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Core i9-9900K vs i5-9600KF


Description
Both models i9-9900K and i5-9600KF 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 i9-9900K gets a score of 545.3 k points while the i5-9600KF gets 371.1 k points.

Summarizing, the i9-9900K is 1.5 times faster than the i5-9600KF. To get a proper comparison between both models, take a look to the data shown below.

Specs
CPUID
906ec
906ec
Core
Coffee Lake-S
Coffee Lake-S
Architecture
Base frecuency
3.6 GHz
3.7 GHz
Boost frecuency
5 GHz
4.6 GHz
Socket
LGA 1151
LGA 1151
Cores/Threads
8/16
6/6
TDP
95 W
95 W
Cache L1 (d+i)
8x32+8x32 kB
6x32+6x32 kB
Cache L2
8x256 kB
6x256 kB
Cache L3
16384 kB
9216 kB
Date
October 2018
January 2019
Mean monothread perf.
86.24k points
77.34k points
Mean multithread perf.
545.3k points
371.08k 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
i9-9900K
i5-9600KF
Test#1 (Integers)
5.17k
4.63k (x0.9)
Test#2 (FP)
21.15k
19.43k (x0.92)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
7.01k
6.17k (x0.88)
Test#1 (Memory)
15.32k
13.82k (x0.9)
TOTAL
48.66k
44.04k (x0.91)

Multithread

i9-9900K

i5-9600KF
Test#1 (Integers)
38.45k
26.64k (x0.69)
Test#2 (FP)
155.68k
110.11k (x0.71)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
51k
33.07k (x0.65)
Test#1 (Memory)
18.26k
8.3k (x0.45)
TOTAL
263.38k
178.11k (x0.68)

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
i9-9900K
i5-9600KF
Test#1 (Integers)
33.62k
30.52k (x0.91)
Test#2 (FP)
30.02k
26.54k (x0.88)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
7.17k
6.41k (x0.89)
Test#1 (Memory)
15.43k
13.87k (x0.9)
TOTAL
86.24k
77.34k (x0.9)

Multithread

i9-9900K

i5-9600KF
Test#1 (Integers)
248.93k
174.66k (x0.7)
Test#2 (FP)
224.43k
154.06k (x0.69)
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
53.39k
34.11k (x0.64)
Test#1 (Memory)
18.54k
8.24k (x0.44)
TOTAL
545.3k
371.08k (x0.68)

Performance/W
i9-9900K
i5-9600KF
Test#1 (Integers)
2620 points/W
1839 points/W
Test#2 (FP)
2362 points/W
1622 points/W
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
562 points/W
359 points/W
Test#1 (Memory)
195 points/W
87 points/W
TOTAL
5740 points/W
3906 points/W

Performance/GHz
i9-9900K
i5-9600KF
Test#1 (Integers)
6724 points/GHz
6635 points/GHz
Test#2 (FP)
6003 points/GHz
5769 points/GHz
Test#3 (Generic, ZIP)
1434 points/GHz
1394 points/GHz
Test#1 (Memory)
3087 points/GHz
3015 points/GHz
TOTAL
17247 points/GHz
16813 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