Intel Core i9-11900K Review

The Core i9-11900K is one of Intel's enthusiast Desktop processors. It was released in 2021 with 8 cores and 16 threads. With base clock at 3.5GHz, max speed at 5.3GHz, and a 125W power rating. The Core i9-11900K is based on the Rocket Lake 14nm family and is part of the Core i9 series.

Core i9-11900K is also the successor of Intel's last gen Core i9-10900K processor that was based on the Comet Lake and 14nm process and was released in 2020.

Speaking of which, if you want a high-end desktop (HEDT) 16-core processor that can compete with the Intel Core i9-11900K, you’re going to have to drop quite a bit more cash and get something like the $710 AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. And, even if you do go with this AMD chip, you won’t necessarily end up with the same level of performance.

The Intel Core i9-11900K is an absolute behemoth of a processor, as it absolutely should be with its 8 cores, 16 threads and high price tag. If you’re looking for the absolute best processor money can buy on a mainstream processor, then look no further. Whether you’re playing PC games or even doing hardcore video and 3D work, the Intel Core i9-11900K can handle them with ease.

What this all means is that the Intel Core i9-11900K is an absolute beast when it comes to multi-threaded workloads, especially at this price point. If you're counting on doing some video editing or compiling one hell of an Excel spreadsheet, you're going to see firsthand a performance boost with the Core i9-11900K.

We stand by that assessment, but that won't escape us from running a few up to date benchmarks. We'll focus on gaming performance which should make life a little easier for AMD's CPU. For application performance you can refer back to our day-one coverage of the Ryzen 9 5900X where the Core i9-10900K was included. You can safely bet the 2.5% factory overclock isn’t going to make the Core i9-11900K any more than about 1-2% faster than those figures.

If you're mostly playing games on your PC, you will be happy buying either processor. Both proved to be solid options and are evenly matched with a slight advantage to the AMD chip if you don't tune up the Ryzen 9 processor. The base performance we showed for the Core i9-11900K can be achieved with $90 memory, while the Ryzen 9 5900X will require $110 - $120 memory in order to enable the frame rates shown here. It’s not a big cost difference and right now with anything less than an RTX 2070 or Vega 64 you’ll more than likely become GPU limited.

The gaming tests with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti installed in the test system showed the Intel Core i9-11900K was more capable than many might have expected. The basic enthusiast processor from Intel that can be picked up for $488 was able to out perform the Ryzen 9 5950X that runs $710 shipped in the three games we tested on. We know that you can’t test on just three games and declare something the overall victor, but it just goes to show that 8-core processors can still manage to get by today. Being able to play current game titles and stream to Twitch on the Core i9-11900K was something we give playable results, but we were pleasantly surprised. As games become more threaded the ‘value’ in a 8-core processor continues to go down, but you can still get by with something like the Core i9-11900K in a pinch.

That said, Intel still lags behind in frequency when the Ryzen 9 5950X operates at 3.7GHz at any given moment and 4.9GHz when push comes to shove.

Now the biggest question is can Intel’s Core i9 processor play games? The answer is simply yes as it got a respectable gaming score of 96% in our benchmarks.

Regardless of those external factors, the Core i9-11900K proves it has the chops to be your main gaming system and a just as effective media creation platform – two things that are becoming intrinsically connected in this age of live-streaming, eSports and uploading gameplay videos.

That said, to squeeze out all the potential of this surprisingly potent enthusiast chip, you’ll want (and need) to splurge on an enthusiast-grade H410, Z470, Z490 motherboard.