Core i9-10900K: specs and benchmarks

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Aggregate performance score

Core i9-10900K
2020
10 cores / 20 threads, 125 Watt
14.31

Core i9-10900K provides good benchmark performance at 14.31% of a leader's which is a 96-core EPYC 9655P.

Summary

Intel started Core i9-10900K sales 30 April 2020 at a recommended price of $488. This is a Comet Lake architecture desktop processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 10 cores and 20 threads, and is based on 14 nm manufacturing technology, with a max turbo frequency of 5200 MHz and an unlocked multiplier.

Compatibility-wise, this is FCLGA1200 processor with a TDP of 125 Watt and a maximum temperature of 72 °C. It supports DDR4 memory.

Primary details

Core i9-10900K processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.

Place in the ranking507
Place by popularitynot in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation15.60
Market segmentDesktop processor
Power efficiency10.83of 100.00 (Ryzen Z1 Extreme)
Architecture codenameComet Lake (2020)
Release date30 April 2020 (4 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)$488of 17,906 (Xeon Platinum 8280L)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance per price, higher is better.

Detailed specifications

Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.

Physical cores10 (Deca-Core)
Threads20
Base clock speed3.7 GHzof 4.7 GHz (FX-9590)
Boost clock speed5.2 GHzof 6.2 GHz (Core i9-14900KS)
Bus rate8 GT/s
L1 cache64 KB (per core)of 80 KB (EPYC 9965)
L2 cache256 KB (per core)
L3 cache20 MB (shared)of 1152 MB (EPYC 9684X)
Chip lithography14 nmof 3 nm (Apple M3 Max 16-Core)
Die size206 mm2
Maximum core temperature100 °Cof 110 °C (Atom x7-E3950)
Maximum case temperature (TCase)72 °Cof 105 °C (Core i7-5950HQ)
64 bit support+
Windows 11 compatibility+
Unlocked multiplier+

Compatibility

Information on Core i9-10900K compatibility with other computer components and devices: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.

Number of CPUs in a configuration1of 8 (Opteron 842)
SocketFCLGA1200
Power consumption (TDP)125 Wattof 500 Watt (Xeon 6960P)

Technologies and extensions

Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Core i9-10900K. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.

Instruction set extensionsIntel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2
AES-NI+
FMA+
AVX+
vPro+
Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST)+
Turbo Boost Technology2.0
Hyper-Threading Technology+
Idle States+
Thermal Monitoring+
SIPP+
Turbo Boost Max 3.0+

Security technologies

Processor technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.

TXT+
EDB+
Secure Key+
Identity Protection+
SGXYes with Intel® ME
OS Guard+

Virtualization technologies

Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.

VT-d+
VT-x+
EPT+

Memory specs

Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by Core i9-10900K's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.

Supported memory typesDDR4
Maximum memory size128 GBof 6 TiB (EPYC 9124)
Max memory channels2of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221)
Maximum memory bandwidth45.8 GB/sof 460.8 GB/s (EPYC 9124)

Graphics specifications

General parameters of a GPU integrated into Core i9-10900K.

Integrated graphics cardIntel UHD Graphics 630
Max video memory64 GB
Quick Sync Video+
Clear Video+
Clear Video HD+
Graphics max frequency1.2 GHz
InTru 3D+

Graphics interfaces

Available interfaces and connections of Core i9-10900K's integrated GPU.

Number of displays supported3

Graphics image quality

Maximum display resolutions supported by Core i9-10900K's integrated GPU, including resolutions over different interfaces.

4K resolution support+
Max resolution over HDMI 1.44096 x 2160@30Hz
Max resolution over eDP4096 x 2304@60Hz
Max resolution over DisplayPort4096 x 2304@60Hz

Graphics API support

APIs supported by Core i9-10900K's integrated GPU, sometimes API versions are included.

DirectX12
OpenGL4.5

Peripherals

Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.

PCIe version3.0of 5.0 (Core i9-12900K)
PCI Express lanes16of 128 (EPYC 7551P)

Benchmark performance

Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Core i9-10900K. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.


Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

i9-10900K 14.31

Passmark

Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.

i9-10900K 22731

GeekBench 5 Single-Core

GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.

i9-10900K 1775

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core

GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.

i9-10900K 9060

Cinebench 10 32-bit single-core

Cinebench R10 is an ancient ray tracing benchmark for processors by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. Its single core version uses just one CPU thread to render a futuristic looking motorcycle.

i9-10900K 8127

Cinebench 10 32-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 10 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R10 using all the processor threads. Possible number of threads is limited by 16 in this version.

i9-10900K 59368

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 11.5 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R11.5 which uses all the processor threads. A maximum of 64 threads is supported in this version.

i9-10900K 29

Cinebench 15 64-bit multi-core

Cinebench Release 15 Multi Core is a variant of Cinebench R15 which uses all the processor threads.

i9-10900K 2533

Cinebench 15 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R15 (standing for Release 15) is a benchmark made by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version (sometimes called Single-Thread) only uses a single processor thread to render a room full of reflective spheres and light sources.

i9-10900K 217

Cinebench 11.5 64-bit single-core

Cinebench R11.5 is an old benchmark by Maxon, authors of Cinema 4D. It was superseded by later versions of Cinebench, which use more modern variants of Cinema 4D engine. The Single Core version loads a single thread with ray tracing to render a glossy room full of crystal spheres and light sources.

i9-10900K 2.56

TrueCrypt AES

TrueCrypt is a discontinued piece of software that was widely used for on-the-fly-encryption of disk partitions, now superseded by VeraCrypt. It contains several embedded performance tests, one of them being TrueCrypt AES, which measures data encryption speed using AES algorithm. Result is encryption speed in gigabytes per second.

i9-10900K 14.6

WinRAR 4.0

WinRAR 4.0 is an outdated version of a popular file archiver. It contains an internal speed test, using 'Best' setting of RAR compression on large chunks of randomly generated data. Its results are measured in kilobytes per second.

i9-10900K 9739

x264 encoding pass 2

x264 Pass 2 is a slower variant of x264 video compression that produces a variable bit rate output file, which results in better quality since the higher bit rate is used when it is needed more. Benchmark result is still measured in frames per second.  

i9-10900K 149

x264 encoding pass 1

x264 version 4.0 is a video encoding benchmark uses MPEG 4 x264 compression method to compress a sample HD (720p) video. Pass 1 is a faster variant that produces a constant bit rate output file. Its result is measured in frames per second, which means how many frames of the source video file were encoded per second.  

i9-10900K 290

Geekbench 5.5 Multi-Core

i9-10900K 11393

Blender(-)

i9-10900K 179

Geekbench 5.5 Single-Core

i9-10900K 1428

7-Zip Single

i9-10900K 5811

7-Zip

i9-10900K 69987

WebXPRT 3

i9-10900K 255

Gaming performance

Closest competitors

Core i9-10900K's performance relative to its closest rivals among desktop CPUs.


Core i9-10900K 100

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to Core i9-10900K is Ryzen 7 PRO 3700, which is faster by 1% and higher by 4 positions in our ranking.

Here are some closest AMD rivals to Core i9-10900K:

Similar processors

Here is our recommendation of several processors that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

Recommended GPUs

People consider these graphics cards to be good for Core i9-10900K, according to our PC configuration statistics.

These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i9-10900K in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 3003 configurations using Core i9-10900K in our database.

All comparisons with Core i9-10900K

Community ratings

Here is the rating given to the reviewed processor by our users. Let others know your opinion by rating it yourself.


3.6 1241 vote

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