Silicon Lottery is--or rather was--selling pre-binned Intel Core i9-9900K CPUs on its website. Apparently, the company has enjoyed strong sales, as the processors are now completely sold out until further notice.
The Intel Core i9-9900K's boost clock speeds are all over the place. The processor runs at 5GHz when one or two cores are active, but drops to 4.8GHz when four cores are in use and 4.7GHz if all eight cores are being utilized. As expected, Silicon Lottery took on the weary and boring task of binning Intel Core i9-9900K processors to find the best overclocking samples. The pre-binned chips are guaranteed to run stable at the advertised frequency across all cores and are sold for a small premium, of course.
For the sake of reference, the Intel recommends a selling price between $488 (£379.46) and $499 (£387.89) for the Core i9-9900K.
But thanks to the 14nm processor shortage, the octa-core chip is typically selling for $579.99 (£450.84) at major computer hardware outlets. Silicon Lottery stated over at the overclock.net forums over the weekend that it launched what it had in stock, so Intel's shortages may be impacting availability. The company's main orders haven't been shipped and its supplier keeps changing the expected arrival date. However, Silicon Lottery expects to have more stock in a few weeks.
Looking at Silicon Lottery's Coffee Lake Refresh shelf, the company offers four Intel Core i9-9900K parts with different operating clocks. The budget-friendly chip runs at 4.8GHz with 1.275V and carries a $569.99 (£443.16) price tag. The slightly faster 4.9GHz chip needs 1.287V and will set you back $609.99 (£474.33). The 5GHz part needs 1.3V and boasts an eye-watering price tag of $729.99 (£567.81). Last, but certainly not least, the 5.1GHz model requires 1.312V and costs $969.99 (£754.73). Silicon Lottery uses an AVX offset value of 2 on its processors that basically drops the operating clocks down by 200MHz when AVX workloads are detected.
For performance seekers, Silicon Lottery has a special delidding treatment for its 9th generation processors which costs an extra $49.99 (£38.89). According to Silicon Lottery's findings, delidding can help decrease peak core temperatures by 4 to 8 degrees Celsius under very heavy workloads. The delidding service requires up to one business day.
As is the norm with Silicon Lottery-sold processors, these come with a one-year warranty and are eligible for a one-time replacement if any defects or malfunctions develop during this period. There's also a 14-day return policy for customers that are not satisfied with their purchase.
