The Intel Core i9 10900 Review

Introduction

The Intel Core i9 10900 is a processor without a purpose to some. I’ve been hearing tons of opinions out there from people. It’s a locked SKU with a turbo that is 100MHz lower than the unlocked SKU. It only allows up to 2933 DDR4 memory speeds. Besides that, it’s only $70 cheaper. So why buy this? Let’s run through some benchmarks and find out together.

Test Setup

Specs

Intel Core i9 10900 (What is being tested)
ASRock B460M Pro4 (What is being tested)
32GB G.Skill F4-3466C16D-16GTZR (What is being tested)
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME
EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB XC ULTRA+
SeaSonic FOCUS Plus Gold 550W
RAIJINTEK STYX PINK

Test Environment

Windows 10 (20161 Fast Ring Preview)
70F semi-controlled ambient temperature
Open air case
Fans 100%
The new stock Intel cooler
Turbo Boost 3.0 Enabled
Thermal Velocity Boost Enabled
Core C-States Enabled
Package C-States Disabled
Validated (as much as I could, it is kinda hard) that the CPU is doing what it should be doing during tests with HWINFO64
Stock tests were performed with the default JEDEC 2933 memory timings
Undervolted tests were performed with the F4-3466C16D-16GTZR’s XMP timings but at 2933 as this is the limit of the platform (15-15-15-36-374-2T)
Undervolted tests were at a -0.100v offset to the core

Benchmarks

AIDA64 6.20.5300 (3 iterations)
Cinebench R20 (6 multi threaded iterations & up to 6 single threaded iterations)
Cinebench R15 (6 multi threaded iterations & up to 6 single threaded iterations)
Asus Realbench 2.43 (6 iterations)
PassMark PerformanceTest 10 (6 iterations & Keep Best Score)

Begging Time

Before we get into it, I need to beg for money during these impossible times. You know what’s going on right now is nuts. We’re all having issues with money, health, and sanity. I completely understand if you are unable to gift any money my direction but if you can I’d appreciate it if you could PayPal Me some money if you appreciate the work I do. Motivation is limited and money is something that is universally motivating. Since this is a self-funded operation any little bit helps in a ton of ways. Thank you!

Benchmark Results

Cinebench R15 - Base Frequency Boost

Let me explain what you’re looking at here. Comet Lake desktop CPUs have a— I guess new thing, that lets you adjust the PL1 value of locked SKUs. ASRock calls it Base Frequency Boost or BFB. Other manufacturers have different names for it. With BFB you should be able to get free performance from your CPU. If you want to know what this CPU scores “out of the box” then only look at the 65w results for each benchmark. If you are interested in the boosted PL1 results then what I did was do some testing to determine the lowest stable core voltage offset, which was 0.100v and that happens to also be the lowest the ASRock B460M Pro4 allows. So, with that 0.100v offset I tested the stock 65w PL1 and a 110w PL1 and the maximum 125w PL1. The CPU in all situations still reaches a high PL2 CPU Package Power of 190w-ish. The offset does calm it down a bit but I’ll possibly get into that in more detail in another writeup.