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: Red Dead Redemption 2
It’s great to have another Rockstar benchmark in the mix, and the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) on the PC gives us a chance to do that. Building on the success of the original RDR, the second incarnation came to Steam in December 2019 having been released on consoles first. The PC version takes the open-world cowboy genre into the start of the modern age, with a wide array of impressive graphics and features that are eerily close to reality.
For RDR2, Rockstar kept the same benchmark philosophy as with Grand Theft Auto V, with the benchmark consisting of several cut scenes with different weather and lighting effects, with a final scene focusing on an on-rails environment, only this time with mugging a shop leading to a shootout on horseback before riding over a bridge into the great unknown. Luckily most of the command line options from GTA V are present here, and the game also supports resolution scaling. We have the following tests:
- 384p Minimum, 1440p Minimum, 8K Minimum, 1080p Max
For that 8K setting, I originally thought I had the settings file at 4K and 1.0x scaling, but it was actually set at 2.0x giving that 8K. For the sake of it, I decided to keep the 8K settings.
For our results, we run through each resolution and setting configuration for a minimum of 10 minutes, before averaging and parsing 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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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.