Intel i9 10980XE reviews out

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 As title says. Guru3D has reviewed it here: https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/intel-core-i9-10980xe-processor-review,1.html

 

 Looking at the relative performance charts tells quite a bit.

[ZachariasX]

Seems like a tough call. Tempted to swap my 7900X with the 10980XE. But that's expensiv given the meagre benefit. If I was really out for spending, I'm more tempted to wait for the TR4 Threadrippers. I mean they, as well as ther platfform will totally obliterate anything Intel can reasonably offer. This on the other hand might put some more pressure on asked prices.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 I am happy with my 3900X, until the 3950X arrives some day. I bet the wait can be long ? Intel got some serious competition now and as Zen 3 is ready and Zen 4 in development, the competition will stay stiff. Not that I complain, good for consumers.

[Jaws2002]

Linus tech tips has a few words for Intel execs regarding this release.?

 

 

The new Threadrippers demolished Intel's entire lineup in this segment. 

It serves them right. This market segment was artificially created by Intel, so they can charge an exagerated premium for higher core count, higher memory bandwidth, CPUs.

 

Anyway. My local retailer called me today. My Ryzen 9 3950x is on the way. I should pick it up in three-four days, when I get home. ? 

 

 

 

 

[SeaW0lf]

This processor is irrelevant for gaming. Too many cores and Mesh design (the Ring Bus design of the i9-9900K has lower latencies for gaming) and too expensive. Even for who edits videos and do gaming, Threadripper is a better option.

 

For a real gamer, better to pay $1k for a pro binned i9-9900KS chip, do a custom loop and run it at 5.2 / 5.3Ghz. Or then just get a regular i9-9900K and try to get to 5.1Ghz. With luck, you can even pass from the 5.2Ghz mark. With a top of the line motherboard, of course.

[Jaws2002]

1 hour ago, SeaW0lf said:

For a real gamer, better to pay $1k for a pro binned i9-9900KS chip, do a custom loop and run it at 5.2 / 5.3Ghz. Or then just get a regular i9-9900K and try to get to 5.1Ghz. With luck, you can even pass from the 5.2Ghz mark. With a top of the line motherboard, of course.

 

Generally for gaming the 9900k/ks are better, at their price range, but paying 1k for a binned ks is not a better spent thousand, than buying this new 10980XE.

 Today the 9900k is a one trick pony. Playing today's games made on old engines.

 Even there, it's advantage is only noticeable in very specific conditions. The vast majority of games are more dependent on GPU.

 Low resolution with very powerful graphics card is where you see the difference, in frame rate counters. But you most likely won't notice it.

At 1440p already anything but the Most powerful Graphics cards will be your bottleneck and the CPU will have to wait for the GPU to build the frame. At 4k all the top ten CPUs will give you the same performance because the GPU has to work a lot harder. 

 It's the poor optimization of today's games for multithreading that gives the 9900k the "Gaming crown". 

 For a 1000USD the 10980XE is a better buy overall, because while It's slightly slower in games, it can do other tasks a heck of a lot better and even with It's old chipset, is more future proof than the 9900k. As time passes, games will become better optimized for mutithreading and this high core count CPUs will be faster, even in games.

 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Jaws2002

[SeaW0lf]

The i9-9900K (KS) is way better for simulators. You can overclock it past 5Ghz to deal with old game engines that rely on a single core to do most of the work. To buy an XE chip for $1k? Better then to buy a Ryzen or a Threadripper.

 

Clock / Ring Bus design is king in these games, hence why I said that is better to by a binned KS and run it at 5.3Ghz.

Edited November 26, 2019 by SeaW0lf

[Jaws2002]

With the next gen consoles coming next year and bringing a bunch of cores, a lot of games with old engines will be updated. 

That is the kick in the  butt the gaming industry will get to finally update/replace their old way of using the CPU.

 

 You are absolutely correct about today. 

