Intel Core i9-11900 matches the Intel Core i9-10900K in single-threaded tests according to leaked benchmarks

An upcoming octa-core Rocket Lake desktop processor has just surfaced online and those who are looking for efficient chips should keep an eye on it. The early engineering sample that has been spotted has a base clock of just 1.8 GHz, but when a single core is pushed to the maximum boost speed of 4.4 GHz, it matches the 5.3 GHz single-threaded performance of the existing Intel Core i9-10900K.

While the upcoming Intel Core i9-11900K is expected to hit the market with a 3.5 GHz base clock, 125 W TDP, and 5.3/4.8 GHz boost speeds (single/all cores), the i9-11900 will go for a 65 W TDP value, 1.8 GHz base clock, as well as 4.4/3.8 GHz boost values. Both processors feature eight cores, 16 threads, 16 MB of cache, as well as 256 Intel Xe 32 EU graphics cores.

The good news is that the processor was tested on an MSI Z490I motherboard, so backward compatibility on existing 400 series mainboards can be considered as good as officially confirmed. The new chips will come alongside the 500-series motherboards, as already revealed.

Without mentioning any numbers, it is enough to say that the Intel Core i9-11900 matches the i9-10900K in single-threaded tests, and almost catches up with the i7-10700K in multi-threaded tests. Unsurprisingly, this chip is no match when facing its 125 W TDP sibling, the i9-11900K, in multi-threaded tests.

Intel's upcoming 11th generation desktop processors promise to come with quite a few noticeable improvements, such as USB audio offload, CPU attached storage or Intel Optane memory, 2.5 Gbps Ethernet discrete LAN, Thunderbolt 4 support (USB 4 compliant), a total of 20 CPU PCIe 4.0 lanes, HDMI 2.0b, DP 1.4a, HBR 3, and much more. The official introduction should take place in the first half of January 2021, so stay tuned.

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