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: Strange Brigade
Strange Brigade is based in 1903’s Egypt, and follows a story which is very similar to that of the Mummy film franchise. This particular third-person shooter is developed by Rebellion Developments which is more widely known for games such as the Sniper Elite and Alien vs Predator series. The game follows the hunt for Seteki the Witch Queen, who has arose once again and the only ‘troop’ who can ultimately stop her. Gameplay is cooperative centric with a wide variety of different levels and many puzzles which need solving by the British colonial Secret Service agents sent to put an end to her reign of barbaric and brutality.
The game supports both the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs and houses its own built-in benchmark as an on-rails experience through the game. For quality, the game offers various options up for customization including textures, anti-aliasing, reflections, draw distance and even allows users to enable or disable motion blur, ambient occlusion and tessellation among others. Strange Brigade supports Vulkan and DX12, and so we test on both.
- 720p Low, 1440p Low, 4K Low, 1080p Ultra
The automation for Strange Brigade is one of the easiest in our suite – the settings and quality can be changed by pre-prepared .ini files, and the benchmark is called via the command line. The output includes all the frame time data.
| 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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| 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.