Pathetic: Intel Core i9-11900K CPU Review & Benchmarks: Gaming, Power, Production

in our 11 600 kcp review that's already live we said we wanted intel to put up a good fight an entertaining one versus amd what we ended up with with the 11 900k is a boxing match between intel's left glove and its right glove leaving us with one extremely confused parasite occupying the carcass of what was once a great and competitive host and so we're here to review the intel nine i9 k if the eleven seven hundred k was a waste of sand that could have been on the beach the eleven nine hundred k might be a waste of sand that could have been in swimwear it's it's that bad before that this murder scene was brought to you by the gn store at store.gamersnexus.net the gn store sells unique high quality useful products for your pc and pc building endeavors and allows us to remain fully independent in our reporting while getting you something quality in return check out our wireframe mouse mats for a full-size desk mousing service with pc components realized in 3d space and printed with high quality printers our teardown toolkits that were completely customized for video card surgery or our gn bar runner bar mats for an anti-slip surface for your home bar drying rack near the sink or gaming room complete with the only cpu socket capable of surviving a spill the bar runner is easily washable is slip and spill resistant and you can learn more while supporting us at store.gamersnexus.net the 11900k is an extremely confusing thing that intel's done because intel wants a flagship it wants to follow up the 10 core 20 thread which will be relevant to 900k with something that has the same name plus 1000. that's the formula to making a cpu you add some numbers and then you make it better what intel's done is they've they've added the numbers to the name and then they subtracted some from the core and they stirred it up a little bit with some frequency and the end result is something utterly baffling that will confuse anybody who's not paying close attention and for those who are paying close attention it'll probably give you an aneurysm trying to figure out why intel's doing it what it's doing the 11900k had to be cut down in core count because the die is massive in order to fit an extra two cores on it intel probably would have had to scale up the substrate assuming the one we're not out of some form of reticle uh manufacturing location or two the architecture is able to support that type of scaling in this instance but if intel had to scale things up substrate included intel would have also had to probably scale up the socket and that produces a lot of other issues because now you're starting to re-engineer things that don't necessarily need to be re-engineered for something that was supposed to launch a long time ago that's supposed to be a mid-step follow-up before we get to alder lake which is coming later this year so a new socket wasn't really a good solution the end result is we get something that's a little bit faster than a 10900 k with fewer cores and priced at as of writing 614 on newegg versus the 500 something of the 100k when it launched or the less than half price 11600k at 270 on newegg what intel really should have done here is simple the company should have refreshed the 10900k and i should have named it and priced it in such a fashion that it doesn't look like it's trying to outdo the previous flagship which basically shares a name instead we end up with something where intel continuing down the path of using hexadecimal codes for its product names no one understands what's going on with the product's intent the target market is lost it's gone poof doesn't exist anymore anyway enough of that we thank intel for giving us an opportunity to exercise our creative writing side let's get into reviewing this 600 and something that was appropriate dollar intel i9 11 900k and as a reminder the 11 600k cpu review is already live on the channel if you want something that's a little bit more positive than this one it's the 116 is actually genuinely very interesting as a component and is very value competitive so check that one out but let's get into the benchmarking for the 11.9 we'll start with a production test for this one since this is where the 10900k tried to start competing previously we'll have a lot of glass to clean up after intel defenestrates itself in production testing but at least it'll be a reminder as to what the 11900k could have been instead of silicon in blender's tile-based renderer cycles the 11900k required 18 minutes to complete the render whereas intel's own 10 900k required 17 minutes that's an improvement of six percent in exchange for the newfangled technology of 2020 in 2021 in other words the 10900k is off to a strong start the 5800x embarrassingly outclasses the 8 core 16 threat 11 900k as too does the much more price matched 5900x leaving intel to wallow in a puddle of its own ejesta this product shouldn't have been released with this name and this price it could have been released but the 11900k do be looking mighty slush right now because it's an imposter of what the 10900k's former flagship role was supposed to be chromium code compile should be one of the few strong no nope nope it's not the 10900k wins this one as well benefited again by its two extra cores and one year old technology intel has disavowed any chance at reclaiming the productivity high ground and refocused instead on gaming and that might be a risky play too the 1100k ends up beaten by the 10900k via a five and a half percent reduction in compile time required to the older cpu the 5900x defeats both positioned at 71 minutes versus the 90 to 100 minutes of the other two and that's in an application where intel was advantaged in the 11 600k versus 5600x comparison that ranks the 5900x as holding a 27 reduced time requirement to compile than the 11900k 7-zip compression measures in millions of instructions per second and is directly benefited by core count so this will go well this one has the 11 900k at 81 000 mips meaning it's behind the 86 000 mips of the 10 900k and far behind the 114 000 mips of the 5900x which has a lead of 41 over the 11900k similarly priced sort of the 1100k is barely even better than the 11700k which runs at 78 000 mips and is a waste of sand that's an l let's save time and move on in decompression testing the intel 11900k ran at a hundred thousand mips allowing the 109k a strong enough lead that we needed a thesaurus to look up alternatives to the word embarrassing and then we decided that none of them had a strong enough meaning anyway the 10 900k manages an 11 victory over the 11 900k both sharing a prefix and a price but going so far back in time and technology that we're worried about the result of combining this with