THE OVERCLOCKER
PRESENTS
INTEL CORE i9 9900KS
THE OVERCLOCKER | PRESENTS
INTEL CORE
i9 9900KS
What do you get when you take the fastest gaming CPU and make it faster? Well, you get the Core i9 9900KS, that’s what. The first time we had a CPU capable of operating at 5GHz was the ill-fated FX-9590. More recently and more successfully the original Core i9 9900K. The 9900KS goes the extra mile with an all core Turbo frequency of 5GHz.
S
ay what you will about that, but we can't deny the performance this brings to PC gaming. Before we continue though it's worth noting that while the high frequency is appreciated, there are times under specific workloads where the CPU will reduce it's clock right down to the base 4GHZ.
That said, throughout all the testing, even under heavy loads, I didn't manage to record frequencies lower than 4100MHz. With all the motherboard clock frequency and power extending features disabled, clock frequency during gaming remained high, occasionally dipping to 4,9GHz. That’s all fine and well, however, but the question is,
can this CPU justify its existence given that we already have an i9 9900K and 9900KF? Well, - yes it can. With the regular 9900s, you’re more than likely to hit 5GHz across all cores, the difference is that the 9900KS guarantees it. As even the worst one would qualify as an above average 9900K/KF. More so than with previous CPUs, Intel has positioned the 9900KS as the best performing CPU for gaming money can buy. rightfully I might add, if only because the in game performance numbers show this to be true. Amazing when one remembers that, not too long ago, there was little to no scaling at anything above 4.5GHz on 7th/ 8th gen CPUs.
However, the advent of RTX 2080 and more powerful GPUs has once again allowed modern desktop CPUs to stretch their legs. As it is, full HD gaming is CPU or platform limited with a GeForce RTX 2080 Super, but more specifically the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. I mention these graphics cards because at this resolution, they have placed the performance burden once again on the host CPU and its memory sub-system. Case in point is in the performance testing I performed for this edition of the TOC Presents series. It turns out that game performance scales up to 5.2GHz and possibly beyond.