The Intel Comet Lake Core i9-10900K, i7-10700K, i5-10600K CPU Review: Skylake We Go Again
by Dr. Ian Cutress on May 20, 2020 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Skylake
- 14nm
- Z490
- 10th Gen Core
- Comet Lake
Test Bed and Setup
As per our processor testing policy, we take a premium category motherboard suitable for the socket, and equip the system with a suitable amount of memory running at the manufacturer's maximum supported frequency. This is also typically run at JEDEC subtimings where possible. It is noted that some users are not keen on this policy, stating that sometimes the maximum supported frequency is quite low, or faster memory is available at a similar price, or that the JEDEC speeds can be prohibitive for performance. While these comments make sense, ultimately very few users apply memory profiles (either XMP or other) as they require interaction with the BIOS, and most users will fall back on JEDEC supported speeds - this includes home users as well as industry who might want to shave off a cent or two from the cost or stay within the margins set by the manufacturer. Where possible, we will extend out testing to include faster memory modules either at the same time as the review or a later date.
| Test Setup | |
| Intel Core 10th Gen | Intel Core i9-10900K Intel Core i7-10700K Intel Core i5-10600K |
| Motherboard | ASRock Z490 PG Velocita (P1.30a) |
| CPU Cooler | TRUE Copper (2kg) |
| DRAM | Corsair Vengeance RGB 4x8GB DDR4-2933 Corsair Vengeance RGB 4x8GB DDR4-2666 |
| GPU | Sapphire RX 460 2GB (CPU Tests) MSI GTX 1080 Gaming 8G (Gaming Tests) |
| PSU | Corsair AX860i |
| SSD | Crucial MX500 2TB |
| OS | Windows 10 1909 |
Please note we are still using our 2019 gaming test suite for CPU reviews with a GTX 1080. We are in the process of rewriting our gaming test suite with some new tests, such as Borderlands and Gears Tactics, as well as changing the settings we test and moving up to an RTX 2080 Ti. It's going to take a while to do regression testing for our gaming suite, so please bear with us.
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our multiple test beds. Some of this hardware is not in this test bed specifically, but is used in other testing.
| Hardware Providers | |||
| Sapphire RX 460 Nitro | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X OC | Crucial MX200 + MX500 SSDs |
Corsair AX860i + AX1200i PSUs |
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| G.Skill RipjawsV, SniperX, FlareX |
Crucial Ballistix DDR4 |
Silverstone Coolers |
Silverstone Fans |
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Scale Up vs Scale Out: Benefits of Automation
One comment we get every now and again is that automation isn’t the best way of testing – there’s a higher barrier to entry, and it limits the tests that can be done. From our perspective, despite taking a little while to program properly (and get it right), automation means we can do several things:
- Guarantee consistent breaks between tests for cooldown to occur, rather than variable cooldown times based on ‘if I’m looking at the screen’
- It allows us to simultaneously test several systems at once. I currently run five systems in my office (limited by the number of 4K monitors, and space) which means we can process more hardware at the same time
- We can leave tests to run overnight, very useful for a deadline
- With a good enough script, tests can be added very easily
Our benchmark suite collates all the results and spits out data as the tests are running to a central storage platform, which I can probe mid-run to update data as it comes through. This also acts as a mental check in case any of the data might be abnormal.
We do have one major limitation, and that rests on the side of our gaming tests. We are running multiple tests through one Steam account, some of which (like GTA) are online only. As Steam only lets one system play on an account at once, our gaming script probes Steam’s own APIs to determine if we are ‘online’ or not, and to run offline tests until the account is free to be logged in on that system. Depending on the number of games we test that absolutely require online mode, it can be a bit of a bottleneck.
Benchmark Suite Updates
As always, we do take requests. It helps us understand the workloads that everyone is running and plan accordingly.
A side note on software packages: we have had requests for tests on software such as ANSYS, or other professional grade software. The downside of testing this software is licensing and scale. Most of these companies do not particularly care about us running tests, and state it’s not part of their goals. Others, like Agisoft, are more than willing to help. If you are involved in these software packages, the best way to see us benchmark them is to reach out. We have special versions of software for some of our tests, and if we can get something that works, and relevant to the audience, then we shouldn’t have too much difficulty adding it to the suite.