the 1.21 gigawatts of power consumption adobe premiere has the 11900k roughly equal to the 10900k at best with the 11 700k not distant at 796 points in a like for like scenario we've run out of ways to say that this is embarrassing so let's move on we need to rerun the 10 900k on photoshop still so the 11900k gets a brief break from getting pummeled by its fab mate and instead it gets pummeled by the cheaper 5800x and the 5900x it's barely better though than the 11600k for this price so the positioning is again questionable red dead redemption 2 has the 11900k at 176 fps average which is behind the 10 900k intel sure has a unique way of making this review exciting it's a coin toss whether each of the new cpus is better than the last keeping us on our toes and standing as a true testament to our belief that literally anything can sell on this market the 10900k leads the 11900k by 2.7 percent with the 11 700k functionally tied with the 11900k despite the 46 price increase with the latter the 11 600 koc is just below these and although the 11 600k stock does technically drop behind by a few ranks it's mostly unnoticeably different in average and one percent fps matrix and these 5900x is behind the 11 900k here so at least intel has that technicality to claim but it's clearly not worth wasting for their time on this chart to show that the 11900k isn't even as good as the previous intel flagship this sort of reminds us of the phenom the bulldozer era in some ways cyberpunk 2077 which is mostly becoming gpu bound with even medium settings at 1080p offers some reprieve for the 11900k the cpu can stop being laughed at for long enough to regain composure made easier now that it can boast a game changing one percent uplift from the 11 600 k and 11 700k results which are within run to run variants of each other two intel's credit it's leading the charts in this one however marginal that may be except its own cpus are undercutting the 11900k to an extent that you could host a grand championship mental gymnastics event to try and justify the purchase in f1 2020 the 11 series i9 didn't fare well this can probably be attributed to its 8 core limitation it's on top of the other 8 core parts like the 11 7 and 10 7k but it's behind the 10 core 10 900k comparing it to the 11 700k we see only a 2.7 percent gap and when you consider that the gap between the 11 700k and 11 600k was only 2.2 percent the i9 like the i7 is a tough sell this is especially true when the price of the 11900k is more than double the 11 600k everything in the amd stack from the 5600x and up is firmly above the 11900k at 321 fps average and 312 respectively the 5600x and i9 aren't too far apart but the problem is that the 1100k is in the same price category as the 5900x and that gap is a heavy 10 additionally it's worth pointing out again that the 5900x is currently listed for 550. during the f1 1440p run of our 11600k review we put forth the hope that the 11900k could join its 10th gen counterpart at the top of the chart but at 269 fps average the 11900k fell to the bottom half of the chart instead on a positive note the 5900x somewhat maybe encouragingly is now only winning by three percent but we have to smash any hopes of redemption with a reminder that this test tends to clump the results together due to gpu limitations anyway if we shift comparisons back to intel only anyone with a 10900k should hold on to what they have because it already has a three and a half percent advantage the only thing left to cover is if you're considering the 11 6 or 7 and these are all within one percent of each other here with the 1440p testing in total war 3 kingdoms at 1080p the intel i9 1100k performed closer to where we'd expect it the cpu at least did 207 fps average which is right over where our previously cash bound 11 600k stock cpu landed at 205. it at least out did the 10900k here by 4.4 that's not an exciting generational gain and is more reminiscent of the skylake era but at least it didn't embarrass its maker by underperforming versus its predecessor the amd cpu is all aligned at about 206 fps average whereupon we'd need to push memory harder to get through this bottleneck the 11 600k 5600x or really anything else nearby would make more sense here than the 11 9 but the ranks will shuffle apart in this specific game as memory is tuned we just don't do memory tuning as part of cpu reviews in order to standardize the data set so that each cpu is working from the same baseline otherwise the place's lines get drawn become nebulous and subjective so in this one the 11900k at least outdoes the 109 but not in a way that really matters back to our new edition of hitman 3 the intel i9 11900k ended up at 148 fps average with lows proportionally behind it 72 and 55 that puts the 11900k functionally tied with 5950x and 5900x with a measurable but unnoticeable uptake of one percent low performance this positioning is overall poor for the 11.9 because the 5900x is cheaper at the time of writing anyway and technically ahead or minimally tied the 11900k stock leads the 11700k stock cpu by 5.3 percent in exchange for the 46 increase in price according to current newegg listings anyway compared to the 11 600k stock cpu the 11900k leads by at least a more noteworthy 13 although an oc of the 11 6 pushes it close to the top anyway of course you could make the arms race argument for the 11.9 but at some point the pricing is just untenable as for the 10 900k it at least ends up outdone by the 11900k in this one which enjoys an uplift of 7.9 generationally despite its core deficit the way we benchmark it rainbow six siege is a heavily cpu dependent game and plots numbers in the way of high hundreds the end result is that for the 11900k it runs behind the preceding 10 900k and embarrasses intel in the process the 10900k enjoys a two-core advantage ranking it at 487 fps average and leading the 11-900k by 5.6 percent intel has managed to not only fumble the ball but then trip over it multiple times this isn't the kind of supremacy that intel wants it complicates the product stack and it establishes a performance regression where things need to be extremely clearly defined for buyers the 10900k has a meaningful lead over the 5900x in a game that's built for fps snobs and we mean that in the nicest way possible if you're one of those and yet the 11900k stands to put amd in a technical lead or in a position of equivalent which is terrible for an 11 900k to do compared to the 9900k which was the previous i9 at eight cores there's at least a six percent uplift for the 1100k so it's not a complete loss but that's not good when considering the 9900k came out in 2018. we still need to rerun the 11.7 in this one but it'll plot near the 1100k it doesn't matter at 1440p we're back in that situation where