Far Cry 5, GTA: V & Hitman
Far Cry 5
Although the overclocked Core i9 leads, a tuned Core i7-8700K offers similar performance. More than likely, the extra $118 you pay for a Core i9 probably isn't worth it for gamers.
Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V favors Intel architectures and, more generally, multi-core designs with high clock rates.
The -9900K leads in convincing fashion. The Core i7 and i5 models also enjoy a healthy speed-up.
Hitman
Our Hitman benchmark was rendered almost useless by a patch that imposed a 90 FPS performance cap. A subsequent update restored our test to its prior glory.
Given its price point, the Core i5-9600K appears to be a phenomenal chip for gaming, even without taking overclocking into consideration. Notice that the new i5 often outperforms Intel's previous-gen Core i7-8700K. Really, that isn't surprising given both chips' multi-core Turbo Boost ratios. A lack of Hyper-Threading also helps in some games.
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