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ByteMag - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
I'm wondering why the 3300X wasn't in the DigiCortex benchmark? This $120 dollar 4c/8t banger lays waste to the selected lineup. Or is it too much of a foreshadowing of how Zen 3 may perform? I guess benchmarks can sometimes be like a box of chocolates.ozzuneoj86 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
Just a request, but can you guys consider renaming the "IGP" quality level something different? The site has been doing it for a while and it kind of seems like they may not even know why at this point. Just change it to "Lowest" or something. Listing "IGP" as a test, when running a 2080 Ti on a CPU that doesn't have integrated graphics is extremely confusing to readers, to say the least.Also, I know the main reason for not changing testing methods is so that comparisons can be done (and charts can be made) without having to test all of the other hardware configs, but I have one small request for the next suite of tests (I'm sure they'll be revised soon). I'd request that testing levels for CPU benchmarks should be:
Low Settings at 720P
Max Settings at 1080P
Max Settings at 1440P
Max Settings at 4K
(Maybe a High Settings at 1080P thrown in for games where the CPU load is greatly affected by graphics settings)
Drop 8K testing unless we're dealing with flagship GPU releases. It just seems like 8K has very little bearing on what people are realistically going to need to know. A benchmark that shows a range from 6fps for the slowest to 9fps for the fastest is completely pointless, especially for CPU testing. In the future, replacing that with a more common or more requested resolution would surely be more useful to your readers.
Often times the visual settings in games do have a significant impact on CPU load, so tying the graphical settings to the resolution for each benchmark really muddies the waters. Why not just assume worst case scenario performance (max settings) for each resolution and go from there? Obviously anti-aliasing would need to be selected based on the game and resolution, with the focus being on higher frame rates (maybe no or low AA) for faster paced games and higher fidelity for slower paced games.
Just my 2 cents. I greatly appreciate the work you guys do and it's nice to see a tech site that is still doing written reviews rather than forcing people to spend half an hour watching a video. Yeah, I'm old school.
Spunjji - Tuesday, May 26, 2020 - link
Agreed 99% with this (especially that last part, all hial the written review) - but I'd personally say it makes more sense for the CPU reviews to be limited to 720p Low, 1080P High and 1440P Max.My theory behind that:
720p Low gives you that entirely academic CPU-limited comparison that some people still seem to love. I don't get it, but w/e.
1080p High is the kind of setting people with high-refresh-rate monitors are likely to run - having things look good, but not burning frames for near-invisible changes. CPU limiting is likely to be in play at higher frame rates. We can see whether a given CPU will get you all the way to your refresh-rate limit..
1440p Max *should* take you to GPU-limited territory. Any setting above this ought to be equally limited, so that should cover you for everything, and if a given CPU and/or game doesn't behave that way then it's a point of interest.
dickeywang - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
With more and more cores being added to the CPU, it would've been nice to see some benchmarks under Linux.MDD1963 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
Darn near a full 2% gain in FPS in some games! Quite ...uhhh..... impressive! :/MDD1963 - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
Doing these CPU gaming comparisons at 720P is just as silly as when HardOCP used to include 640x480 CPU scaling...; 1080P is low enough, go medium details if needed.Spunjji - Tuesday, May 26, 2020 - link
Personally agreed here. It just gives more fodder to the "15% advantage in gaming" trolls.croc - Wednesday, May 20, 2020 - link
It would be 'nice' if the author could use results from the exact same stack of chips for each test. If the same results cannot be obtained from the same stack, then whittle the stack down to those chips for which the full set of tests can be obtained. I could understand the lack of results on newly added tests...For a peer review exercise it would be imperative, and here at Anandtech I am sure that there are many peers....
69369369 - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
Overheating and very high power bills happens with Intel.Atom2 - Thursday, May 21, 2020 - link
Dear Ian, You must be the only person on the planet that goes to such lengths not to use AVX, that you even compare Intel's AVX512 instructions to a GPU based OpenCL, just to have a reason not to use it. Consequently you only have AMD win the synthetic benchmarks, but all real world math is held by Intel. Additionally, all those synthetics, which are "not" compiled with Intel C++. Forget it... GCC is only used by Universities. The level of bias towards AMD is becoming surreal.