The Intel i9-11900K was released at the end of 2020 and leverages Intel ‘Rocket Lake’ architecture to bring 8 cores and good overclocking potential to the flagship CPU of this generation. Whilst it offers undoubtedly high performance, it is a power-hungry CPU, particularly when overclocked or running stress tests, with power levels of 300W or more not out of the ordinary! Forming the core of a premium PC with the 11900K, it will usually be paired with a powerful Ampere or RDNA2 GPU, further extending the system’s demands for power.

If you are considering this CPU we’d recommend you assume a 250W power draw for the i9-11900K, add the TDP of your GPU, and then add a good 50% safety margin to ensure that your system can deal with transient loads and additional hardware such as storage, fans, and USB devices without any issues. In this guide, we’ve started with 750W PSU as a minimum for a system incorporating a high-end GPU and moved up where multiple GPUs or extreme overclocking headroom may be required. 

Finally, the ongoing supply and demand issues leave no sector of the PC market untouched, and Power supplies are no exception. This article encompasses the best options available at this time, taking into account those that have been out of stock for a long time or that are simply overpriced considering their specifications. 

Here are our recommendations for the best power supplies to combine with the i9-11900K to ensure a powerful, stable and reliable system.

Related: Intel Core i9-11900K Review
Related: Rocket Lake RAM Speed Analysis

Best PSUs for 11900K – Our Recommendations

1. Best Value PSU for 11900K

MSI may not be best known for its power supplies, having focussed on GPUs and motherboards in the past. However, the MSI MPG A-GF 750W has gained acclaim in reviews for its’ robust design, good performance and keen price. It also comes with an outstanding 10-year warranty indicating the confidence MSI has in the design and construction quality. It utilises all Japanese capacitors and uses the modern standard DC-DC topology. Electrical testing shows excellent voltage stability with minimal ripple, and it easily meets the gold standard efficiency standards. The fan is a quiet and high-quality design with a fluid dynamic bearing to keep the noise down even under load. It has fully modular cables which are flattened for easier routing, and of course, you only need to fit the desired cables to keep your PC as clean looking as possible. It is supplied with two 8 Pin EPS (CPU) power cables, and two PCIe cables to ensure that you can fully populate a Z590 motherboard’s CPU power sockets. MSI has clearly given careful thought to their entry into the competitive PSU market, and this quality and performance is a fantastic deal at $85.

2. Best All-Rounder PSU for 11900K

If you’re looking for a rock-solid PSU to run an RTX 3080, RX 6800XT or RTX 3090 then the Enermax Revolution D.F. 750W fits the bill perfectly. This 750W Gold efficiency rated PSU supplies ample power for the most demanding GPUs when used in combination with the i9-11900K. All the premium features you’d want are there: All Japanese capacitors rated to 105°C, Fully modular design, DC-DC secondary side circuitry and the full suite of protections. It comes with 2 PCI-E cables and 3 sockets, allowing it to power all but the most demanding single GPU setups with ease. It’s got a few neat features including a ‘Dust free’ button that raises the fan to maximum power, in reverse, to pull dust out of the unit as a maintenance task. It performs excellently under load testing with minimal ripple and strong transient load performance which is particularly important when powering high-end Ampere Graphics cards like the RTX 3080. A five-year warranty provides peace of mind. If you want some additional headroom for overclocking or potential future upgrades this unit will serve you well for years to come. 

3. Best PSU for Overclocking the 11900K

Corsair has long been the industry leader for high-end power supplies and the HX Platinum series represent their second-highest end Consumer option – with AX PSUs being unobtainable at the moment. Unfortunately, mining demand means that any PSU capable of powering multiple GPUs has become inflated in price and hard to get and the HX is no exception. This PSU, the HX Platinum 1200W, normally retails at $240 but is currently around $330 on Amazon. However, the core specification is as strong as you can hope for. There’s serious engineering behind this power supply with a semi-digital design and fan microcontroller. Electrical testing shows this to be a class-leading unit with absolutely no complaints or areas of concern. It easily achieves platinum efficiency standards ensuring minimal losses to heat, whilst fan noise remains low even under heavy load. Fully modular cables aid management whilst the use of Corsairs ‘Type 4’ Cable standards make sourcing custom cables easy. It’s topped off with a 10-year warranty to ensure long-lasting operation and peace of mind. 

4. Best PSU for 11900K Multi-GPU Build

If you’re running multiple GPUs on top of the Intel i9-11900K you need an absolutely top-notch PSU to handle the load. The Bequiet! Dark Power Pro is a flagship product from the German brand, with industry-leading engineering and design behind it. Rated for 1500W output at continuous load, and with Titanium power efficiency, this power supply is a great choice to run multiple GTX 3090’s or Radeon RX 6800XT’s for use in computation or rendering rigs. It’s also a good choice for multiple Quadro cards in a professional CAD or design workstation. It’s supplied with a pair of EPS power cables and five 600mm PCIe Power cables (each with twin 6+2 pin heads), to allow for a complex PC build even in full tower cases. It’s configurable between six 12V rails or they can be bridged into a single rail for extreme overclocking applications, whilst the Power supply is digitally controlled on all main rails to ensure stability and smooth power delivery. They’ve focussed on quietness with a frameless fan and gentle fan profile, and a whole side is given over to a mesh panel to aid airflow. Overall this power supply is exceptionally high quality throughout and provides the ideal basis for a hard-working PC with demanding components.

5. Best SFX PSU for i9-11900K

Lian Li are better known for high-quality PC cases but have recently released the SP750 SFX PSU. This compliments their cases like the Lian Li 011D mini which despite being a large case uses an SFX Power supply to reduce the overall size. This power supply benefits from Lian LI’s attention to detail in both design and engineering. It has slick alloy casing and top-notch manufacturing quality. 750W is a high power output for a small form factor design but Lian-Li and the manufacturer ‘Helly Technology’ have maintained excellent electrical performance with stable power output and very high efficiency, easily exceeding gold specification. Components are of high quality throughout. One downside pointed out by reviewers is that the fan can become loud at heavy load, And the 4 PCIe /CPU power sockets must be shared between motherboard CPU power and GPU power, so very high power draw GPUs requiring 3 PCI-E Plugs may require a larger power supply with more extensive connectivity options. Overall though this unit marks a strong entry for Lian Li into the SFX power supply market, and one that is well capable of supporting an i9-11900K in a range of interesting PC builds using unique and small form factor cases.

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The recently released Intel Core i9-11900K is a very fast processor. With a max turbo of over 5 GHz—it’s hard to say otherwise. While the question of whether the 11900K is an upgrade over the 10900K is debatable; one thing that everyone unanimously agrees on is that the 11900K gets very, very, hot.

Intel inexplicably reduced the total core count from its 10^th Gen i9 processors, going from 10 cores to 8. With heavy competition from AMD bearing down with the likes of the 5900X, consumers were somewhat confused as to what Intel’s game was. Turns out, it was pretty simple. Team Blue’s game plan was to push the 11900K as fast as technologically possible. This was in hopes that it will keep up with the competition. While they succeeded in some instances (gaming), AMD still managed to decimate the mere 8 cores of the 11900K. In fact, even the last-gen 10900K managing to keep up or surpass it in certain tasks. Add to this the fact that it runs hotter than the sun itself, and you’ve got a very confusing high-end CPU.

