Intel Core i9-10850K Review: The Real Intel Flagship
by Dr. Ian Cutress on January 4, 2021 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Core
- Z490
- 10th Gen Core
- Comet Lake
- LGA1200
- i9-10850K
Gaming Tests: F1 2019
The F1 racing games from Codemasters have been popular benchmarks in the tech community, mostly for ease-of-use and that they seem to take advantage of any area of a machine that might be better than another. The 2019 edition of the game features all 21 circuits on the calendar for that year, and includes a range of retro models and DLC focusing on the careers of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. Built on the EGO Engine 3.0, the game has been criticized similarly to most annual sports games, by not offering enough season-to-season graphical fidelity updates to make investing in the latest title worth it, however the 2019 edition revamps up the Career mode, with features such as in-season driver swaps coming into the mix. The quality of the graphics this time around is also superb, even at 4K low or 1080p Ultra.
For our test, we put Alex Albon in the Red Bull in position #20, for a dry two-lap race around Austin. We test at the following settings:
- 768p Ultra Low, 1440p Ultra Low, 4K Ultra Low, 1080p Ultra
In terms of automation, F1 2019 has an in-game benchmark that can be called from the command line, and the output file has frame times. We repeat each resolution setting for a minimum of 10 minutes, taking the averages and percentiles.
| AnandTech | Low Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Low Quality |
High Resolution Low Quality |
Medium Resolution Max Quality |
| Average FPS |  |
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| 95th Percentile |  |
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All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.
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YB1064 - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Thermals look horrendous! 102 C even when throttled is bad. Even with water, I don't think you will see much improvement. Better have a chiller on hand!GeoffreyA - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
The sun should buy a few million of these fellows. Will help a lot with temperature when sunspots get too cool.at_clucks - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Nooo, as the article puts it, it's "not as bad as it sounds". People just needlessly freak out when they processor FREAKING BOILS WATER on "an open test bed with a chunky copper cooler" and needing 270W at full load. But in reality it's just "more about thermal gradients inside the processor and how easily the thermals can move" so it's all good. I can feel the temps dropping just by reading these comforting words.I guess the only thing that can make a current gen Intel CPU look good is another current gen Intel CPU. Here's hoping that they get their act together for the next gen(s) or we'll keep having to read reviews where Intel competes against Intel as the only way to get some praise.
at_clucks - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Read the comment above as if there was an edit button to fix all the grammatical... inconsistencies.1_rick - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
It's no worse than the article itself.Smell This - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
as the article puts it, it's "not as bad as it sounds"_______________________________________
Sadly, the presentation makes it much worst. Bad enough smoked with the Ryzen 5900x ... there is little to no downward price pressure on an 18-month old AMD 3900x at $499.
Even worst --- 18 months ago the HEDT Intel 12/24 i9-79xxX was $1,190 and was slobber-knocked by the 3900x . . .
GeoffreyA - Wednesday, January 6, 2021 - link
"Here's hoping that they get their act together"Rocket Lake should cover the ground performance-wise, but it's going to be disastrous when it comes to power and heat. Would be nice to see Sunny Cove running on 7 or 5 nm, but I suspect even there, Zen 3 would use less power, owing to its more economical design.
powerarmour - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
It's a genuinely horrible CPU compared to the competition, Intel have regressed so much on performance-per-watt that even Apple are stealing their lunch now.shelbystripes - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
It’s embarrassing (for Intel) how easily Apple justified the Intel-to-ARM switch with the M1. Stagnation is a bitch.Operandi - Monday, January 4, 2021 - link
Part stagnation part major technological fumbles. Intel definitely played it safe on the architectural level but you could argue that was the right call given the state of the market. What is really killing them is the dropped ball on the fabrication front.Regardless though Apple's move to their own designs was going to happen even if Intel was stumbling all over the place, that move has been planned for over a decade.