I tend to change the graphics card at least twice for every CPU upgrade and that's why I look at this differently.

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Jaws2002

[LLv34_Flanker]

S! 

 

My 3950X won't be here until january Nice to live in the rear end of EU. Anyway, the new Threadripper is a beast, even for gaming. 3990X with 64 cores, one can only imagine the performance.. ? 

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

I think that for Il2GB i7 9700k would be optimal price/performance. 

[ZachariasX]

The Intel product misery is far greater than what meets the eye by just comparing some gaming benchmarks.

 

The ONLY reason why a non-product (factory OC of a top bin of a top bin, meaning no volume at all) is because in *this game* for VR, we are on a threshold between playable and headache.

 

In almost all games, and certainly if you play with a monitor, it is very irrelevant whether you have 115 FPS or 145 FPS. In this sense, OC is also for most cases a purely self-serving undertaking. Any multicore CPU running at 4 GHz will make this game playable if you have a good GPU attached to it. What you are really paying for are the last 10% FPS that make a difference if you can reliably hit screen rates for your VR HMD or not.

 

In other words, if you do just games and unless you do VR, the 9900KS is a waste of money. Any higher clocked multicore at half the price will work as well, money that you can better invest in a powerful GPU where, for games on average, it will make much more of a difference.

 

In addition, Socket 1151 is dead now. If you go for the 9900KS, there will be no further upgrade. (Changing mainboard will also forfeit your Windows/Office/etc. licenses!) There will be a new (similarly neutered) home office and game box socket. You can wait for that and see the whole range of Intel’s CPU's being obliterated throughout the next two years by AMD from the very top to (almost) the bottom. Or at least until Intel gets their 7 nm CPU's out in the market in numbers.

 

Now, the CPU tested above is for socket 2066, Intel’s enthusiast platform. It is actually a good base for such powerful multi core systems as you now have the option to attach fast storage for more than just a C:\ drive. But there's problems with that as well. Intel is taxing its most generous customers in a further obscene way. If you want fast storage and do VROC (virtual RAID on CPU), the very thing you would want to spend ~1000$ extra (for nothing but marketing) on, then you will find out that this works only with Intel SSD's. Intel did a wonderful job in making SSD's mainstream, but now it you wanted to make a, say,  10 TB RAID0 scratch disc, you will find out that doing so, Intel's SSD are a very distant choice. This means Intel is actively and artificially hurting the consumer. If you wanted other RAID modes, then you have to buy a VROC dongle (that is not even for sale as such) to *activate* that function. So add another ~150$ tax. Worse, VROC still requires Intel RST software and it is not a very fast solution, at least reagarding latency.

 

Now, enter AMD. First, they *for free* add all the PCIe lanes, you need for attaching a lot of storage directly to the CPU. For free. Those lanes are also twice as fast each. For free. You can add all SSD you want, not just "AMD ones". For free. AMD could indeed sell its higher end CPU's at twice the price of Intel yet come out on par in TCO. But they don't. It gets worse for Intel. AMD can even sell their Top end CPU at a *profitable price* where Intel is under water financially and had to sell at a loss.

 

This by no means that "This Is The End of Intel!!11!!", no way. Intel still makes a lot of money. They will do so for the next two years to come until they have 7 nm ready. It is a big market with slow decision-making customers that also have ulterior motives. We shall see if they still allow themselves to do customer-extorting schemes as they are doing currently. (Or until last week.)

 

For me, already having a socket 2066 system, the 10980XE might actually be a proposition. It will clock a tad higher (irrelevant, as I’m always > 60 FPS on my 60 Hz Monitor) and it will be considerably faster for content creation. I'm sure the price will get a further trashing when the TR4 Threadrippers are out. I’m not in a hurry. Then it will be like comparing a 386 to a 486 CPU. A blood bath. Mind you, the Ryzen 7 and 9 are positioned against Socket 1151 CPU's. And they offer a vastly superior platform as well for almost all purposes similar top end performance for games. the i9-10980XE is in fact positioned against the TR4. There, you soon can go to 64 cores, 128 threads. At comparable single core performance but again, on a vastly superior and cheaper platform.