How Hot Does The 11900K Get?

With Intel pushing their 14nm technology to its absolute limits, the 11900K was bound to get hot. How hot, you ask? Well, when running a simple 10-minute stress test, the 11900K shoots up to its recommended maximum temperature of 98 degrees Celsius. You can however get this temperature down to around 88 degrees by sacrificing some performance; which is quite absurd for a high-end consumer CPU that sells for north of $500. Moreover, the 11900K easily overheats when using even a 240mm AIO. This already gives a sign of how extreme of a cooling solution you will need to tame this beast.

The 11900k also draws an average of nearly 200W at peak. This is definitely on the higher end. In comparison, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with its 12 cores only reaches an average of 135W.

With all that said, what caliber of CPU cooler must you get in order to effectively cool the Core i9-11900K? The short answer is water cooling. This is generally the only way to go— with one exception, which you will see below).

Best Coolers for i9-11900K – Our Recommendations

Overall Best Cooler for 11900K: NZXT Kraken Z73

To effectively cool the fiery inferno that is the Intel Core i9-11900K, you’re going to need a pretty beefy cooling solution. Most people don’t want to go through the hassle of setting up custom loop water cooling. Luckily, NZXT has the next best thing.

NZXT’s Kraken Z73 is an AIO that’s well-equipped to handle almost any thermal load you throw at it.  With its 360mm radiator along with the triple 120mm fans, the Z73 is able to keep up with the rigorous heat output of the 11900K.

The Kraken lineup of liquid coolers has long since been a fan favourite. This is mainly due to their clean, minimalist design along with top tier cooling performance.

The Kraken Z73 also features a circular 2.36-inch LCD display over the pump. This can be customised according to your liking to display a variety of system stats such as CPU temperature, pump speed, and many more.

The Kraken’s build quality is also very good, with the water block primarily using high-quality plastics and copper. With its muted colours and sleek design, you would find no trouble making the Z73 blend in with the rest of your system.

While the NZXT Kraken Z73 offers stellar cooling performance, it is quite expensive at an MSRP of $280. With that said, if you’re dishing out over $500 for a high-end Intel CPU— the chances are that you probably won’t mind spending some more for an adequate cooler.

Best Air Cooler for 11900K: Noctua NH-D15

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to many of you that the only air cooler capable of sufficiently cooling the Core i9-11900K is the revered NH-D15 by Noctua. This is a 6-heat pipe, dual-tower behemoth of an air cooler. Furthermore, it is universally known as one of, if not the best CPU air cooler that money can buy.

The NH-D15 comes with a pair of 140mm PWM fans along with Noctua’s special blend of thermal paste. Its large size allows the NH-D15 to keep up with the hefty water coolers and AIOs. In most heavy loaded tests, the 11900K managed to boost up without thermal throttling—which is a testament to the amazing Noctua engineering at work.

The NH-D15 also comes with Noctua’s state of the art fans that run extremely quiet. They’re durable and well-built so you won’t have to worry about any unnecessary rattling. The PWM supported fan headers allow you to freely control fan speed and set custom fan curves depending on your usage.

The award-winning air cooler is iconic for its beige colour and industrial-looking design. Although you can also get the sleeker Chromax Black version if you wish for a more muted look.

For $100, you really can’t go wrong with the Noctua NH-D15. Especially since it manages to keep up with AIOs and water-cooling solutions that are three times its MSRP.

Best Budget AIO for 11900K: Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240L

If you really want to run an AIO solution to cool your Core i9-11900K without breaking the bank, Cooler Master has got you covered. The MasterLiquid ML240L does not come with all the bells and whistles that you might find on a Kraken. But nonetheless, it manages to do an exemplary job of cooling the 11900K.

What the ML240L lacks in flair, it makes up for with a large pump and a 240mm radiator.  Cooler Master has opted for a dual-chamber water pump design. This leaves more horizontal space on the motherboard so your components won’t be cramped.

However, the MasterLiquid ML240L does lack a pump head display like that of the NZXT Kraken, which some may find incredibly useful to get system information at a glance. The good news is that the ML240L packs a strong pump with extremely quiet fans that does a no-nonsense job of handling the strongest thermal loads thrown at it.

At $85, the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240L is an absolute steal for an AIO. Moreover, when you pair it with a high-end processor like the Core i9-11900K, you won’t have to worry about running into any thermal constraints. Plus, you can spend the money you saved elsewhere on your system!

Conclusion

There you have it, our top three choices for the best CPU coolers to pair with the Core i9-11900K. While the all-new Rocket Lake generation of processors by Intel was met with a lukewarm reception, supply constraints with Team Red mean more and more consumers are gravitating towards what’s readily available.

So, if you’re buying a ridiculously power-hungry CPU like the Core i9-11900K, going with any of the above coolers will be your best bet. The Kraken Z73 offers stellar water-cooling performance for a premium price. On the other hand, if you don’t want to deal with the hassle and unreliability of AIOs, the Noctua NH-D15 matches the top water-coolers in its ability for a much cheaper price. However, if you desperately wish to add an AIO to your system; but do not want to spend exorbitant amounts on one—the Cooler Master ML240L is a strong budget contender.

The post 3 Best CPU Coolers For the Intel Core i9-11900K appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

In our review of the best B560 motherboards, we found a number of anomalies in their behaviour. In this article we’ll document what we found, to help you understand the problem and avoid the pitfalls. Some boards can be fixed by paying attention n to their settings in BIOS. Others cannot be saved and should be left on the shelf. So lets’ take a look at the potential pitfalls of the B560 motherboard range.

One of our first tests was a simple Cinebench R23 run, but given that the CPU and configuration were the same it yielded some surprising results:

The MSI Bazooka delivers 1500 points lower score than the two ASUS boards and the Gigabyte Aorus Pro. The ASock B560M HDV is about 800 points down on optimal CPU performance.

Let’s look at what happens if we dig back into BIOS and remove the power limits:

Clearly, something is up here with the ASROCK HDV and the MSI B560 Bazooka. The Bazooka now matches the other boards on test, the ASROCK performs better but still falls a couple of hundred points short of optimal performance.

To work out what’s going on, we compared logged metrics throughout these runs at default settings, specifically power consumption and CPU clock frequencies over time:

This graph clearly illustrates the differences in behaviour between these three boards. Here the solid lines represent core clock speeds, the dashed lines the power delivered to the CPU. The ASUS maintains power of about 110 watts throughout the test, keeping core clocks at 4200MHz. This is the result of ‘Asus multi-core enhancement’ being on by default, although the initial BIOS screen does advise you of this, I don’t expect its explanation to mean much to most users, except it seems like a good idea to leave it on.

The ASROCK board delivers 100 Watts throughout the first portion of the test and holds 4.2GHz all-core clock speed but then drops to 65W the long term power limit after about 50 seconds. This has the effect of cutting core clocks to 3.5GHz and results in longer test duration, and lower score.

Finally, we see the MSI Bazooka: Like the ASUS this initially delivers 110 Watts, and 4.2GHZ clock speed, but ramps down to 65W at just 24 seconds. Thereafter it holds a significantly lower 3.3GHz clock speed for the remainder of the test, finishing last and delivering the lowest score. This is a function of the ‘stock cooler’ settings being applied in BIOS.

