Intel Announces 9th Gen Core CPUs

[Arthur]

UK prices for the i5-9600K, i7-9700K and i9-9900K are £349.99, £499.99 and £599.99 respectively.

 

Source: AnandTech

 

Leading from the top of the stack is the Core i9-9900K, Intel’s new flagship mainstream processor. This part is eight full cores with hyperthreading, with a base frequency of 3.6 GHz at 95W TDP, and a turbo up to 5.0 GHz on two cores. Memory support is up to dual channel DDR4-2666. The Core i9-9900K builds upon the Core i7-8086K from the 8th Generation product line by adding two more cores, and increasing that 5.0 GHz turbo from one core to two cores. The all-core turbo is 4.7 GHz, so it will be interesting to see what the power consumption is when the processor is fully loaded. The Core i9 family will have the full 2MB of L3 cache per core.

 

Also featuring 8-cores is the Core i7-9700K, but without the hyperthreading. This part will have a base frequency of 3.6 GHz as well for a given 95W TDP, but can turbo up to 4.9 GHz only on a single core. The i7-9700K is meant to be the direct upgrade over the Core i7-8700K, and although both chips have the same underlying Coffee Lake microarchitecture, the 9700K has two more cores and slightly better turbo performance, but less L3 cache per core at only 1.5MB per.

 

The other important overclocking focused processor is the Core i5-9600K, with six cores without hyperthreading. Users will also see a lot of similarity in this part to the Core i5 of the previous generation, but with added frequency.

 

 

TIM: Soldered Down Processors

Intel has officially confirmed that new 9th generation processors will feature a layer of solder making up the TIM between the die and the IHS. The new processors with solder include the Core i9-9900K, the Core i7-9700K and Core i5-9600K.

 

In recent times Intel has opted to use a cheaper thermal interface comprised of a paste which in comparison to solder has a lower thermal conduction rating and thus led to a number of solutions cropping up which allowed users to delid the IHS from the chip and replace the cheaper material. The fact the new Intel 9th generation processors will indeed now feature a solder-based TIM means that the processors on the new 14++ process should in effect run cooler in comparison clock for clock and allow Intel and users to potentially overclock a little further.

 

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Hardware and Software Security Fixes

What makes this a little different are the eight-core products. In order to make these, Intel had to create new die masks for the manufacturing line, as their previous masks only went up to six cores (and before that, four cores). This would, theoretically, give Intel a chance to implement some of the hardware mitigations for Spectre/Meltdown. As of the time of writing, we have not been given any indication that this is the case, perhaps due to the core design being essentially a variant of Skylake in a new processor. We will have to wait until a new microarchitecture comes to the forefront to see any changes.

Edited October 8, 2018 by Arthur

[caffrey]

Odd pricing, the 8700k is £100 more than I paid for one nearly a year ago... Intel have some serious supply issues

[Arthur]