Intel today led its annual deluge of new consumer desktop processors with a speed demon intended to bliss out overclockers who’ve been stockpiling liquid …
Intel today led its annual deluge of new consumer desktop processors with a speed demon intended to bliss out overclockers who’ve been stockpiling liquid nitrogen along with toilet paper. The 10-core Core i9-10900K, with its claimed peak single-core frequency of 5.3GHz, tops this year’s 10th-gen range, which is based around Intel’s 14nm Comet Lake-S architecture. The rest of Intel’s new lineup is business as usual, with some welcome but not earth-shattering upgrades.
Intel adds Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology, which debuted with the more creative-focused, higher-core-count 10th-gen X series CPUs. It’s adding Thermal Velocity Boost, which launched in the recent 10th-gen i9 mobile processors, to the i9. The i7 gets only the Turbo Boost 3.0 boost.
Turbo Boost Max 3.0 lets the system selectively speed up the two best-performing cores in the processor, while Thermal Velocity Boost will increase core frequencies if there’s enough cooling headroom to allow it. (That’s assuming the manufacturer has provided the appropriate up-frequency policies in the BIOS.) Combining those two new technologies helps Intel achieve that 5.3GHz single-core frequency claim.
The Core i9 and i7 now max out with 2,933MHz DDR4 memory, which should help improve their performance as well.