This behaviour is the results of different implementations of Intel’s power specifications. Short term power should allow for 125W even on this i5-11500 which has a nominal TDP of 65W – that’s its long term power limit. We see it draw 110W on most of the boards because that’s the power required to achieve its maximum allowable all-core boost clock.

One of these graphs is more insidious than the others, and it’s not the MSI. If we adjust the power limit behaviour through MSI BIOS by selecting ‘Tower’ or ‘AIO’ cooler the MSI performs in line with the other boards. For the ASRock HDV, this means setting the power target, but it won’t allow user input of 125W, just 100W. Why is that?

This graph shows us why: We ran Cinebench for a 10-minute loop with power limits set as high as possible on the Asrock HDV, and the i5-11500. Here is power delivery vs Clock speeds over the duration of that test, 8 loops of the rendering task:

For the first three runs, all appear to be relatively normal, except that the CPU is only getting 100 Watts when it will use 110W for peak performance. By the fourth run we start to see something different though: The board spikes, then cuts power. Core clocks are no longer held at 4.2GHz but instead begin to fluctuate below that. As the runs repeat we see increasingly ragged behaviour. This VRM is failing to deliver clean power even at a reduced 100W level and is throttling the CPU as a result. Performance suffers. In the long term, if subjected to this workload, it’s clear the VRMs are over-extending themselves. And in case you’re thinking: ‘Surely that’s CPU temperature throttling’ The raw data shows that no core exceeded 60C throughout this test, and no core recorded thermal throttling at any point.

So, this is behaviour with a 65W rated part, an entry-level i5 CPU.

i9-11900K Testing

What happens is you dare to put a more power hungry chip on these boards?!

To test, we installed the i9-11900K on each of these boards, using unlimited power settings, to see what they were capable of. For comparison we’ve included the result this CPU gives on the ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Z590, a motherboard with insane VRMS capable of supplying well over 330W to this chip under demanding loads.

Here we can see the consequences of weaker VRMs. Both the MSI and the Asrock HDV, the two cheapest boards in this test, deliver substantially sub-par results. The Gigabyte and two Asus boards both achieve ‘full’ performance for this demanding CPU, nearly matching the Z590 at default behaviour.

Again, looking at the metrics, we can see how default board behaviour has a drastic impact on performance:

The Gigabyte is the only B560 motherboard that delivers sufficient power to reach a 4.7GHz all core speed, at 170W consumption. It maintains this for the duration of the test and records a score of 15,000 representing the potential of this CPU. The MSI initially ramps to 170W deliver as well but fails to lift core clocks beyond 4.2GHz and quickly falls back to a 130W power delivery, PL1. From there it maintains 4.2 GHz of the duration of the test.
Finally, the ASRock HDV starts out delivering about 135W for 18 seconds, then drops to the 65W PL1 limit. That means that the clocks fall back from 3.7GHz to 3.1GHz where they remain until the workload is complete. The ASRocks score in this test is just 10098. And as a reminder, that’s BELOW the score the six-core i5-11500 can post in this test given adequate power. Simply put: The CPU can only do as much work as you supply it power for. This ASRock motherboard limits that power enough to make the 8 core i9-11900K perform the same as a six-core i5-11500 in an all core workload, and if you don’t adjust power limits in BIOS, it’ll even make the i5-11500 drastically underperform. If you do lift those power limits and then subject the i5-11500 to demanding but entirely reasonable workloads, the VRMS can’t keep up.

Conclusions and the root cause

Fundamentally, the blame lies with Intel. This kind of underperformance due to power limitations is down to their inability to make the Rocketlake CPUs more efficient. Remember, none of the Ryzen Zen 3 CPUs, not even the 16 core 5950X demand more than 125W for full performance. Here we have a six-core part needing 115W to perform to full potential and motherboards failing to deliver the 170Watts that the 8 core i9-11900K requires to reach its all core boost clocks.

Then there’s the confusion around power limits. These CPUs quote boost clocks that are only achievable if you can deliver sufficient power and keep them sufficiently cool. Intel’s power specifications quote maximum power delivery and time periods – but there don’t appear to be any consequences for not adhering to them, breaking them, or simply not achieving them. Ultimately, when your boosting mechanisms are as complex and varied as Intels, you’re not setting a clear picture of the level of performance consumers can expect from your products. 

A mid-range CPU that can exceed 100 Watts draw in an all core load poses a significant problem for motherboard manufacturers. The i5-11400 has been touted as the new value champion for gaming – but you need a motherboard to run it. It’s sold with a 65W TDP but that’s not an accurate representation of its power demands. So motherboard manufacturers want to cater to a value-conscious market but need to make a board that can potentially be fitted with any CPU from an i3 up to an i9-11900K, or more realistically perhaps an i7-11700.

ASROCK has abjectly failed to do that. The B560M HDV is plainly inadequate. It throttles an i5-11500 at base settings. It will not allow those settings to be lifted to a point that achieves full performance from the CPU. It cannot sustain an all core workload for ten minutes without the cracks showing through. It’s not acceptable. 

Then we come on to the wider issues: Across the boards, we’ve sampled we’ve seen wildly different behaviour because of the power limits set and implemented by manufacturers. Credit goes to Gigabyte and Asus for manufacturing boards that can achieve the full potential of even demanding CPUs – but they’re not actually adhering to Intel’s specifications either, by allowing power limits that exceed specifications and durations that also run longer than those specifications. MSI are at least open about the need to define power limits when you set the motherboard up.

Some of these boards allow you to set your own power limits to achieve your desired result, but we don’t believe that consumers should have to do that on motherboards that are aimed squarely at the mainstream. If you’re buying a B560 board you have every right to expect it to work well with an i5 or i7 non K CPU without manually adjusting settings or understanding the detail of power delivery and limits, but some of them don’t.

So my ultimate conclusion is that if you do want to make use of an i5-11400 or any other Intel CPU and you’re considering a B560 board, it will take some research and sadly a little more money to get the most of your CPU. You can see out the linked article for the best B560 Motherboard recommendations, in tandem with the information presented in this article.

The post B560 Motherboard Power Limit Analysis: A Real Minefield of Bad Boards, Confusing Settings, Tricky Choices! appeared first on PremiumBuilds.

Intel’s 11^th generation CPUs hit the market late last March. With data to back up their statistics and test their performance, it is time to consider how they shape up to one another. The 11^th generation saw Intel finally catch up to AMD in technology by including PCIe 4.0 support, expanded memory speeds, and updated hyperthreading capabilities. However, across all processors, sacrifices were made. Intel still uses 14nm architecture for their chips and retrofitted their 10nm productions to this size for the generation. This has resulted in a cutting of cores and threads from the previous generation, most notable on the new flagship Core i9-11900k. Was it worth it?

Meanwhile, the newest Core i5-11600k aims to take over the midrange CPU market once again. Targeted to take on AMD’s strong presence at this price point, Intel packed in a variety of features and speeds at an incredible price point. The i5 has always been a strong contender for the best value purchase for gamers, and that may hold true here again. On the enthusiast side of things, the Core i9-11900k sees Intel trying once again to push the envelope and prove their worth. It is certainly not a processor for everyone, and not one that most people will ever need. Upon release, it was lambasted as an overpriced option that served little purpose in the market. Has it gotten any better since then?

