Rocket Lake Intel Core i9-11900K slips past AMD Ryzen 9 5950X in single-thread benchmark by 2.7-5.7% - just don't mention multithread performance, power, or delays

[Redaktion]

The Rocket Lake-S flagship processor Intel Core i9-11900K has recorded a CPU-Z single-thread benchmark score that takes it past AMD's 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X by 2.7-5.7% depending on the test run. While this will likely make the upcoming chip attractive to some desktop gamers, there's still bones of contention to be had with multithread performance, power, and postponements.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Rocket-Lake-Intel-Core-i9-11900K-slips-past-AMD-Ryzen-9-5950X-in-single-thread-benchmark-by-2-7-5-7-just-don-t-mention-multithread-performance-power-or-delays.512621.0.html

[I Carumba]

It is sad to see Intel clinging to the single core win 'for gaming'.   Please tell us Intel what are these games that only use a single core?

[Mikita]

Cool. Most probably had to use liquid nitrogen to "win" these astonishing 2.7% in single thread. And loose almost x2 in multi-thread :)

[geekacontra]

well, not everybody care that much about the multi thread for gaming. for instance the CAD systems, thus professional apps, work mainly single core.

[Michael Dennis]

5900xt will wreck this

[Tomere]

Well, seriously? For the past 5 years since Sky-lake they say the same thing - "oh, this generation is just a stop-gap to the next one which will be amazing!" Like, 5 generations of saying that is astonishing at how bad intel reacts to Ryzen and how bad the situation goes within themselves.
Am I the only one who noticed this trend with intel? Saying every year that this one is just a stop-gap to the next one and that's why it's not that good?

[_MT_]

It is sad to see Intel clinging to the single core win 'for gaming'.   Please tell us Intel what are these games that only use a single core?

While games can typically use more than one core, how many can actually benefit from more than eight? And how many can fully load even eight? How many can spread the load at least somewhat evenly across that many cores? Loading tends to be uneven and single core performance is still limiting. The more uneven the loading, the less you benefit from extra cores and the more limiting the single core. While light threads can easily share cores, a heavy thread that already has a core all to itself can never do better than the single core limit (the benefit of multiple cores is allowing the heavy threads to run on their own). That's why a six core processor with strong single core performance can post good gaming results. A strong performance on one core probably also means strong performance on two cores, three cores, four cores, etc.

[_MT_]

Well, seriously? For the past 5 years since Sky-lake they say the same thing - "oh, this generation is just a stop-gap to the next one which will be amazing!" Like, 5 generations of saying that is astonishing at how bad intel reacts to Ryzen and how bad the situation goes within themselves.
Am I the only one who noticed this trend with intel? Saying every year that this one is just a stop-gap to the next one and that's why it's not that good?

Their real problem has been manufacturing. They've really fallen a lot behind their plans. If they struggle to match TSMC, it's difficult to compete with AMD. It used to be the other way around with TSMC chasing Intel. That has nothing to do with Ryzen. AMD just got lucky that they launched an offensive when Intel is struggling so much with getting their designs manufactured as planned. Processors are designed counting on the ability to deliver, to manufacture the design. You can't just take the design and make it on an older node. Their manufacturing problems mean they can't manufacture what they designed, what they planned to release. Instead, they have to improvise improvements of older designs or try to back-port the design to an older node, but that's potentially very difficult and won't be as good. Under these conditions, it's difficult to show good progress.

Intel seems less keen on pushing the core count, at least for consumer processors. If Ryzen for you means pushing quite a lot of cores, it looks like Intel isn't that interested. Only market can decide which way is preferable (it's not a question of what is better - which is workload specific - but what gets bought). An 8 core processor shouldn't be able to compete with a 16 core processor intended for the same segment (just as a 4 core processor shouldn't be able to compete with an 8 core processor). The coming hybrid desktop processors might suggest that Intel might be interested in going for more cores (perhaps that market has spoken), but might be struggling with manufacturing capacity and yields which make it not viable.

[Noit]

Intel's performance lead is easily gone with 1 security patch. I ended up getting my Intel desktop because after a few recent security patches, it felt much slower. I have recorded benchmarks to show this for the type of work that I do. Intel's performance advantage seems to have been at the cost of security. No thanks...

[deksman2]

well, not everybody care that much about the multi thread for gaming. for instance the CAD systems, thus professional apps, work mainly single core.

Completely false.
CAD software, along with content creation, professional programs, etc. all make serious use of multithreading.

3dStudio Max easily maxes out all core in the system for rendering.
Video Editing does this as well.
Games are also making use of more and more cores.

Single core performance is relevant in a relatively few scenarios these days.

Also, AMD is far ahead of Intel in price/performance, not to mention efficiency.

Trying to focus too much on single-core performance today is not really credible.

[geekacontra]

3dmax and video editing are no C(omputer) A(ided) D(design) app. is a 3d modeler but no engineering cad. solidworks, autocad, nx, creo, etc, work mostly unicore. basically it is about the way the 3d models are built, one feature on top of the other. if you go to renderings, fea and stuff, ok, multicore is usefull, although a good video card is better for photo renderings.

[badger]

It is sad to see Intel clinging to the single core win 'for gaming'.   Please tell us Intel what are these games that only use a single core?

Not just single core dum-dum. The 11900k, when launched, will be the fastest 8C/16T CPU in the market.

[AlexbNice]

If you look at the Intel 8th to 9th to 10th gen single core score increase is marginal so I don't believe in the huge jump in scores unless the new chip hits 6ghz.

Also the next big jump in PC advancement is DDR5 RAM which should be available this year.

DDR5 RAM would be another way intel could be getting these high scores.

[Roshi]

That's a massive lead, Intel! Well done! I guess all those senior engineers you fired years ago is finally paying off! They must be all scratching their useless asses at Apple not understanding how to run a fab or design chips that work well.

[vertigo]

With regard to the single-core vs multi-core arguments, a couple things to consider are a) even for things that only use one or two cores, how much difference would a few percent make, and is it worth the small increase for the loss of performance in other apps that do make use of all the cores, and b) even if a game/app can only use four, six, or eight cores, it's nice to have the extra headroom from the other cores for other things. Sure, game/app A might not benefit, but games/apps B, C, D, etc that you may also want to run at the same time would. Granted, there are diminishing returns here, and different users are going to have different needs, so for some four cores/threads are plenty, and for others 16+ threads are actually useful, even if not all used by a single program.

The main issue here is that these don't seem to be competing chips, with the AMD one being nearly twice as much. For that price difference, it's hard to recommend the AMD over the Intel unless you really need the extra cores. Personally, I think AMD is taking the wrong approach here. Now that they're offering Intel some real competition, they can ask for more for their chips, and certainly deserve it, but while it might cost them more in the short-term, they should keep their prices lower to sell more volume and gain more market share, which I believe would help them more in the long run.

Intel's performance lead is easily gone with 1 security patch. I ended up getting my Intel desktop because after a few recent security patches, it felt much slower. I have recorded benchmarks to show this for the type of work that I do. Intel's performance advantage seems to have been at the cost of security. No thanks...

Exactly. Each one reduces performance by several percent, which is basically the gain from one generation to the next. So after a few years, and the multiple patches done in that time, your CPU performs like a roughly three-year-older model. All after paying a premium for it in the first place. Sorry, but that's a game I'm done playing.