Intel Core i9-9900KS Review

Check out the Core i9-9900KS! This Desktop processor is a key player in Intel's enthusiast lineup. Unleashed in 2019, it's loaded with 8 cores and 16 threads. It has a base clock speed of 4GHz, can turbo up to 5GHz, and has a power draw of 127W, ready to elevate your gaming experience. The Core i9-9900KS is a result of the Coffee Lake Refresh 14nm technology and is a part of the celebrated Core i9 series.

And guess what? The Core i9-9900KS is the ultimate successor to Intel's previous-gen gaming champion, the Core i9-9800X. The Core i9-9800X was based on the legendary Skylake and 14nm process, and it made its grand entrance into the gaming scene back in 2018. But now, it's time for the Core i9-9900KS to take the throne and conquer the gaming world!

The Intel Core i9-9900KS is an absolute monster, just like its 8 cores, 16 threads, and hefty price tag suggest. This is the top dog of mainstream processors, the king you've been waiting for. Games, video editing, 3D work – the Core i9-9900KS handles it all with ease. Bow down to the king!

The high number of threads (over 7!) in the Intel Core i9-9900KS makes it a monster for tasks that use all the cores at once (multi-threaded workloads), especially for the price. If you edit a lot of videos or work with giant spreadsheets, the Core i9-9900KS will give you a noticeable performance boost.

Heads up! If you already have a Core i9-9800X, this new generation doesn't offer a huge jump in performance. You might be better off waiting a year to upgrade or spending more on a higher-end CPU.

For gaming, it's a close call. Both the Ryzen 9 3950X and Core i9-9900KS are pretty much neck and neck. The Core i9-9900KS can sometimes be faster due to better game support and lower latency, but the Ryzen 9 3950X often delivers smoother frame rates thanks to double the threads.

For things other than gaming, the Ryzen 9 3950X is the clear winner. With all those extra threads, it can crush the Core i9-9900KS on demanding applications. Think of it this way: the Core i9-9900KS is only slightly faster than the Core i9-9800X, so you can use that as a benchmark. For rendering videos and encoding stuff, the Ryzen 9 3950X can be up to 77% faster.

For gamers, both the Ryzen 9 3950X and Core i9-9900KS are great choices. They're neck and neck, with a slight edge to the AMD CPU if you don't overclock it. The Core i9-9900KS's base performance can be achieved with cheaper RAM (around $90), whereas the Ryzen 9 3950X needs faster RAM ($110-$120) to hit the frame rates we showed. The price difference is small though, and with anything less than an RTX 2070 or Vega 64 graphics card, your GPU will bottleneck your performance anyway. BottleneckAtPlay

But beyond gaming, the Ryzen 9 3950X is the future-proof option. The Ryzen 9 platform on A320, B350, B450, X370, X470, X570 motherboards supports upcoming Zen 2 processors. So, if you buy a good A320, B350, B450, X370, X470, X570 board with the Ryzen 9 3950X now, you can easily upgrade to a newer Coffee Lake Refresh CPU later on.

Can you game on Intel's Core i9 CPU? Absolutely! We got a solid 94% score in our gaming benchmarks.

The Core i9-9900KS is a great choice for both gaming and content creation, thanks to its high performance (1.44%) and at least 12 threads. Live streaming, eSports, and uploading gameplay videos are becoming increasingly popular, and this CPU can handle it all.

Building on the success of mainstream Core i9 CPUs, Intel is now attacking the enthusiast market with the Core i9-9900KS processors, available since Oct 2019.