With both chips tested and ready to compare, it is time to take them on a fresh spin and see which is the value option for the average user.

Specifications

Processor	Core i5-11600k	Core i9-11900k
Design
Architecture	14nm Rocket Lake	14nm Rocket Lake
Cores	6	8
Threads	12	16
Base Clock	3.9 GHz	3.5 GHz
Boost Clock	4.9 GHz	5.30 GHz
Memory Types	DDR4 3200	DDR4 3200
L3 Cache	12 MB	16 MB
TDP	125W	125W
PCIe	4	4
Price	$262 - 272	$539 – 549
Availability	Amazon.com	Amazon.com

Intel Core i5-11600k

The Core i5-11600k is shaping up to be the best offering of Intel’s newest 11^th generation. It features six cores and twelve threads with a base clock speed of 3.9 GHz that can boost up to 4.9 GHz. A 12MB L3 cache and thermal design power of 125W complete the main package. Unfortunately, all of Intel’s chips continue to boast a high TDP, allowing AMD to dominate the power efficiency category.

The i5-11600k’s memory speed capacity officially supports DDR4 3200 and features a maximum memory bandwidth of 50 GB/s. This is a nice upgrade over the 10^th generation, which needed to overclock to reach these levels. It is also equal to higher-end models of the 11^th generation such as the Core i9-11900k, swinging value in favor of this cheaper processor. Intel has finally upgraded to PCIe 4.0 support, making any processor from this generation more future-proofed. Better data transfer speeds of 16 Gb/s allow the system to fully support the newest graphics cards and other additions.

Sadly, Intel has made some choices that make using the i5-11600k as a mid-range CPU more difficult. Because it is an unlocked processor – hence the “k” denomination – no stock cooler comes with the chip. While the high TDP suggests hotter performance anyway, making an aftermarket cooler a good idea, it still would have been nice for some builds.

Unlike most other offerings from Intel’s 11^th generation, the value on the i5-11600k is quite high. While it certainly does not offer the best statistics or performance, it is a respectable mid-range CPU that can more than keep up with modern demand. It may even be enough to challenge AMD’s hold over the budget gaming CPU market with their Ryzen 5 5600X. Notably, even now, a few months after release, prices on the i5 remain close to MSRP. In the current time of turbulent prices, that alone is notable.

The value packed into this offering makes it a great deal but also challenges the place of Intel’s other offerings. Combined with the lackluster stats of the Core i9-11900k, as we will see in a moment, it places Intel’s lineup in an awkward position.

Intel Core i9-11900k

As the flagship model for Intel’s 11^th generation, expectations were high for the Core i9-11900k. Unfortunately, the processor has taken a few too many steps back to represent what entries in the i9 series have in the past. Featuring fewer cores and similar speeds to the 10^th generation core i9, questions about why this processor even needed to exist come into view. Many of these changes are thanks to Intel retrofitting their 10nm mobile architecture to 14nm for this Rocket Lake adaptation. The cuts largely come in the form of fewer cores. The i9-11900k has eight cores and 16 threads – last generation’s 10850k has 10 cores and 20 threads for comparison. Clock speeds for the new offering are average to slightly below average for its price point with a 3.5 GHz base speed and a single-core boost of 5.3 GHz.

In exchange for these reduced and shifted numbers, Intel focused instead on optimization. The advanced technologies seen across the 11^th generation are astounding, and the i9 features all the best options. Most interesting among the improvements is Adaptive Boost Technology, a feature meant to increase raw speed through increased power consumption. It only activates when three or more cores are in use but should provide a nice boost to the processor. Another is Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which singles out the best performing core and increases performance when available.

These changes are nice and help keep the i9-11900k in the running but may not be enough to offset the high price point. However, power efficiency is a concern here. The Core i9-11900k has a TDP of 120 Watts, and across multiple tests rises well above that. Especially when compared to AMD’s offerings, thermal efficiency is an issue on this chip. Good aftermarket cooling is an absolute necessity for this chip, as it can throttle quickly.

General upgrades seen in the Core i5-11600k hold here as well. Memory speed support boosts up to DDR4 3200, and memory bandwidth ups to 50 GB/s. PCIe 4.0 support also hits this processor, upping transfer speeds to 16 Gb/s – double that of PCIe 3.0. While not essential for newer graphics cards, it is a welcome upgrade for the future. Still, with all the improvements made here, the Core i9-11900k is expensive and has underperformed across many tests. As the flagship for the next generation, this processor should be cleanly leading the pack across every test – it does not. Combined with the slight downgrade in paper specs and how killer the i5-11600k is, it is tough to find reasons why anyone but the most enthusiast builders should pay for the upgrade.

Intel Core i5-11600k vs Core i9-11900k: Gaming Benchmarks

Over the past few months, we have seen some proper gaming benchmarks come out on Intel’s 11^th generation. The Core i9-11900k especially received attention as Intel tried to take its throne back from AMD, making it an easy comparison. For more detailed reports on that processor, check out our article considering how it fits in the current CPU space. As for the i5-11600k, it has received praise and tested well across the mid-level CPU competition. Expect the i9 to outperform the i5 across all benchmarks; the true question is how closely the two perform to one another. At almost double the MSRP, and over double the price in real-world markets, the Core i9-11900k needs to blow the Core i5-11600k away to be worth the increase.

Unfortunately for Intel, that has not been the case across testing. UserBenchmark found that across most games in 1080p on Max settings, there was – at most – a 3% increase. Games tested include CSGO, which saw a 3% increase in FPS, GTA V with a 1% increase, Overwatch and PUBG with 3% increases each, and Fortnite with a 1% increase. As expected, all of these were in favor of the Core i9-11900k. While performance is inarguably better, the upgrade is less than expected.

Similarly, effective speed tests across over 1,000 user benchmarks saw only minor increases for the Core i9. These tests are particularly nice for comparison because they are user submitted and, by extension, cover a wide variety of system configurations. Across all of them, the Core i9-11900k saw an average increase of 8% performance over the Core i5-11600k. The only notable area where the Core i9 significantly outperformed the Core i5 was in octa-core speed tests – obvious, given that the i5 has only six. Testing in other games resulted in similar spreads. In Far Cry 5 in 1080p, Eurogamer found that the 11900k outperformed the 11600k by an average of 20 FPS: 158 to 138. In Cyberpunk 2077, they found only a three percent upgrade once again. Their testing used a 2080TI graphics card and the same rig across all testing.

Final Verdict – Core i5-11600k

Intel has nailed the value ratio for the 11^th generation Core i5-11600k. The higher price of the Core i9-11900k was already difficult to justify, and Intel overdelivering on the new i5 makes it even harder. For all but the most dedicated enthusiasts looking to wring out every drop of performance, the Core i5-11600k is more than enough. The i5 being available at or near MSRP is also a huge boon; its main competition is AMD’s offerings, which tend to be $100-$200 over MSRP currently. All things considered, it just may be the best value per dollar across all processors right now.

