Intel announces Core i9, Core i7, Core i5 9th Gen CPUs and a new 28-core Xeon

After many months of leaks and rumours, today Intel officially announced its 9th generation of processors, alongside the Z390 motherboard chipset. We've already published a lengthy preview of Z390 and some of the flagship motherboards rolling out this month. Now, our attention turns to the 9th Gen processors themselves, with Leo acting as our man on the ground at Intel's launch event in New York today.

Intel came out swinging, stating that the company intends to “deliver leadership performance across all computing segments”, adding that “today's announcements underscore our ability to do exactly that”. Notably, Intel is saying that the brand new Core i9-9900K is “hands-down, the world's best processor for gaming”.

On the mainstream side of things, we have the Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K and Core i5-9600K. The big news here is that Intel has made the jump to eight cores in a mainstream chip for the first time. The Core i9-9900K is the star of the show here, delivering 8C/16T, a 3.6/5.0GHz base/boost speed and up to 40 PCIE lanes all tied up in a 95W package. The Core i7-9700K on the other hand delivers 8C/8T with a 3.6/4.9GHz base/boost speed, also running at 95W TDP. Finally, the Core i5-9600K is the most affordable of the bunch, delivering 6C/6T with a 3.7/4.6GHz base/boost speed.

In the US, MSRP starts at $262 for the Core i5, $374 for the Core i7 and $488 for the Core i9. All three of these processors will apparently work on all Z300-series motherboards, so those who bought into Z370 last year will be able to drop a new CPU in after a BIOS update.

According to Intel, the new K-series of 9th Gen processors push the boundaries by offering up to 10% more frames per second in games compared to last generation. If your PC is three or so years old at this point, then you should see a more substantial 41% boost in modern games. When it comes to video production, these new CPUs are up to 41% faster in Adobe Premiere compared to the previous generation. However, if production is more your thing, then you'll want to take a look at the Core-X series instead.

Aside from the Core i9-9900K, Core i7-9700K and Core i5-9600K, Intel also unveiled its new Core-X processors. This new Core X series consists of the following:

Core i9-9980XE: 18C/36T, 3.0/4.4GHz base/boost, 165W TDP, $1,979 MSRP.
Core i9-9960X: 16C/32T, 3.1/4.4GHz base/boost, 165W TDP, $1,684 MSRP.
Core i9-9940X: 14C/28T, 3.3/4.4GHz base/boost, 165W TDP, $1,387 MSRP.
Core i9-9920X: 12C/24T, 3.5/4.4GHz base/boost, 165W TDP, $1,189 MSRP.
Core i9-9820X: 10C/20T, 3.3/4.1GHz base/boost, 165W TDP, $898 MSRP.
Core i7-9800X: 8C/16T, 3.8/4.4GHz base/boost, 165W TDP, $589 MSRP.

All of the new 9th Gen Core-X CPUs support up to 68 PCIe 3.0 lanes and quad-channel DDR4 at 2666MHz. In addition, they also sport slightly higher boost clock speeds if you enable Turbo Boost 3.0, which will get them all up to 4.5GHz with the exception of the Core i9-9820X, which gets to 4.2GHz. We don't know if this is a refresh of Skylake-X at the moment, but we are hoping to have that question answered soon.

A 28-core Xeon was also announced. The W-3175X will begin shipping in December, with pricing to be announced closer to the time. We also know that Gigabyte and ASUS will be building motherboards to support this new chip.

All of these new 9th Gen processors have hardware mitigation against Meltdown Variant 3, the security bug that we heard so much about back in January. Intel's 9th Gen Core-X series and K-series also finally switch from TIM to Solder, which should help with thermals quite a bit.

KitGuru Says: We'll be talking more about Intel's new CPUs over the next few weeks, in addition to the slew of motherboards set to roll out. What do you guys think of Intel's 9th Gen series so far? Are any of you thinking about upgrading?

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