products are also leading in terms of prices. Trying to set a cost based on performance leads to a slippery slope, as the value of performance is relative. We've just seen that, in general, the Threadripper is only marginally slower than the Core i9. Therefore, we decided to line up all Core X and Threadripper processors not at the price of the chip itself, but at the “cost of one thread”. We even included a 10-core Core i7-6950X in this list, with its retail price of under two thousand dollars - this is just for fun.

Why isn't President Ben Franklin smiling? He probably just paid $1,723 for a Core i7-6950X Broadwell-E

Stream after stream, the worst value, of course, is with the Broadwell-E chip. Quite expectedly, the second from the end also turned out to be the Core i5-7640X from Intel. But the champion in terms of price-quality ratio, surprisingly, is AMD's development: 16-core and 32-thread Threadripper 1950X.

Conclusion

So, there are two ways to evaluate Core i9. The first is in terms of performance, where there are no questions at all, who is the champion here. You will have to look at the charts for a very long time and carefully to notice in which of the multi-threaded tasks the 16- and 18-core Core i9 could outperform AMD's Threadripper. And if you move on to the lighter tasks that Intel's high-speed designs crack like nuts, everything becomes even more obvious.

So for performance freaks who absolutely-absolutely-really-really need the most fast processors for tasks of any level of complexity, both chips, Core i9-7960X and Core i9-7980X, are new high-speed demons, a dream processor.

The problem, of course, is the price difference. Our last table just above might give you some idea of ​​the value of AMD's offering. Yes, the Core i9 may be the officially recognized speed leader in every measure that can be measured, but it can't beat its own price tag.

Perhaps it depends on who pays. If, for example, your boss asks you to pick up a new video-editing workhorse, you'll probably lean towards Intel. But if you collect this car with your own earned pennies and try to stretch every ruble up and down? AMD might be a natural choice in this case.

And yet, make no mistake. Core i9 today is a clear and unconditional performance leader.

25.01.2018 22:14

Extreme tasks - extreme processor. The Core i9 line from Intel is the real embodiment of this truth. Prior to the advent of the Skylake-X architecture, 12, 14, 16, and 18-core CPUs were only available in server class. But Intel decided that frenzied power is also necessary for the mainstream segment (although the LGA 2066 platform cannot be called quite affordable), as a result, ninth stones core.

The model called Intel Core i9-7900X is the youngest in the line of extreme nines for LGA 2066. In fact, this is a direct successor to LGA 2011-3, which also has 10 physical cores and 20 computational threads.

A distinctive feature of all Intel Core i9 is support for 44 PCI-E lanes, which allow you to get the most out of NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX multi-graphic bundles; low-end Core i7 models from model range Skylake-X offer from 16 to 28 lines.

Technical features

At 14 nm Intel processor Core i9-7900X ten physical cores and 20 computing threads (Hyper-Threading technology; support for Intel SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX2 and AVX-512 instructions). Its nominal clock speed is 3300 MHz, but the most efficient core that the system automatically selects is capable of running at 4500 MHz (Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0).

The amount of cache in the Intel Core i9-7900X is 13.75 MB, and the TDP level is 140 W (the real thermal figure during the rigorous testing is still higher). This CPU supports the DDR4-2666 RAM standard, the maximum capacity is 128 GB.

As we have already said, overlooked stone has 44 PCI-E lines, and we will try to understand whether the owner of several video cards needs these same lines to unlock the potential of top-end graphics accelerators. More on that below.

	Intel Core i7-6950X	Intel Core i9-7900X
Socket	LGA 2011-3	LGA 2066
Cores/Threads	10/20	10/20
Process technology	14 nm	14 nm
Rated frequency	3000 MHz	3300 MHz
Turbo Frequency	3500 MHz	4300 MHz
L3 cache	25 MB	13.75 MB
TDP	140 W	140 W
PCI-E lanes	40	44
Memory support	DDR4-2400/2133, 4 channels	DDR4-2666, 4 channels
Intel Hyper Threading	Yes	Yes
Intel Turbo Boost	2.0	2.0
Price	1730$	999$

A few words about temperature indicators. The manufacturer recommends removing heat from the Intel Core i9-7900X using a liquid cooling system, but this is not urgently necessary if you plan to use this CPU at its nominal value, that is, without manually increasing the clock frequency.

