The first benchmarks of what appears to be an engineering sample of Intel’s next star processor have been leaked: the Intel Core i9-990K. This processor will be the first processor of eight cores and 16 threads that will be part of the mid range of this manufacturer, entering direct competition with the range of AMD Ryzen 7 processors.
As usual, as we approach the launch of a product, leaks are happening relative to it. More, in the case of being a product that is highly anticipated by a part of users, such as the Intel Core i9-9900K processor. This new processor, will still be manufactured in the 14 nm node that has been using Intel since the time of its Broadwell processors, which will now be taken to the maximum when including two new cores in its die.
The benchmark shows that the Intel Core i9-9900K will be only 25% more powerful than the Core i7-8700K
The processor that has been made the benchmark now filtered appears with clock frequencies that do not correspond much to the frequencies that, until now, these processors would have, especially in terms of their base frequency, which is reflected as only 3.1 GHz. The latest information encrypted the base frequency of the Intel Core i9-9900K at 3.6 GHz, so this filtered benchmark, in all likelihood, belongs to an engineering sample. Of course, turbo frequency rises to a not inconsiderable 5 GHz.
What also leaves, very clearly, this benchmark, is that the new processor can be installed in the current motherboards with the Intel Z370 chipset, since the benchmark has been done in one of these. We recently commented that ASRock was taking out new BIOS for its motherboards from the input range, which would allow them to support the installation of one of these new 8-core and 16-wire processors.
As for the results obtained in the benchmark, I think the images say it all: its performance is very much on par with the range of HEDT processors, both Intel and AMD. However, these results have a trick, since 3DMark is a program that does not scale well above the 10 process threads, which is why the processors in this category are so close together at the top of the table. Even so, it is clear that this new processor, despite being an engineering sample, is superior to the current Intel Core i7-8700Kand the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, range endings of both companies.
Now, the question that leaves this benchmark on the table is, how will the next Intel Core i7-9700K be compared, now that we know that it will mount an 8-core processor, but without Hyper-threading?