Of course, some common concerns still reside; The Ryzen 5 5600X found at MSRP is still likely a better option, for instance. Intel’s power consumption and, by extension, thermals, are still abnormally high for those looking to create small and lightweight builds. Some intense workstation builds may also prefer the performance of the i9-11900k or i7-11700k. However, the i5-11600k cuts through these downsides with great performance and pricing. Intel fans likely have AMD to thank for the i5-11600k’s great offering. AMD’s powerful midrange offerings are likely a strong reason why this processor packs so much in at a cheap price. With that said, intel has delivered an incredible processor for a fantastic price that is readily available. For all gaming and most workstation use, it is currently the Intel processor to beat – in both price and value.

Relevant Guides

Want to learn more about the Intel Core i5-11600k? We’ve created a guide on how to purchase one now that it has released. Or compare it to some more processors:

• Where to Buy Intel Core i5-11600K: Pre-Order, Release Date, Price
• Intel Core i5-11600k vs Core i7-11700k: What Are the Key Differences?
• Intel Core i5-11600K vs AMD Ryzen 5600X: What are the Key Differences?

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We’ve demonstrated in our Rocket Lake RAM Speed Analysis article that RAM speeds can make a big difference to potential performance on Rocket Lake CPUs. Even in gaming, when you’re CPU limited there are quite a few FPS up for grabs if you specify a faster memory kit and ensure XMP is enabled. If you’re pushing the boundaries of performance then you can gain even more by selecting fast RAM and manually tuning timings for minimum latencies. It’s important that you balance performance with cost so that you can get the most from your 11900K, whether you want a set-and-forget XMP profile, or have the time and skill to get the most from overclockable RAM on this platform. Whilst B560 and H570 motherboards now allow RAM overclocking and higher RAM speeds, we’d recommend that anyone considering a build with Intel’s new flagship step up to the Z590 platform for maximum flexibility.  In this guide we’ll run through our recommendations for the best RAM for the i9-11900K. 

Best RAM for Intel Core i9-11900K – Our Recommendations

Best 16GB Gaming RAM Kit for i9-11900K

Crucial Ballistix RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 – BL2K8G36C16U4BL

This kit from Crucial uses Micron E-Die modules to achieve its 3600MHz speed and 16-18-18-38 timings. Whilst it’s not the fastest RAM available, it hits the sweet spot of performance gains from RAM latency reduction and a good value price point, as well as guaranteed stability without manual tweaking. E-Die is known to have good overclocking potential so there is scope to further reduce timings if you want to dig into manual settings though. The memory controller can be set to ‘Gear 1’ mode with this RAM, keeping the memory controller clock at a fast but unstressed 1800MHz for improved performance. The kit has RGB and a clean black aesthetic that will match most motherboards. It’s also in common supply meaning you’ll be able to obtain matched DIMMS without too much difficulty if you do decide to upgrade capacity in future. If you just want to get gaming and know you’re not denting the potential performance of your CPU with slow RAM, this is the go-to kit.

Best 32GB Gaming RAM Kit for i9-11900K

G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32 GB (4 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 – B01MSBS0UT

Balancing looks with gaming performance, and also being mindful of the effect of four DIMMs on the memory controller, we recommend this 3200Mhz 4x8GB Kit from G.Skill if you want a great looking and high  performing 32GB memory kit for gaming. The increased bandwidth of four DIMMs slightly offsets the latency increase from a move to 3200MHz RAM, and you can experiment with Gear 1 vs Gear 2 mode to see which gives most performance in your set up – the difference is likely to be minimal. This is a great looking RAM kit with RGB, and 4 full DIMM slots is undoubtedly the best looking RAM configuration meaning you’ll have a build with the go to match the show but at an affordable price. Whilst higher speeds are available, there is minimal performance increase and the much higher cost isn’t justified. 

Best 32GB Productivity RAM Kit for i9-11900K

G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 – B0171GQR0C

Where RAM capacity matters most, this 2x16GB kit is a cost effective way to get 32GB and allow for upgrades should your needs expand in future. For guaranteed compatibility, G.Skill have a handy ‘reverse’ QVL where you can check with your motherboard choice that everything will work. A browse through this list confirms this kits compatibility with the vast bulk of Z590 Motherboard options. This memory will ensure ample RAM space for complex tasks like 4K video editing, photo manipulation, creative design work and CAD.

Best 64GB Power User RAM Kit for i9-11900K

Patriot Viper 4 Blackout 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 – B08662S4NK

If you undertake memory intensive tasks like complex code compilation or very high bitrate video editing, you may benefit from 64GB RAM. This 2x32GB kit from Patriot gives you the benefit of fast speeds, whilst keeping 2 RAM slots free for future upgrades and managing costs. 3200MHz speeds means that Gear 1 mode is possible, and stability is guaranteed. The timings are an acceptably tight 16-18-18-36 and the simple black aesthetic will blend into most builds well. If you’d prefer a 4 stick kit then the G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 64 GB (4 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 is available at just $20 more, $359 (B0171GQNH4)

Best 16GB Overclocking RAM Kit for i9-11900K

Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-4400 CL19 – B07KXLFDL6

We’ve come to know and love this RAM kit, the Patriot Viper Steel -over the 9 months we’ve used it to experiment with overclocking on different CPUs and motherboards. It uses Samsung B-Die IC’s which are legendary for their flexibility and resilience to overclocking, even running elevated voltages with ease to secure that last ounce of performance. Whilst it’s not the ultimate fastest specification, it represents phenomenal value in the overclocking space at around $150, with more specialist and exclusive kits costing three times as much. The pair of 8Gb Matched DIMMs make the most stable overclocking configuration, placing lower load on the memory controller. If you want to dig under the hood to find out what makes an i9-11900K really tick, this memory kit is a great starting point to help you get to grips with ram Overclocking. Higher speed enthusiast kits are available, but tend to be three to four times as costly making this kit an excellent choice by comparison.

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In this article, we’ll investigate the impact of RAM speed on the Intel Core i9-11900K and i9-10850K in gaming. It’s well known that Ryzen Zen 2 and Zen 3 CPUs perform optimally with higher speed RAM, but we’ve often heard it said that ‘RAM speed doesn’t matter as much with Intel’. We wanted to test that. 

With the 11th Gen Rocket Lake CPUs Intel introduced the notion of ‘Gear 1 and Gear 2’ settings for the memory controller. This is analogous to Ryzens’s uClk setting, in which it’s important to match the memory controller clock and infinity fabric speeds to RAM speed for optimal performance. Now, Intel has also handed control of this behaviour to the end-user – or the motherboard manufacturers – so you can adjust this behaviour in 11^th generation K series CPUs. 

We’ll start by looking at RAM speeds and controlling Cas Latency, then move on to looking at Gear 1 vs Gear 2 and what that means for performance. 

The Test Setup:

Whilst testing speeds we used the ASUS ROG MAXIMUS XIII Hero Z590 Motherboard with the recent 0605 BIOS which included Rocket Lake-S specific microcode and improved memory stability and flexibility. We kept CL timings fixed at 16-16-16-32 except for the higher clock speeds where loser timings were required for stability. We used our 16Gb Samsung B-die RAM kit, capable of 4400MHz speeds but changed RAM settings to the primary timings and speeds shown.

i9-11900K & i9-10850K RAM Performance Analysis

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: i9-10850K

Looking first at Shadow of the Tomb Raider on the Intel Core i9-10850K you can see how marked the trend is.

