Intel’s Core i9-9900K Finally Available at Eye-Watering Prices

Intel’s Core i9-9900K Finally Available at Eye-Watering Prices

When Intel launched the Core i9-9900K, we noted that while the CPU was easily the best-performing (and best-priced, in terms of price-per-core) Intel chip we’d ever tested, its price/performance ratio didn’t hold up very well compared to AMD’s eight-core Ryzen 7 2700X. When we checked prices back on October 26, we saw the Core i9-9900K listing at $580 and said that this might not actually have much impact on the CPU’s attractiveness to its target market. Because the Core i9-9900K was easily the fastest and most capable CPU Intel had previously launched, even besting the 10-core Core i9-7900X in some tests, the company had some room on price when addressing customers who work primarily within the Intel ecosystem.

Intel’s Core i9-9900K Finally Available at Eye-Watering Prices
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This kind of price inflation puts the Core i9-9900K squarely into the Core i9-7900X’s turf, and there’s not a clear winner between them — it varies, depending on which tests you run. The Core i9-99900K is generally equal to the 7900X, but there are certain tests, like Qt compiling, where the 10-core pulls ahead. Feel free to compare them in the slideshow from our 9900K review below.

Intel’s Core i9-9900K Finally Available at Eye-Watering Prices

The results speak for themselves. AVX-512 support in the Core i9-7900X might make it a must-have if you need that compatibility and the Core i9-9900K has slightly lower motherboard costs, but neither chip holds a candle in multi-threading to Threadripper in anything but H.265 encoding, where our results do show the Core i9-9900K still holding an edge over Threadripper, mostly because H.265 encoding doesn’t appear to scale all that well above eight cores. In every test that does scale well above eight cores, including some tests that nominally favor Intel, Threadripper wins.

When we spoke to Intel before the Core i9-9900K launch, the company assured us that it would prioritize high-end, high-value chips like the Core i9-9900K to keep them flowing, even though the company has been working through supply constraints. This type of availability isn’t exactly what we had in mind, and the situation risks turning into a repeat of the Core i7-8700K launch last year, when that chip was technically available but practically impossible to find in-channel at reasonable prices or in anything approaching volume.

Intel’s Core i9-9900K Finally Available at Eye-Watering Prices

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