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Core i5-9600K vs i5-8400


Description
Both models i5-9600K and i5-8400 are based on Coffee Lake architecture.

Coffee Lake is the second refinement of Intel’s 14nm (Tri-Gate) technology. While it uses LGA1151 socket, it is incompatible with previous generations due to electrical changes in socket’s pins so these CPUs require Z370 chipset. This kind of generation introduced more cores in every range to compete with new AMD’s architecture. Coffee Lake uses DDR4 memory at 2400MHz for i3 and at 2666MHz for i5, i7 CPUs plus iGPU frequency has been increased 50MHz with respect to previous generation.

Using the multithread performance as a reference, the i5-9600K gets a score of 372.7 k points while the i5-8400 gets 289.6 k points.

Summarizing, the i5-9600K is 1.3 times faster than the i5-8400. To get a proper comparison between both models, take a look to the data shown below.

Specs
CPUID
906ed
906ea
Core
Coffee Lake-S
Coffee Lake-S
Architecture
Base frecuency
3.7 GHz
2.8 GHz
Boost frecuency
4.6 GHz
4 GHz
Socket
LGA 1151
LGA 1151
Cores/Threads
6/6
6/6
TDP
95 W
65 W
Cache L1 (d+i)
6x32+6x32 kB
6x32+6x32 kB
Cache L2
6x256 kB
6x256 kB
Cache L3
9216 kB
9216 kB
Date
October 2018
September 2017
Mean monothread perf.
77.75k points
64.98k points
Mean multithread perf.
372.74k points
289.61k points

Non-optimized benchmark
The benchmark in Mode 0 (FPU) measures cpu performance with non-optimized software. It uses the basic µinstructions from the i386 architecture with the i387 floating point unit. This mode is compatible with all CPUs so it's practical to compare very different CPUs
Monothread
i5-9600K
i5-8400
Test#1 (Integers)
4.69k
4.08k (x0.87)
Test#2 (FP)
19.35k
14.96k (x0.77)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
6.08k
4.98k (x0.82)
Test#1 (Memory)
13.81k
10.29k (x0.75)
TOTAL
43.93k
34.31k (x0.78)

Multithread

i5-9600K

i5-8400
Test#1 (Integers)
26.24k
21.54k (x0.82)
Test#2 (FP)
107.95k
85.13k (x0.79)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
34.5k
28.24k (x0.82)
Test#1 (Memory)
8.1k
4.08k (x0.5)
TOTAL
176.79k
139k (x0.79)

AVX2 optimized benchmark
The benchmark in mode III (AVX2), like AVX1, is optimized to used 256 bits registers beside the second version of the Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX). The first AVX2 compatible CPU was released in 2013.
Monothread
i5-9600K
i5-8400
Test#1 (Integers)
30.64k
26.5k (x0.86)
Test#2 (FP)
26.75k
23.11k (x0.86)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
6.33k
5.2k (x0.82)
Test#1 (Memory)
14.03k
10.16k (x0.72)
TOTAL
77.75k
64.98k (x0.84)

Multithread

i5-9600K

i5-8400
Test#1 (Integers)
174.92k
135.08k (x0.77)
Test#2 (FP)
153.88k
121.49k (x0.79)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
35.93k
27.53k (x0.77)
Test#1 (Memory)
8k
5.5k (x0.69)
TOTAL
372.74k
289.61k (x0.78)

Performance/W
i5-9600K
i5-8400
Test#1 (Integers)
1841 points/W
2078 points/W
Test#2 (FP)
1620 points/W
1869 points/W
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
378 points/W
424 points/W
Test#1 (Memory)
84 points/W
85 points/W
TOTAL
3924 points/W
4455 points/W

Performance/GHz
i5-9600K
i5-8400
Test#1 (Integers)
6661 points/GHz
6626 points/GHz
Test#2 (FP)
5815 points/GHz
5778 points/GHz
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
1376 points/GHz
1300 points/GHz
Test#1 (Memory)
3049 points/GHz
2541 points/GHz
TOTAL
16902 points/GHz
16245 points/GHz

Monothread performance graph
Monothread performance graphics gives the performance vs time. They are useful to measure the time it takes to the CPU to reach the maximum performance.

Usually, CPU's performance will be steady during these tests but if it has a slow frequency strategy, the first samples will show a lower score.


Test#1 (Integers) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com


Test#2 (FP) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com


Test#3 (Generic, ZIP) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com


Test#1 (Memory) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com

Multithread performance graph
Multithread graphs measure the performance against a heavy load during certain time.

If CPU's TDP doesn't limit the frequency and the machine is properly cooled, performance should remain steady vs time. Otherwise, the performance score will oscillate or decrease over time.


Test#1 (Integers) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com


Test#2 (FP) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com


Test#3 (Generic, ZIP) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com


Test#1 (Memory) [points vs time]

grafica bm.hardlimit.com

Hardlimit Benchmark Central - Ver. 3.11.4