Although it has not completely unveiled the new range of Rocket Lake processors for desktop computers, Intel has announced one of its top models: Core i9-11900K. This is the new “flagship” of the company, which is only revealed, not officially launched on this occasion. However, we learn that Intel continues on the 14nm architecture of the past with this generation, but the performance should be significantly improved.
Intel responds to AMD’s threat in the high-end gaming components market
We are talking about the i9-11900K, a new processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, with frequencies up to 5.3 GHz on a single core and 4.8 GHz on all cores with Intel Thermal Velocity Boost. It loses 2 cores compared to the i9-10900 model, but comes with a 19% improvement in instructions per cycle. Also, this processor is now compatible with memories up to 3200 MHz, integrates support for decoding the AV1 codec and is finally compatible with the PCI Express 4.0 standard (20 buses, for GPU and SSD).
Although this processor will be compatible with 400 series motherboards, Intel is also launching a new chipset, the 500 series, which adds support for USB 3.2 Gen 2 × 2 (20G) and offers an 8x DMI Link, compared to 4x per generation (Direct Media Interface), for faster communication between CPU and GPU.
However, the performance contribution is quite small, but significant enough to put Intel back in the first place in tests. The differences from AMD Ryzen 7 5900X, the current “champion” in gaming, are between 2 and 9% in favor of i9-11900K, in games like Gears of War 5, Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs: Legion and Far Cry New Dawn, in resolution 1080p on High or Ultra settings.