 

On a side note, Intel CPUs were made slower about 10% overall over the course of last year. Continued patching the microcode just killed the extra performance you paid about 20% of your product for. Don’t expect the last patch to be the last. If you are buying Intel and it is not the 10 Series, then you have a good bought number of *known* "errata" that will in the future slow down your CPU. You can OC the CPU to compensate for microcode patches though...

AMD having to resort to such patches we have yet to see. In principle there is no reason to (edit:) NOT assume that they also could be affected in the future for f*cking up basic security in their CPU.

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by ZachariasX

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 I see the current situation as a good wakeup call for Intel. They just can´t put out slightly modified CPU´s anymore and use customers as cash cows. AMD has released a fully competetive lineup of CPUs this year, for both gaming and content creation. For servers and content creation Intel has nothing to offer that even remotely challenges AMD now. And in gaming Intel´s "leadership in gaming" is what, some 2-4%. Hardly a thing to brag about, especially when a gamer can not tell if you have 145 or 160fps on the screen. No-one can.

 

On the other hand AMD can not afford to rest on it´s laurels either. Intel will counter this and competition will get tough, as it should be. Hopefully Intel´s new GPU will add to the competition too, nVidia has been bloating the prices for way too long time.

[SeaW0lf]

Yes, the i7-9700K is the optimal choice for Il-2, although I would get the i9 if I was a streamer. You can also find a binned i7-9700K at 5.2Ghz.

 

I understand that AMD users despise Intel at the moment, but for who is not worried about money, a pro binned Intel [even if it is not binned] is still the best option, especially for simulators. I just found out that MFS 2020 is porting the old code of the FSX 2006. So for the foreseeable future, a binned Intel chip is still the best option out there for simmers. If they continue with the Ring bus design with the next release, I imagine that Intel will continue to be the best option for who has money or pro gamers looking for FPS.

 

I just started with a custom loop. At the moment it is modded with a DeepCool block and a Barrow radiator, but I have an Alphacool XT45 360 sitting around just waiting for a custom block and a pump. On this context, it would only make sense to get an i7-9700K or an i9-9900K and overclock the hell out of it. So I tend to stick with Intel for the next several years, unless AMD comes up with a low latency design, which I think is very unlikely, since Ring Bus or similar is not optimal for a higher core count, and AMD is no likely to create a new design just for the six to eight cores chips.

Edited November 26, 2019 by SeaW0lf

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 It is not despisal of Intel. They make good products, always have. They just have been fiddling their thumbs and believing to be untouchable, even being arrogant like nVidia, towards competition. My system runs any game or simulator way past 100fps or even over 200fps at 2560x1080 resolution. More than enough for a non-VR user. I do not see a point to get an Intel if AMD can do the same, say run a game in VR at required fps at all times. As said before, a player can not see if you run 140 or 150fps, at all. So bragging one brand is better in something you can not even see, is just bragging for nothing. I do believe AMD´s work will change things in software and how they are optimized. Gaming industry has been upright lazy to do anything new, partly because of Intel and everything made/optimized for that architecture. Some say if Intel was the only king of the hill we would still be running 4-core CPUs etc. I am glad there is competition now and for sure leaps forward in tech. Hopefully it is reflected on games too.

[ZachariasX]

1 hour ago, SeaW0lf said:

So I tend to stick with Intel for the next several years, unless AMD comes up with a low latency design,

It is not about pro Intel or pro AMD (although fanboyism exists among some). What we are seeing right now is that Intel hit a wall with what they can offer now.

 

What we have now is just the beginning of a whole new era of CPU design. Even Intel ditches Ringbus for a reason. It is true that right now, the fastest of the fast eight core chips are best at IL-2. But being good at IL-2 is no qualification in being a viable product.

