Phenomenal Intel Core i9-11900K turns the tables on the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X on Geekbench 4 while also hitting a new single-core high on Geekbench 5

The Intel Core i9-11900K looks like it will be a phenomenal chip, at least in terms of performance. The processor has already been spotted numerous times on Geekbench 5, but now the first benchmarks for Geekbench 4 have started appearing, with three records available at the time of writing. The 8-core, 16-thread i9-11900K has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and boosts of 4.80 GHz (all cores) and 5.30 GHz (single core). A PL1 TDP of 125 W and 16 MB cache are also part of the chip’s specs. The processor has been picked out on three occasions on Geekbench 4 so far, all in combination with the Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme board.

Focusing on the overall better benchmark run, as we will compare it with the highest result we recorded for the 8C/16T Ryzen 7 5800X, the Intel Core i9-11900K came up with 8,193 points in the single-core test and 42,250 points in the multi-core test. While this result still leaves the Ryzen 7 5800X from our run +4.45% ahead in the multi-core discipline, it also gives the i9-11900K a good +11.73% lead in single-core performance. How does this turn the tables? Oftentimes, the Intel part is only a tiny bit ahead in single while the AMD rival is way ahead in multi. In this case, there is a switch as the Ryzen 5000 processor only leads by a small amount in its stronger field, while the Rocket-Lake S chip takes a greater lead in the single-core comparison.

As for Geekbench 5, there are now a good handful of i9-11900K listings on the site, with the latest rocking up with a huge single-core score of 1,920 points and a credible multi-core score of 10,955. Comparing those scores with our Ryzen 7 5800X test also shines a good light on the Rocket Lake-S rival. The Intel chip leads by a healthy +14.11% in the single-core run while the AMD processor only has a +3.64% advantage in the multi-core benchmark. Obviously, there are always plenty of caveats to lay down: power consumption, heat emissions, part availability, part pricing, active boost duration, etc. But it does make you wonder what Intel could do beyond the 14nm process if it spent less time trying to up-end the competition and more time concentrating on semiconductor design.

Buy the Intel Core i9-10900K on Amazon