Intel Core i9-11900K Review

1. Introduction2. Rocket Lake is New, New, New3. Test Setup4. Cinebench R15 and R235. 3D Mark, 7-Zip and Handbrake6. Blender and AIDA647. Game tests at 1440p and 1080p8. Power and heat9. Closing Thoughts10. View All Pages

Intel Rocket Lake promised an end-to-end overhaul of the familiar Skylake architecture with just one small hitch as Intel continues to be stuck on a 14nm process and are unable to progress to 10nm.

We have known that for quite some time and consider it one point to be factored into a complicated puzzle. Intel has new Cypress Cove cores, the addition of PCI Express Gen 4, the introduction of Xe graphics on the desktop and also the new Z590 chipset. Taken together that looks like an impressive collection of features, however the 14nm fabrication process looms large and raises some big questions.

During our testing it became clear that Intel Adaptive Boost Technology was cooked up to give Core i9 Rocket Lake enough grunt to compete with the Comet Lake-S Core i9. In addition it delivers a feature that can ‘only' be supplied by Z590 and hence gives you an incentive to spend a hefty amount of money on a high end motherboard. We see what you did there Asus!

The downside to ABT is that Core i9-11900K jumps from drawing a lot of power and instead demands a huge amount of power. While the performance is decent, it is hard at times to reconcile the numbers with an 8-core processor. We can only imagine how Ice Lake-S would have performed if Intel had been able to deliver 10nm but that train departed a long time ago and we have to deal with the Rock Lake that is sat in front of us.

The performance is decent but does not deliver the levels that we expected – heck, that we were promised – but there is little doubt that Intel still has the ability to deliver CPUs that cater for gamers. Our tests results are very good in that respect.

Where things finally go off the rails is that Intel hoped to sell Core i9-11900K for £500 and it is currently listed at £560. The problem is that Intel has to compete with AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and that means the desired price is closer to £400. Take those point together and it is clear that Intel's new Core i9 has some major problems to overcome.

The i9-11900K is open for pre-order from Overclockers UK, priced at £559.99 HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

Pros

• Core i9-11900K plus Z590 plus Adaptive Boost equals 5.1GHz on all cores
• Intel finally supports PCIe Gen 4 on the desktop.

Cons

• Power draw is too high.
• Cutting back to eight cores has hurt Rocket Lake.
• The confusion with Adaptive Boost looks like an own goal.
• The hassle with PCIe Gen 4 makes us wish Intel had gone with a new socket.
• UK pricing for Core i9-11900K gives AMD Ryzen 7 an easy win.

KitGuru says: Rocket Lake has been hamstrung by 14nm and the power draw is awful to behold. 

Become a Patron!