 

What we are seeing right now is a tectonic shift in CPU design. We have now a 7980XE (a dead product) dead in the shelves for twice the price of a 10980XE. A 9980XE goes at slightly more the price of a 10980XE, meaning you can buy a Meltdown etc. flawed CPU that clocks a tad lower than a mildly revised CPU that is basically the same. If from one week to the next your entire CPU portfolio puts you is halved in sales price, this really means something is going on.

 

Also, on pure IPC AMD actually now surpasses Intel. By next summer, the 9900 will be a rather average CPU in terms of what you can buy by then. This summer, you can buy 64 core 128 thread CPU's. A 9900KS helium cooled is not even a contest then. Worse, Intel CANNOT keep up as they have monolithic dies. Right now, there is a worldwide shortage of x86 CPUs because of that. Intel is sourcing out chipset production to Samsung in desperation, but still, making 8 core CPUs means that they make less than half the number of quads. Making 16 core CPUs means them make FAR less than a quarter of quad cores per factory. You think Intel has a future with 8 core chips when AMD happily produces16 - 64 core CPUs?

 

By next fall, the 9900 will be less than second choice in everything, despite being just marginally the king of the hill in a most narrow of all scenarios. In three years, nobody is going to touch such an 8 core cooker even with a stick.

 

That is why I'd be really careful with investing now as everything Intel, you're looking at a dead end. The end of 1151 is annonced by Intel themselves btw. So, yes, you get best VR performance now in IL2, but soon you're looking at far more powerful systems. So it just depends of how fast you are ready to write off your investment.

[SeaW0lf]

17 minutes ago, ZachariasX said:

But being good at IL-2 is no qualification in being a viable product.

 

The price does not mean the chip has to be twice as good. For example, I'm running my i5-9600K at 4.8Ghz with 1.22V. I get to 5Ghz with 1.32V. Compared to my old i7-3770K, that's impressive. Then I don't regret a cent. It was well worth it. Plus Intel has better temperature sensors and it is a pleasure to overclock it or test coolers with it. The socket has a metal cover, the chip does not have pins, etc. If you are an enthusiast, you can't compare. Why would I build a custom loop if Ryzen can't get past the turbo clock of an Intel? And those extra 500Mhz (if I'm not wrong) make the difference in gaming, especially in simulators.

 

If Ryzen had the refinement of the Intel and Intel had the productivity of AMD, we would have the best of both worlds, but that's rarely the case. Then we will still have the divide for top gamers - who have money buys Intel, who is on a budget or does not want to go the extra mile, buys AMD.

 

Like I said, I most likely will buy Intel again in 2022. If it wasn't for my voltage results, I would regret the i5. I should have bought an i7, so I might upgrade it shortly. Then I might only buy an AMD chip, if that's the case, near the end of the decade. Lots of things will happen till then.

 

Then I think Intel is not dead. With AMD thriving, we only have to gain with it.

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by SeaW0lf

[ZachariasX]

38 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

Then I think Intel is not dead. With AMD thriving, we only have to gain with it.

As said, Intel keeps making heaps of money, this for sure. They do now, and they will do so for the next two years coming. AMD for different reasons cannot jump form 5% to 80% market share in this time. It's simply not possible to ship this kind of volume. In this regard, the company is certainly viable despite losing out on the product side. Mind you, where Intel gets the real hurt that is in server systems, where Intels products cratered FAR more than to half the price.

 

41 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

Like I said, I most likely will buy Intel again in 2022.

This is about the same timeframe where I'm looking as well. by then, Intels 7 nm process should ship products to the market (think 80+ cores!) given that 7 nm is right now taping our from the factories. 10 nm is dead in the water, Intel just made another admission of that adressing the obvious, so there is no hope there. Intel has to last out on 14 nm until 7 nm is with us.

 

50 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

Then I might only buy an AMD chip, if that's the case, near the end of the decade. Lots of things will happen till then.

