Intel Announces 9th Generation Core Processors, Eight-Core Core i9-9900K

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Intel has finally unveiled its new 9th generation Core processors at its fall launch event of desktop computers here in New York. The Core i9-9900K is the flagship product of the new range, offering eight cores and sixteen threads. Processors are available for pre-order today and will be widely available on November 19th. Intel has also released several additions to its new 9th generation Core processor family and announced that the new processors come with the Welding Thermal Interface (STIM) material.

The new Coffee Lake Refresh processors are a response to AMD's Ryzen, which has pushed our expectations to eight hearts. The Intel architecture of Coffee Lake, whose number of cores grew to six cores last year, has retained its leading position in single-threaded applications, like many desktop and gaming applications, while that AMD's Ryzen has generally taken the lead in more intense multithreaded applications. The 9th generation Intel processors use the same underlying microarchitecture of Coffee Lake, but adding two more cores to the flagship product should allow the company to take advantage of its performance advantage by heart to also take the lead. 'forefront in multithreaded applications.

The new range integrates into the existing 300 series motherboards, but Intel's partners also feature a large number of Z390 motherboards., Which you can see here.

Intel Coffee Lake Refresh

As expected, Intel divides its families into Core i7 and i5 models, but the 9th GGeneration Core processors also mark the beginning of the new Core i9 eight-core processor series. As usual, all Intel "K" processors come with unlocked multipliers that allow overclocking. The new processor family also includes built-in silicon mitigation for Spectrum and Meltdown vulnerabilities.

Intel Core i9-9900K

The flagship Core i9-9900K product comes with eight cores and sixteen threads running at 3.6 GHz for light activity, but up to 5 GHz on a single core during intense workloads. The processor comes with 2 MB of L3 cache per core, totaling 16 MB, more than the Intel Core i7 and i5 because of the extra two cores.

Intel's Solder TIM technology allows the processor to dissipate heat more easily during use, allowing the Core i9-9900K to remain in the same TDP 95W envelope as its predecessors, even if it has two extra hearts. We expect the processor to use the same Intel underlying ring bus architecture, which is a high-speed internal path that connects the cores and the cache, but we will share more information at as they become available.

Intel Core i7-9700K

The Intel Core i7 processor series traditionally features hyperthreading, which allows a single core to run two software threads simultaneously, improving performance. The Kaby Lake processors come with four cores and eight threads, while the Coffee Lake processors brought a total of six cores and twelve threads.

But the 9th generation of Intel processors presents a fundamental change: Core i7 processors now have eight cores without hyperthreading. The hyperthreading results in about 15 to 20% more performance per heart under ideal conditions. Therefore, the intelligent removal of Core i7-9700K functionality should allow the eight-core eight-thread processor to be faster than its twelve-threaded predecessor in most workloads. Some applications also offer better performance on cores without hyperthreading because context switching and thread migration on hyperthread cores can result in penalties in some workloads. Therefore, threads running on physical cores can be an advantage for some tasks.

All this means that the Core i7-9700K, featuring eight core / 3.6GHz / 4.9GHz base / boost clocks, should be faster than the previous generation Core i7-8700K, allowing thus Intel to keep its stack of products strictly organized. This processor also comes with the Intel TIM Solder and has a rated power of 95W TDP. Intel, of course, disables some of the cache on the die because this eight-core model comes with only 12 MB of L3 cache.

Intel Core i5-9600K

The 9th generation Core i5 series still features the same six physical cores without hyperthreading as their Coffee Lake counterparts. The Core i5-9600K comes with a base clock of 3.7 GHz and goes to 4.6 GHz. Like the Intel Core i5 and i7 models, it comes with a 95W TDP. Intel also associates each core with 1.5 MB of L3 cache, which adds 9 MB.

The new thermal interface material for Intel packaging and soldering

It is clear that Intel is responding to several key principles of the AMD value proposition. Intel has strengthened its packaging, a clear answer to AMD's exotic Threadripper packaging, and has also replaced its thermal grease with Solder TIM to improve heat transfer efficiency between the heatsink and die.

This important step forward should improve the overclocking performance of users in search of extreme performance, while improving thermal performance during standard operations, which will improve overall performance by allowing processors to run more smoothly. frequently in Turbo Boost mode, then keeping the clock speeds high for longer periods of time.

Intel has not yet released the details of the full range, but we have the full range of Intel's Coffee Lake Refresh processors above.

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