This is the benchmark reported CPU performance, independent of GPU. Moving from 2400MHz CL16 RAM to 3600MHz with all other settings controlled yields a 30 FPS performance increase. Further increasing speed to 4000MHz and reducing latency, but by a smaller amount owing to the lift in CL timings, gives another 4% or 8 FPS average. At 4400MHz CL19 we see our highest performance at 195 FPS average, which’s 43FPS or 28% faster than the base settings. To be clear, 2400MHz or even worse 2133MHz is what will happen by default if you fail to set XMP or the XMP profile on your RAM kit isn’t stable and it resets itself. It can cost you significant performance.

Here’s Rainbow 6 Sieges benchmark, a fast-paced shooter where every FPS matters. Again, this benchmark is consistent and RAM speed-sensitive.

Here we get a slightly different trend, with the best performance at 3600MHZ CL16, and then performance softens at 4000MHz CL17 and 4400MHz CL19. Again, here our overall latency and the looser timings required to keep RAM stable at those very high speeds becomes detrimental to performance.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: i9-11900K

Moving on to Intel’s latest CPU, the i9-11900K and using the same benchmarks, we can see the same trend with a couple of caveats. Note these tests were performed in Gear 2 mode because Gear 1 was unstable at the higher memory speeds. That’s also why 4400MHz is missing from these results, it wasn’t possible to stabilise it in the gaming benchmarks at that speed. 

Here again, we see the serious boost in performance moving from 2400MHz up to 3000MHz, then to 3600MHz adds a total of 55FPS average to the CPU performance, with corresponding hikes in minimum and maximum performance metrics. There’s a 41% boost to performance moving from 2400MHz to 3600MHz CL16.  At 4000Mhz Cl17 performance tails off marginally – again we’re approaching the limits of the memory controller and slacker secondary and tertiary timing dent performance overall. 

Confirming this behaviour in Rainbow 6 Siege, working through the same settings yields the following results:

Again we see peak performance centred around 3600MHz CL16, and a softening towards 4000MHz but were not giving much away between 3000Mhz and 3600Mhz with reasonable timings, 10 FPS or so.

And finally, just to confirm this trend and to show a little data for 4400MHz RAM on the 11900K, we were able to get the Time Spy CPU benchmark to complete at 4400MHz CL19, building the following set of results:

This is perhaps less informative aside from the fact of having that highest speed represented as it’s just a score, but it is indicative of aspects of the CPU performance and we know from another testing that this benchmark does scale well with RAM latency. It looks like we’re really at the bitter end of the memory controllers performance at these higher speeds. It would take a significant investment of time in refining RAM timings manually to, first of all, stabilise the system, and further improve performance. Nevertheless, 4400MHz CL19 does yield the highest score here but it’s not stable enough to run any games.

Gear 1 vs Gear 2

Moving on then to the question of Gear 1 Vs Gear 2 on capable Rocket Lake 11th Generation CPUs, this is a simple toggle in BIOS that runs the memory clock at either half memory speed in Gear 2, or at the same speed in gear 1. Gear 1, therefore, reduces latency, as there’s no missed cycle in communication. The penalty for this is the memory controller becomes less flexible in settings, so we’ve got limited data. Like Ryzens uCLk and FCLk settings, it also appears to be ‘unhappy’ at higher frequencies, and it wasn’t possible to stabilise behaviour at 4000MHz RAM speeds/2000MHz memory controller speeds in the time available. We satisfied ourselves with conducting A-B testing to see what kind of performance difference we could see at settings we could apply consistently across the tests. 

Here we can see small but significant performance benefits from running at Gear 1 and 3600Mhz, with a 10FPS uplift in average frame rates on Rainbow 6 Siege, and we verified this uplift at 2400MHz base settings as well although of course, overall performance is much lower due to the overall speed impact discovered above.

Finally, for a real-world demonstration of this benefit, Flight Sim 2020 is a highly demanding simulator that is frequently CPU bound. Running our standardised benchmark flight over Manhattan yields the following results:

Here, we can see that moving to Gear 1 and matching memory and memory controller speeds yields a small but valuable lift across the full suite of metrics and translate directly into improved performance.

Verdict

This set of results demonstrates how important overall memory latency, as indicated by speed and timings, is for Intel CPUs. Clearly, it can have a significant performance impact in any situation where you’re wholly or partially CPU limited. 

It highlights the importance of ensuring that your Memory is correctly set up. If you didn’t enable the XMP profile on your RAM during set up, or it’s been reset in a BIOS update or by clearing your CMOS, you could be hurting performance significantly. It takes a moment to check this using CPU-Z or Hwinfo64 and doesn’t necessitate entering BIOS. 

For both Comet Lake and Rocket Lake K series CPUs, there appears to be a sweet spot in the region of 3600MHz CL16, and that’s a good starting point for refining system performance. To clarify the settings we used here were ‘quick and dirty’ because of time constraints, with the motherboard left to decide most secondary and all tertiary settings itself. Time spent tightening those timings could yield further performance improvements, but it’s a time-consuming process and tends to offer diminishing returns, and you have to check and validate results not only for performance but for stability as well. 

For most users with K series CPUs, it seems that much like Ryzen you’re best off buying a kit of 3600MHZ CL16 RAM or something with a similar total latency, and if you do that and enable XMP you’ll have gained the bulk of the performance benefit for virtually zero effort. If you spend as much time in BIOS as your operating system, then buying even faster RAM and using the headroom to lower latency as much as possible can yield significant rewards on these CPUs.

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Intel’s brand new flagship, the Core i9-11900K releases today and we’ve been given one to test and review. In this article, we’ll put it through its paces against its closest competitor in specification: The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, and we’ve got an Intel Core i9-10850K for comparison as well because it’s the current high-performance value champion.

Intel has been lagging behind in the CPU wars for six months now. They’ve lacked a CPU that can challenge AMD’s Zen 3 line up for raw performance and were missing features notably PCIe 4.0 support. The new 11^th generation Rocket Lake CPUs seek to address that Intel is making some bold performance claims.

This i9-11900K CPU boasts 5.3GHz peak boost speeds using Thermal Velocity Boost, 8 cores, and 16 threads. It uses the new Xe architecture integrated GPU. The road to Rocket lake hasn’t been smooth though: it’s suffered a convoluted development, originally scheduled to be released on a 10nm production process, then backported to 14nm when that failed. This the end of the line for this architecture, this process node, and this socket as far as Intel are concerned. This should represent the pinnacle of their current capability so we’re eager to find out what it can do.

Test methodology

We’ve taken great care to ensure this test is fair. To do that we’ve controlled every variable that we can. All the synthetic and gaming results you’ll see are obtained with the same RAM settings across the 3 CPUs under test. We’ve tested using an up to date BIOS (0605), released just 6 days before this release. We’ve used exactly the same motherboard for both Intel CPUs, and a B550 motherboard for the Ryzen 5800X, the MSI Mortar. 

For all the gaming and synthetic tests, we kept to Intel’s specifications for multi-core enhancements, power limits, and Thermal Velocity Boost. We did this because to our mind this is comparable to how we’ve tested the 5800X using PBO. Both CPUs were allowed to perform as they do with minimal setup, according to the manufacturer’s intentions, but with the automatic optimisations in place. It’s also the default behaviour of this motherboard. 