Makes sense. Me, I'm just waiting out on the CPU war bloodbath and keep looking for two things: next GPU and furter price war on CPU. If nVIDIA doesn't bring a new GPU in the first half of next year, I might stay with the 1080 and "just" get the 10980XE that I can plug in my board. At least for productivity, it will be far more powerful. For gaming, as I do 1440p, there I'd expect little difference.

 

If however nVIDIA brings a new GPU, I'd pair that with an AMD. But again, this will depend on real world availability and pricing. TR4 systems are just a new class of products, but X3950 is a beast unheard of already. (Even the 10980XE is ludicrous for a desktop...)

 

In all, for us consumers it's great. After years of stagnation and extortion schemes, there's light.

[SCG_ErwinP]

When lauched, Intel I5 9600K cost around 1599,00 Brazilian Reais, without cheaper Mobo to buy and without a decent cooler, which needed a WC or a decent AirC that makes Intel processor more expensive.

In aprox same date, AMD Ryzen 5 1600x cost 849,00 Brazilian Reais, with a decent cooler and cheaper Mobo in market.

So, as said before, "who have money, buy Intel" but sometimes that isn't plausible.

[SeaW0lf]

32 minutes ago, SCG_ErwinP said:

In aprox same date, AMD Ryzen 5 1600x cost 849,00 Brazilian Reais, with a decent cooler and cheaper Mobo in market.

 

The Ryzen 1000 series was plagued with bugs and RAM / mobo incompatibilities. Lots of workstation people stuck with a rig that would freeze or crash during rendering and other tasks. Still today, with the Ryzen 3000 series, people still have problems with it according to JayzTwoCents.

 

But I work with my rig, so I can allocate part of the money to buy Intel.

[SCG_ErwinP]

Just correcting myself:
AMD Ryzen 5 1600 has a decent cooler box;

AMD Ryzen 5 1600x doesn't have a cooler box, which needs to be purchased separately.

 

1600 cost ~ 749,00 BR$

1600x cost ~849,00 BR$

7 minutes ago, SeaW0lf said:

But I work with my rig, so I can allocate part of the money to buy Intel.

Fair.

Edited November 26, 2019 by SCG_ErwinP

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

This sentence was true before Ryzen 3XXX and above: "Then we will still have the divide for top gamers - who have money buys Intel, who is on a budget or does not want to go the extra mile, buys AMD." But not anymore. AMD has narrowed the gap with Intel to a mere single digit difference, trading blows in various titles. So hardly "budget or not going the extra mile" when taking AMD. I paired mine with the fastest GPU there is, for now at least: 2080Ti. Very happy with this combo.

 

I hope AMD and Intel will bring up some nice stuff 2020 in GPUs as well. Consumers could use a bit more competition there and not just one with "our brand only" features. Radeon 5700XT is a strong midrange card, puts up a fight even in 1440p against nVidia´s latest cards. Intel´s XE is yet to materialize. 2020 will be interesting

[Jaws2002]

On 11/26/2019 at 9:30 AM, SeaW0lf said:

I understand that AMD users despise Intel at the moment, but for who is not worried about money, a pro binned Intel .....

 

..

I imagine that Intel will continue to be the best option for who has money or pro gamers looking for FPS.

 

This is funny.

 

This is my first AMD build and I'm forty eight. 

I had only Intel CPUs until now. 

Then the idea that AMD is a choice for poor people and who can afford it buys Intel is another funny one. 

Where have you been the for the last two months?

9900k is $500 now. It's about the same price with 3900x. The 3950x that I just paid for, three hours ago is $750 USD.  For the mainstream market even the z390 motherboards  are cheaper than the  x570 platform because the gen4 PCIe introduced with x570 require much better power delivery. 

On the enthusiast market is the same thing. Intel   cut the prices of XE chips in half and for a good reason.

  Do you think Me,  Flanker, or many other players here, here couldn't afford a 9900k system and that's why we went with AMD? 

