Intel Core i9-9900K vs Intel Core i9-10900X

Core i9-9900K vs Core i9-10900X benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i9-10900X beats the Core i9-9900K in overall performance. Despite this, the Core i9-9900K has the advantage in our gaming benchmark.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-10900X has slightly more cores with 10 cores compared to the Core i9-9900K that has 8 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i9-9900K. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i9-10900X has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i9-9900K. Despite this, the Core i9-9900K has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i9-9900K CPU outputs less heat than a Core i9-10900X CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Most CPUs have more threads than cores. This technology, colloquially called hyperthreading, improves performance by splitting a core into multiple virtual ones. This provides more efficient utilisation of a core. Indeed, the Core i9-9900K has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.