Intel’s 5.0 GHz Core i9-9900KS Ships Next Month, Cascade-Lake X Offering 2x Perf-Per-Dollar

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(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Intel's Core i9-9900KS, which the company says will hit 5.0 GHz on all cores, is going to be released in October. Vice president of tech leadership marketing Jon Carvill and chief performance strategist Ryan Shrout revealed that in a meeting with press here in Berlin ahead of IFA, while also hinting at Cascade Lake-X and discussing its position in mobile as its 10th Gen chips hit the market.

Intel showed off DLC from Hitman 2 on a system using the chip  and it indeed hit 5 GHz on all cores, minus the occasional dip. This, of course, won't substitute for independent tests, but demonstrated what Intel is promising. After the demo, Shrout told me the cooling was a Corsair 240mm AIO liquid cooler and the GPU was an RTX 2080 Ti.

Intel also hinted at Cascade-Lake X. It didn't commit to a date, but did show a slide suggesting higher performance per-dollar and "Coming Next Month."

Specifically, it said that Cascade Lake-X could get as high as 2.09 times as high in relative performance per dollar compared to Skylake-X, suggesting a price cut.

In the conversation, Intel also compared its Comet Lake and Ice Lake processors to AMD's Ryzen offering and suggested that competition from Qualcomm is at best only for light use, as many apps, including certain VPNs, popular photo editors and games won't run on the Snapdragon platform.

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Andrew E. Freedman
Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.

26 Comments Comment from the forums
  • logainofhades
    So another pointless release?
    Reply
  • Actually, what's really on offer here is the binning and speed gating that's required to deliver an all-core 5GHz processor. This means that this i9 series processor likely has some untapped overclocking potential, IMO..

    Though, Intel hasn't improved their single-core boost clock speeds with this new iteration of the i9-9900K.
    Reply
  • BTW, I assume these CPUs based on LGA2066 socket, offering more powerful per dollar than existing Skylake-X architecture (it does not state if we are looking at 9th Gen Refresh or 7th Gen).

    I think this processor has an iGPU on board, IMO. Nothing new or special about this whole release though.....
    Reply
  • GetSmart
    Metal Messiah. said:
    BTW, I assume these CPUs based on LGA2066 socket, offering more powerful per dollar than existing Skylake-X architecture (it does not state if we are looking at 9th Gen Refresh or 7th Gen).

    I think this processor has an iGPU on board, IMO. Nothing new or special about this whole release though.....
    That Intel Core i9-9900KS is for LGA1151 socket (on mainstream desktop platform). The other Intel Cascade Lake-X CPUs in that chart is most likely for LGA2066 socket (on HEDT platforms). And looking at those bars, can anticipate big price cuts for Intel's HEDT CPUs (notice that it is performance per dollar). For example, look at Hwbot benchmark rankings for 12 cores nevermind the new AMD Ryzen 9 3900X entries but can clearly see that the Intel Core i9-9920X was not popular (only 2 entries). Thus could likely be Intel's new response to AMD's HCC (high core count) CPUs..
    Reply
  • justin.m.beauvais
    Ok, so the headline is actually two different stories. Because what I read was that Intel was slashing the price of the 9900K in half with the KS model and the KS would be a new core family... which would be AMAZING, but SUPER uncharacteristic of Intel. So, new 9900KS is going to just be another 9900K but factory overclocked, and Intel HEDT is going to get closer to more realistic pricing, I guess that part is good.
    Reply
  • jeremyj_83
    Actual footage of someone turning on a desktop with the 9900ks.
    inWKw8nqQlIView: https://youtu.be/inWKw8nqQlI
    Reply
  • vaughn2k
    The tide has turned.
    What AMD is doing before to Intel, is now with Intel doing to AMD.. LOL!
    Reply
  • chickenballs
    vaughn2k said:
    The tide has turned.
    What AMD is doing before to Intel, is now with Intel doing to AMD.. LOL!

    yeah I also find it extremely ironic
    When I bought my i7 4790K back in 2015 I chose it because it offered so much more performance while still drew much less power than any CPU AMD had to offer

    Now I hope AMD will do the same to Nvidia
    offering a cheaper GPU while drawing much less power
    like rtx 2080Ti performance for 700 usd at 150W :D:rolleyes:
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    GetSmart said:
    That Intel Core i9-9900KS is for LGA1151 socket (on mainstream desktop platform). The other Intel Cascade Lake-X CPUs in that chart is most likely for LGA2066 socket (on HEDT platforms). And looking at those bars, can anticipate big price cuts for Intel's HEDT CPUs (notice that it is performance per dollar). For example, look at Hwbot benchmark rankings for 12 cores nevermind the new AMD Ryzen 9 3900X entries but can clearly see that the Intel Core i9-9920X was not popular (only 2 entries). Thus could likely be Intel's new response to AMD's HCC (high core count) CPUs..

    I would love to see their HEDT platform CPUs drop in price. But I also think it means they will cut the lower core counts because if they cut it in almost half the 8 core i9 would be cheaper than the 9900K. So my best guess would eb that they are going to up the minimum core count and cut prices but will still be a higher entry cost than a top end mainstream CPU.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    chickenballs said:
    Now I hope AMD will do the same to Nvidia
    offering a cheaper GPU while drawing much less power
    like rtx 2080Ti performance for 700 usd at 150W :D:rolleyes:
    Don't expect it to be any more power efficient than Navi. It's probably made on the same manufacturing process, but just bigger or with more dies.
    Reply