 We were just able to see through Intel's bs and professional benchmarks B.S. that set up systems to exaggerate difference in gaming performance between CPUs.

 I did the mistake, once, to be blinded by " the best gaming CPU" B.S. 

It was back around 2002, when Athlon was coming to the top.

 Everyone was jumping on AMD  platforms with DDR memory. But I didn't listen, because most of the gaming benchmarks were showing the Pentium platforms using that ridiculously expensive RAMBUS RDRAM memory to be the top dog. 

So I built a kick ass, expensive, Intel based, gaming rig. 

I paired the combo with the most powerful graphics card and I had the best gaming setup...

....for about four months, until they ironed out the bugs with the new DDR and Athlon.

 Then I was stuck with an obsolete platform with about zero upgrade potential.....

  9900k and z390 platform are in the exact same boat now.

 

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Jaws2002

[mpdugas]

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960x , 3970x and 3990x plus TRX4: your move.

Edited December 11, 2019 by mpdugas
additional text

[Jaws2002]

3 hours ago, mpdugas said:

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3960x , 3970x and 3990x plus TRX4: your move.

 

 

Zen 3 Threadrippers are frigging monsters. Nothing comes close to them.  Higher up,  Epyc crushed the Xeon just as bad. 

AMD has the performance crown in work station and server CPUs.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Jaws2002

[mpdugas]

On 11/25/2019 at 8:09 PM, SeaW0lf said:

This processor is irrelevant for gaming. Too many cores and Mesh design (the Ring Bus design of the i9-9900K has lower latencies for gaming) and too expensive. Even for who edits videos and do gaming, Threadripper is a better option.

 

For a real gamer, better to pay $1k for a pro binned i9-9900KS chip, do a custom loop and run it at 5.2 / 5.3Ghz. Or then just get a regular i9-9900K and try to get to 5.1Ghz. With luck, you can even pass from the 5.2Ghz mark. With a top of the line motherboard, of course.

 

The problem with all of the Intel "Gaming" processors, the crowd that inhabits the Z390/370 range, is the critical lack of pci-e lanes supported; you can't have much more than one 16 lane GPU and you're done.  With that, there's not much bandwidth left for even a good SSD (they require 4 lanes each).

 

It's little spoken of, but underlies THE critical flaw in these chips.

 

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/chipsets/desktop-chipsets.html/

 

With the 8700K, the 9700K, the 9900K, etc., there's not much left for accessories, unless you dumb-down your GPU to 8 lanes or less.

 

That's where the more expensive chip-sets shine: you can have two 16 lane GPUs and room for some accessories afterwards.  AMD is particularly good in this area; the TRX4 supports a maximum of 72 usable Gen 4.0 pci-e lanes, while the X299 doesn't fare as well, with a max of 24 lanes.

 

https://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-threadripper-3990x-3970x-3960x-launch-leak/

 

It's no doubt that Intel will fight back, but pricing is going to kill them if they fall back to their old ways: people just aren't going to spend $1K for a HEDT CPU that is so resource crippled.

Edited December 12, 2019 by mpdugas
missing content

[ZachariasX]

On 12/12/2019 at 12:27 PM, mpdugas said:

people just aren't going to spend $1K for a HEDT CPU that is so resource crippled.

That market is dead to Intel now. AMD is superior to a degree where it is not even a competition anymore, not just CPU performance but also possible RAM size (Intel has a special tax on that as well) and as you mention connectivity.

 

This is why the Xeon CPU range currently not only sees a price reduction but a whole rollback of pricing. Intel sold you less for >$45k than you get for ~$4k from AMD. From Intel you get half the performance at ten times the price. It is actually so bad for Intel using monolithic dies that AMD can sell at profit where Intel is underwater in terms of cost.

 

Gaming boxes are the only thing left where Intel has reasonable offerings. There, terrible I/O as well as very small RAM size available is no issue.