Intel held an event in New York City today, where it announced its ninth-generation desktop processors, going all the way up to the Core i9-9900K. As with all chips in the K-series, it"s unlocked for overclocking, with eight cores and 16 threads, and the company says that it"s the best gaming CPU in the world.
The firm made a major change in this year"s "Coffee Lake R" chips. With the eighth-gen "Coffee Lake" chips, both the Core i7 and i9 offered six cores with hyperthreading, while the i5 had six cores without hyperthreading. Hyperthreading allows for two threads to run off of a single core, allowing for up to a 20% boost in performance depending on the workload, and now, the feature is exclusive to the Core i9.
However, that doesn"t mean that the Core i7 is a downgrade. The Core i7-9700K is now an eight-core CPU, clocked at 3.6GHz and up to 4.9GHz (boost frequency) with a 12MB cache and 95W TDP. The Core i9-9900K has eight cores and 16 threads, clocked at 3.6GHZ and up to 5GHz with a 16MB cache and 95W TDP. Finally, the Core i5-9600K has six cores, clocked at 3.7GHz and up to 4.6GHz, with a 9MB cache and 95W TDP.
According to Tom"s Hardware, Intel is also refreshing its 65W desktop chips and its 35W T-series power-optimized lifestyle desktop CPUs. The desktop CPUs include the Core i3-9000, i3-9100, i3-9300, i5-9400, i5-9500, and i5-9600. Everything up to the Core i5-9400 comes in a T-series variant, and the i5 models are six cores and six threads, while the i3 models are four cores and four threads.
Pricing for the new unlocked K-series processors is $262 for the Core i5-9600K, $374 for the Core i7-9700K, and $488 for the Core i9-9900K.