10 core Intel Core i9-10900X disappoints in Geekbench; scores 10% less than the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X in multicore tasks and falls up to 2.3x behind the Threadripper Zen 2 series

Spotted by @momomo_US, the latest 10 core Cascade Lake-X (CSL-X) Geekbench listing may seem eerily familiar. It has been less than a month since the frequent leaker posted an almost identical leak on Twitter. However, this new leak confirms that Intel will call CSL-X the Core ix 10xxx series. Specifically, there will be a Core i9-10980XE, i9-10940X, i9-10920X and i9-10900X, the latter of which is the focus of this benchmark.

As expected, the Core i9-10900X will have 19 MB of L3 cache, along with clock speeds approximately between 3.4 GHz and 4.5 GHz. The chip will support Intel Hyper-Threading too, so will be able to execute up to 20 threads simultaneously. Geekbench reports the Core i9-10900X as having the same Intel Skylake-X 07 Northbridge and GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 85 Stepping 7 identifier as the mystery 10 core CSL-X chip we saw last month.

The Core i9-10900X achieved better single and multicore scores than the last 10 core CSL-X chip to hit Geekbench too. Specifically, the new benchmark shows CSL-X reaching 3% higher in single-core workloads and 6% more in multicore tasks. The Core i9-10900X also scores around 20% more than the Core i9-9900K, although it also has 25% more cores. However, its 39,717 score remains almost 10% shy of the Ryzen 9 3900X, admittedly a 12 core processor, and is 4% ahead of the Threadripper 2950X. The latter is currently our highest scoring Threadripper processor in Geekbench of those in our database, for reference.

Cascade Lake-X will inevitably be compared against AMD's next Threadripper series, which we have seen reaching almost 100,000 points on a 32 core SKU. If that is not bad enough for Intel, AMD apparently has a 64 core Threadripper 3000 processor planned too, which will undoubtedly set benchmark records because of its core count alone. The Core i9-10900X will probably be Intel's lower midrange Cascade Lake-X chip, with it likely to extend the series at least to 18 cores. Regardless, while Intel has been extolling the "relative performance per dollar" of Cascade Lake-X compared to the Threadripper 2000 series, how can it see another revision of its 14 nm die as adequate competition against AMD's next HEDT series?