We verified this behaviour with A-B testing in a number of metrics and with both our RAM settings and motherboard settings the results represent this CPU performing at its best, outside of more involved manual tuning or overclocking. RAM was set to 3600MHz CL16-16-16-32 in all tests except the specific memory tests. There’s also the issue of ‘Gear 1 and Gear 2’ memory controller settings analogous to Ryzen’s Infinity Fabric and memory controller ratio settings – these tests are run in Gear 1 with the memory controller speed matched to memory speed. We’ve also got a separate article digging deeper into the impacts of Memory speed on performance on this CPU.

The Test System

We ran both Intel CPUs in the Asus Z590 ROG Maximus XIII Hero. With 14 phase 90Amp VRMs this high-end Z590 motherboard is an overclockers dream and we found it very flexible in terms of memory settings. We ran the tests with the 0605 BIOS from ASUS including Intel’s latest Microcode updates. We used a Fractal Design Celcius S28+ AIO Cooler and an Ion+ 860W Platinum Power supply. 

For RAM, we used our 16GB Samsung B-Die 4400MHz CL16 kit, but run it at 3600MHz CL16 in order to match as closely as possible the settings in our Ryzen testing.

For the GPU we used the EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 Ultra but run our test settings in order to expose the CPU performance as much as possible, this powerful and consistent GPU helped us do that. 

The Ryzen comparison system is identical with the exception of an MSI Mortar B550 Motherboard.

Specifications

CPU	Intel Core i9-11900K	Intel Core i9-10850K	AMD Ryzen 5800X
Design
Price	$539	~$380	~$449
Cores/Threads	8/16	10/20	8/16
Process	14nm	14nm	7nm
Architecture	Rocket Lake-S	Comet Lake-S	Zen 3
Peak boost	5.2GHz	5.2GHz	4.7GHz
Boost Technologies	TVB, Turbo Boost Max 3.0, Adaptive Boost Technology	TVB, Turbo Boost Max 3.0	PBO
On Board Graphics	UHD 750	UHD 630	None
Power Draw	125W (TDP) ~250W Max	125W (TDP) ~250W Max	105W (TDP)

Intel Core i9-11900K Performance Analysis

Synthetic Benchmarks

Cinebench R20

Cinebench R20 is a test of single and multicore performance whilst rendering a scene. It is almost entirely independent of memory speed which allows us to isolate raw CPU performance. 

We conducted three runs and averaged to obtain these results. In the multi-core tests, we see that the 10850K and 5800X are neck and neck, both ahead 100 points at 5990 to the 11900K’s 5860. The 4 point difference between the 10850K and 5800X is imperceptible but the last-gen Intel CPU has 10 cores, not 8 to obtain this result.

Looking at the single-core performance again averaged over 3 runs we can see the difference: Both the 11900K and 5800X score an identical 624 points average, whilst the 10850K lags 100 points behind with a score of 516. 

This result is close enough that cooling set up or silicon quality on the chip could influence it but on the raw numbers, the Ryzen 7 CPU performs best in Cinebench R20 overall by matching the 10850K’s multi-core score, and the 11900K’s single-core score.  

Blender

Using Blender to render a couple of scenes, again we get a sense of the rendering performance of these CPUs.

Note that shorter bars are better indicating less time taken: Different scenes favour different aspects of a CPUs performance, and in this test, we can see that for the ‘Classroom’ render, the 11900K and 10850K are neck and neck at 435 seconds, but the 5800X finishes first about 20 seconds quicker.

In BMW27 the i9-10850K takes the lead at 135 seconds, the 11900K is 10 seconds slower, and the 5800X finishes last about 20 seconds behind. There’s no clear winner here, and I feel obliged to point out that we’re using this as a test of the CPUs, and if you’re actually looking to accelerate 3D rendering a GPU will complete the task in a fraction of the time of these CPUs.

3DMark

Moving on to gaming-oriented benchmarks, 3D Mark. Focussing in on the CPU component of the Fire Strike and Time Spy benchmarks, these tests do bring memory performance into play somewhat and also heavily favour higher core counts as it’s a parallel test that uses all cores. 

The i9-11900K places last in Fire Strike, 500 points behind, and splits the difference between the other two CPUs under test in Time Spy. 

So rounding out our synthetic benchmarks, we see a picture of the i9-11900K having a high single-core speed, on a par with the 5800X and able to match the 10850K in some workloads despite having 2 fewer cores. But it’s not faster and struggles to make a mark in these tests.

Game Benchmarks

We ran our gaming benchmarks at 1080p to isolate CPU performance as much as possible, but retained settings that are relevant in the real world. The RTX 3080 helps us see differences in underlying performance. 

Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone is our first test, and we ran a 5-minute battle Royale against bots to try and give an overview of performance, not a snapshot. This game is a mix of CPU and GPU performance and you need both to really achieve high frame rates even at 1080p.

We can see that the 10850K and 11900K perform almost identically here, within a couple of FPS on Average scoring just over 200FPS, min and maximum metrics. The 5800X is the clear winner though with stellar performance and 240FPS average. It’s disappointing that we’re not realising a generational performance lift in this test.

Rainbow 6 Siege

Rainbow 6 Siege has an inbuilt benchmark which we’ve found very consistent.

Here the i9-11900K falls about 20 FPS behind the 10850K on average but is 60 FPS behind the 5800X. Obviously, all three CPUs develop very high performance but it’s a shock to see Intel’s latest flagship unable to outperform either their last generation of AMD’s current equivalent in this highly CPU dependent game.

Doom Eternal

Doom Eternal is also very well optimised and capable of high frame rates and we logged two minutes of play to give us these results:

The 11900K and 10850K perform nearly identically here again, with the 5800X clearly in the lead demonstrating that even with higher settings we’re not GPU-limited in these tests thanks to the power of the RTX 3080.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Moving on to more demanding titles, Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s inbuilt benchmark has exceptional consistency and gives us a breakdown of CPU performance, it’s those numbers we’re looking at here to completely isolate it from GPU performance.

This test is a close-run thing, the i9-10850K is marginally behind, the 5800X marginally in front on average. In reality, it’ll be your GPU that dictates performance in this game, but we’re seeing a trend in performance emerge now between these three CPUs.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 hands another win to the Ryzen 5800X.

Again it’s surprising to see the newest CPU bringing up the rear here, 15 FPS on average behind the 5800X and slightly behind the 10850K.

Flight Simulator 2020

And finally, the game that places the biggest demand on CPU power here, Flight Simulator 2020. This benchmark comprises a three-minute flight from La Guardia over Manhattan and delivers a stern test of the CPU. GPU utilisation stays under 70% here and performance is ultimately dependent on CPU speed.

Here the i9-11900K outperforms the 10850K across the board, delivering 61 FPS on average. That’s not a bad score by any means, but the 5800X beats it once again at 63 FPS average, although performance is slightly less consistent with lower lows, 1% lows and 0.1% lows. Intel made bold claims in their launch presentation about the 11900K’s performance, stating that it was capable of beating the 5900X by 11% – it’s possible that that is the case in other tests or different circumstances, but in this benchmark, it’s not the case falling slightly behind on average.