Intel Core i9-7900X under load (140W)

A powerful tower cooler with one 120-140 mm fan (for example, or) is enough to keep the temperature of the Intel Core i9-7900X within 60-70 degrees. Obviously, overclocking requires a completely different CO. Even an additional 100-200 MHz significantly affects the TDP, the temperature rises at a frantic pace, and here without water not enough. Five gigahertz without CBO will not be able to conquer.

platform on Intel chipset The X299 is capable of operating with both dual-channel and quad-channel RAM. And we strongly recommend that you get 4 RAM modules if your plans include productive and maximum efficient use of the system with Socket LGA 2066. The difference between 2 and 4 channels is significant (this is bandwidth), and with increasing clock frequency, it increases.

DDR4-3000, 2 channels
DDR4-3000, 4 channels

Test stand:

Performance and test results

What to expect from a $1000 processor with ten physical cores? Certainly impressive performance. This is exactly what the Intel Core i9-7900X demonstrated in all the benchmarks we ran.

Intel Core i9-7900X is strong where you need to quickly draw/calculate a three-dimensional scene or process a large amount of digital content in high resolution.

overlooked toy too good for domestic needs, which is quite obvious; and even for professional tasks, this CPU is incredibly fast. It's all about the presence of 10 physical cores that need to be used (otherwise, why would such a processor be in the system).

Not all existing programs (including those for calculating complex operations) are optimized for 20 computational threads. And a user who is thinking about purchasing an Intel Core i9-7900X needs to study in advance moments of compatibility. It is possible that for most applications with which to work, a 6 or 8-core CPU will suffice.

Note that the power of one core in the Intel Core i9-7900X is no higher and no lower than, for example, that of , and this fact once again proves that for many tasks that an ordinary user faces daily, a 2 or 4-core processor level Core i3 or Core i5.

Intel Core i9-7900X is strong where you need to quickly draw/calculate a three-dimensional scene or process a large amount of digital content in high resolution. Such a processor mainly saves time, this is its key feature.

In a professional environment, people are faced with operations that take dozens of hours, and sometimes more than one day. Intel Core i9-7900X is able to reduce time costs.

Support for 44 PCI-E lanes

Perhaps the only technical feature The Intel Core i9-7900X, which may be of interest to a gamer, is support for 44 PCI-E lanes. This is the current maximum. Thanks to this functionality, a pair of graphics accelerators is able to work in the system at full x16 speeds (x16 + x16), and three adapters - x16 + x16 + x8. But does it make sense?

The Intel Core i9-7900X is a great CPU for streamlined processes and core tasks where 10 cores are really in demand.

We have done research to find the answer to this curious question. The reviewed processor, a pair of ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1080 video cards and with support for 28 lines took part in it (for comparison, the x16 + x16 and x16 + x8 formats).

A full report on the experiment is published in the corresponding. In this article, we will only say that the increase from the x16 + x16 mode is noticeable only in some optimized games, of which there are not so many now, for example, in Ghost Recon Wildlands, and Rainbow Six Siege.

The difference between x16+x16 and x16+x8 is minimal (several extra fps in favor of more wide channel) and, again, is noticeable only in a few game projects (3DMark did not react in any way to additional PCI-E lanes).

x16+x16
x16+x8

For games in high definition, it is better to choose one powerful accelerator. Buying an Intel Core i9-7900X for the sake of 44 PCI-E lanes is definitely not worth it, we have personally seen this.

Overclocking

The Intel Core i9-7900X is a great processor for extreme testing, just like any stone from ninth Core line. That's just on air it will not be possible to achieve a worthwhile result, due to the high TDP.

It is not difficult to increase the clock frequency on this CPU (here is an open multiplier, and the voltage is automatic throws up independently, exactly as much as is required for stable operation), it is much more difficult to remove heat.

4600 MHz
4800 MHz

By using mild dropsy we were able to overclock the Intel Core i9-7900X to 4800 MHz, but without a stable result. At a more modest 4600 MHz (all 10 cores operated at this frequency), the operating temperature exceeded 90 degrees, which is not the norm, throttling took place.

For a good and stable result, a full-scale CBO is required, with its help it will be possible to conquer 5 GHz and higher, and the performance in this case will be enormous (and the TDP will go far beyond 200-300 W).

The effect of overclocking the Intel Core i9-7900X

Conclusion

The Intel Core i9-7900X is a great CPU for streamlined processes and core tasks where 10 cores are really needed. This is not a toy for gamers (44 PCI-E lanes for buildup tandem NVIDIA SLI are useless due to software limitations, which are unoptimized designs).

Before us stone server-level, high clocked, extreme desktop oriented. The Core i9-7900X saves time and delivers massive hardware resources where they're needed. Recommended.