andy gets ranked by intel a combination of nvidia's gpu and the drivers favoring intel has become gpu bound on this specific title even still compared against itself the 11900k ends up functionally the same as the i510 600k and the i511 600k is within run to run variants uh of these other two for the game so the 119 the 11 6 and the 10.6 are all within round round variants the 1 lows are technically higher on the 11 900k but not in a way that matters the 9900k and 10700k end up both ahead of both of these with the 10900k leading the chart there's something screwy going on in the gpu bound scenarios specifically where the 1100k is disadvantaged more than we would typically expect but we'll have to investigate that more later after the review cycle it'd be a good research topic though for a liquid nitrogen overclocking stream where we'll be able to push to a record setting or near record limits to figure out how the gpu behavior scales when bound gta 5 is the last bastion of hope for the intel 1100k the game is old enough and built on decrepit enough code that its own modders have gotten 10 000 rewards for fixing bugs half a decade old and that's the type of scenario where the 1100k starts to make sense a game from 2015 from 2013. the 1100k lands at 145 fps here roughly tied but technically behind the amd r9 5900x and 5950x and at least is able to claim leadership over the 11 700k stock cpu at 142 and the 10900k at 130 fps average we've found its strong point it seems and it's games like this cyberpunk actually got delayed so long that it became new again otherwise we'd expect similar performance we'll skim through 1440p since it's mostly the same numbers the 119rk is still among chart leaders alongside the leading 5900x and 5950x and ahead of the 10 900k otherwise not much changes here honda power testing our blender test for power consumption forces the cpu to 100 load on all cores for an extended period of time any amount of time is too much time spent on the 11900k at almost 3 a.m this also allows us to capture power data after tau expiry so we're not reporting over amped data measuring input before the vrm the 1100k came in at 127 watts this puts us exactly at the same number as the 5800x which outperformed it in just about every single test to measure maximum power consumption within the turbo boosting duration window we utilized the cinebench multi-threaded benchmark the 11900k pulled 197 watts during this boost period which seems reasonable when compared to the 10 900k is 200 watts during the same test until you remember that the 10900k has two more cores and outdid the 11900k by as much as 11 it's additionally pathetic when placed beside an amd price competitor like the 5900x which only consumes 134 watts in the same test we also checked in on single threaded power consumption using cinebench in this test the 11900k pulled 49 watts of power on a single core which is a lot of power considering the older 10900k used 63 percent of that to be fair though all three of the new intel cpus are power hungry during single core turbo boosted operation this one is just the worst of the bunch this whole fiasco reminds us of the phenom the bulldozer era where in some of the tests early on bulldozer struggled to compete with its predecessor architecture in the phenom 2 series intel has managed to ship a flagship cpu with a flagship price which is functionally vaporware my only personal hope coming out of this whole thing is that somebody can rescue these cpus before they go to a landfill when they inevitably are left unsold on shelves although for now with the market the way it is who knows maybe the scalper is intel we maybe maybe that's who the scalper is because it's the only reason you would really buy an 11 900k right now would be because you can't get anything else you should buy a 10900k if you want something that's more gaming focused with still maintaining some of that productivity or production workload prowess because you get the cores there and they do actually matter although cores aren't everything in the instance of these two cpus they're enough of a thing where you shouldn't be buying the 11 900k there are extremely few instances where it makes sense all this launch stands to do is detract from an actually competitive part of intel's launch the 11 600k we assume looking at the paper specs alone potentially the 11 400 maybe the whatever variance there are of that one too but instead what we have is a cpu which is so embarrassingly bad uh and bad not necessarily in not in the sense that the cpu is outright a poor performer but rather the cpu comparatively versus literally every neighboring cpu from both intel and its competitors from intel's previous gen and its current gen bad in that sense the company has launched a cpu that is in such a position that it's going to overshadow the actually good things it's done this time so what we'd ask you to do is uh well one keep an eye on the 11900k for when it inevitably goes on fire sale because it'll probably be a good deal then and two check out the 11 600k maybe it's interesting to you especially if you're looking for a gaming first or gaming only build the 11 900k in nearly every single test we've looked at and especially in aggregate when combining perspective of all the tests is simply pathetic and it's kind of sad so poor one out for intel i guess but hopefully the company can learn from this and focus it's it's it feels like this is an asp thing it feels like there's uh let's push average selling price let's try to counterbalance these new cheap cpus that are undercutting our previous price points and undercutting amd and push up asp a little bit so that we can appease the investors that's what this feels like uh and if that's not what this is then we have no idea what's going on but if it is something of this nature where it's just trying to extract a little bit of margin out of something that not many people should reasonably buy then well that's it's sad and hopefully intel can do better next time but the 11 600k is interesting and otherwise uh intel's doing what intel has done the last few launches now and is sort of mixing in a really good couple of products with something that just makes them look utterly incompetent so hopefully we can cut the latter half of that and stick to the former that's it for this one thanks for watching subscribe for more you can go to store.camerasnexus.net if you'd like to support our independent reporting and benchmarking where we can do stuff like this and say what we want about anybody uh you can pick up things like tool kits mouse mats shirts or bar owners are in stock as well or patreon.com gamers nexus to get bonus videos and behind the scenes thanks for watching subscribe for more we'll see you all next time [Music] the