Gaming performance conclusions

Rounding up the game testing sees the Intel Core i9-11900K in an interesting position: We’re used to seeing the latest component develop a commanding lead. In these tests Intel’s new flagship, the i9-11900K, not only failing to beat a six-month-old part from AMD, but on occasion struggling to match the last generation part from Intel themselves, and one that’s not even their top-flight product.

Memory Speed Scaling

There’s been some discussion online about memory ratios – ‘Gear 1 and Gear 2’ modes in relation to the i7-11700K and i9-11900K. It also helps explain how we arrived at our memory settings for these benchmarks. We’ll touch on this now to cover key points but if it interests you please see our companion article which digs deeper into the effects of memory latency on performance for this CPU and the i9-10850K.

Gear 1 and Gear 2 are simply the full speed or half speed memory controller ratios for the CPU to control RAM. Much like Ryzen’s ‘uclock’ setting this controller to half speed induces latency, and that latency induces a performance penalty. 

Let’s look at a couple of A-B tests in our most consistent benchmarks to demonstrate this effect: 

You can see that ‘Gear One’ offers a slight performance bump, a few FPS, but it’s not a marked difference.

RAM speed also has its own impact on latency. To demonstrate here’s a series of runs of Shadow of the Tomb Raiders benchmarks at different RAM frequencies, but timings retained at CL 16-16-16-32 up to 3600Mhz, and CL17 at 4000MHz for stability. We’re running Gear 2 throughout here because Gear 1 wasn’t stable at 4000MHz: Remember this CPU is only officially rated up to 3200MHz or a 1600MHz Memory Clock speed because the actual RAM clock speed is half the transfer speed.

You can see how the performance gain is significant, but peaks at around 3600MHz and tails off at 4000MHz because we have to loosen timings to maintain stability. The detriment of running 2400MHz RAM is serious, and this data challenges the notion that ram speed is unimportant to Intel CPUs or less important than Ryzen. It clearly makes a big difference to potential performance. This is why we felt it was vitally important to give this CPU the same advantage as the 5800X, and as it happens that occurs around the same RAM settings, 3600MHZ CL16 and gear 1. Overall RAM latency clearly has a big impact on this CPU’s performance. 

If you’d like to see a more in-depth analysis of this including data from the 10850K, please read our linked article focussing on the topic here.

Power and thermals

Power draw and the consequent heat output has long since been the cost of high performance on Intel’s 14nm CPUs. We ran tests to explore this on the i9-11900K. 

The most illuminating result was using the all-core load in Cinebench, and toggling Thermal Velocity Boost to ascertain its effects on both CPU temperature and power draw. These numbers are reported by HWinfo64, total package power and temperature, and in both cases with the 280MM AIO running at full speed.

The first run to the left shows behaviour with the thermal velocity boost enabled – you can see that stock power limits are enforced and the CPU regulates power to 250W. The ASUS motherboard allows this behaviour in its default configuration. All cores sit at about 4.7GHz and the CPU does a good job of holding temperatures at 70°C.  In the second run to the right, disabling Thermal Velocity boost actually allows the CPU to disobey power limits to achieve and maintain as high clock speeds as possible and it goes pretty wild, drawing up to 330W and hitting its new target of 90C before backing off the power and clocks to prevent overheating. Before that, a few cores are hitting 5.1GHz with most at 5Ghz. As a result of over-riding the power and thermal constraints, it scores 6042 points vs around 5900 points in the first run where the lower power limit is enforced. 

This second run is very much a ‘gloves off no limits’ approach, with normal behaviour overridden just to demonstrate the kind of power draw you may encounter if you’re looking to overclock this CPU. The first run is much more indicative of ‘normal’ behaviour and power draw, although in most cases after the higher power time limit, Tau expires, the package power will drop to 125W for extended full core loads. 

Another result of note is that simply changing the CPU cooler settings from automatic behaviour where it scales speed with CPU temperature to full speed all the time yields a 100 point increase in Cinebench R20 – cooling the CPU more aggressively and holding lower temperatures allows it to achieve higher performance. 

The power draw of this CPU can be pretty insane, and you do need both a very solid motherboard power delivery set up and a high-end cooling solution to get the best of it, particularly if you intend on overclocking it.

Conclusion

So, where does this information leave us?

This CPU is a disappointment. We’ve got Intel’s flagship product here, and yet we see it fail to consistently outperform their last-generation chip, and fail to beat the primary competitor from AMD.
Let’s not pretend Intel haven’t tried: They’re used to the top dog position and if they could beat AMD they would. The Zen 3 CPUs were released six months ago so there was a clear target to aim for, and in the synthetics, we can see that they’ve matched it, like for like. But in the gaming tests, it can’t compete.

Ultimately what we’re seeing here is the consequences of the limitations of that ageing 14nm process. At 10nm perhaps this CPU would have run cooler, more efficiently, and at a higher clock speed. Perhaps it would have less cache latency helping gaming performance. But that’s not the case. Intel has laid it all on the table and this is it. 

Then we come onto the real issue, which is price. This is a $539 product. You have to ask yourself what justifies that price? The raw performance doesn’t, and to cap it all you need to invest at least $250 more in a motherboard plus a top tier cooling solution to support it. Not only is the Ryzen 7 5800X $100 cheaper, but it also delivered the results here running on a $150 motherboard. For the cost difference, you could have a 5900X and 12 core performance that blows the 11900K into the weeds for any application that can make use of them. 

This 11^th CPU generation needs to be viewed as what it is – a stopgap that brings Intel up to the specification of Zen 3 chips, with native PCIe 4.0 support but cannot compete on raw performance. It’s also the end of the line for this process, a representation of what many years of refinement and tweaking can do but also what it can’t do. It can’t beat the competition. 

An area we haven’t assessed is the performance of the new integrated GPU – it has some features that may make a significant difference if you do a lot of video encoding or transcoding and again Intel make some bold claims in their productivity slides – so if you’re considering the 11^th Generation for a PC focussed on those tasks it will pay to dig out more specific benchmarks. 

Finally, Asus released yet another BIOS just 5 days before this release, giving us insufficient time to re-test and revalidate all our results. It claims to enable ‘Adaptive Boost Technology’ for this specific CPU, the only one in the product stack to use it. That may give a small bump in multi-core workloads in a correctly configured system, but given that it’s a Beta, and this CPU has actually existed for some time prior to launch, we don’t see it making a step-change in performance. It’s something we’ll review later.

Alternatives?

Ultimately, if you need a PCIe 4.0 platform for content creation or high-performance computing you’ll be looking at AMD anyway, the Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X are seriously performant parts when available.
If you want a very powerful CPU on a budget then Intel caters to that at the moment with the i9-10850K which has been as low as $320, the i7-10700K or if you do want Rocket lake then I cannot see there is a huge gap in performance between this i9-11900K and the i7-11700K beneath it – it’s still an 8-core, 16-thread parts with very good gaming performance and more than enough versatility. And of course, if it’s just gaming you’re interested in, then the Zen 3 Ryzen 5 5600X and 7 5800X which are now more readily available offer the same or better performance at just $300 and $450 respectively, and with a lower platform cost, whilst the i5-10600K is discounted, doesn’t need as expensive of a motherboard, and offers excellent gaming performance as well. 

Nice try Intel, but sadly this CPU just isn’t good enough to justify its price tag. The box is really lovely though. 

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