Channel: Gamers Nexus

Views: 505,555

Keywords: gamersnexus, gamers nexus, computer hardware, intel core i9-11900k cpu review, cpu reviews, cpu benchmarks, best gaming cpus 2021, amd r9 5900x vs intel i9-11900k, 11900k vs 11600k, intel 11900k vs 10900k, intel 11900k vs r7 5800x, intel 11900k cpu benchmarks, intel 11900k overclocking, intel 11900k vs 9900k, intel 11900k vs amd r5 5600x

Id: mxiuvQPL_qs

Length: 22min 27sec (1347 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/jenesuispasbavard]

While the 10850k / 10900kf cost $320 / $330, the 11th gen i7 and i9 have no reason to exist.

[u/COMPUTER1313]

Rocket Lake: Cries about being more expensive than Comet Lake while not offering much performance improvement to justify the costs

P4 Willamette: "First time?"

When Willamette launched, it was expensive enough with the mandatory RDRAM where someone could buy a dual socket Pentium 3 system for about the same cost, and it struggled against the high end P3 CPUs. In the benchmarks where the Willamette did pull ahead, the dual socket P3 crushed the P4.

I've always found the choice of RDRAM to be questionable. That was back when the most common bottleneck for computers was insufficient RAM. It doesn't matter how fast the RAM is, if your computer keeps resorting to page files and waiting on a 3600 or 5400 RPM HDD that has access time in the hundreds of milliseconds.

[u/Theswweet]

"If the 11700k is a waste of sand that could've been on a beach, the 11900k is a waste of sand that could've been in... swimwear. It's that bad."

Yikes!

[u/_Fony_]

This heap of shit costs more than the 5900X.

[u/trumangroves86]

Lol this is one of GN's best reviews yet. I always know I'm in for a fantastic and brutal review when Steve is sponsoring his own videos. Too savage for any other company to get anywhere near it.

[u/RagingRavenRR]

Oh boy. That dude that tweeted Steve about the Waste of Sand review is going to be so upset at this one too.

[u/Exist50]

It's so brutal. I love it.

[u/seviliyorsun]

is this the one that intel said is +19% ipc?

[u/signfang]

Imaging buying 11900k when you can buy 10850k

-this post was written by 10850k gang-