CES 2021 | 11th gen Rocket Lake-S Core i9 11900K challenges AMD Ryzen 9 5900X in gaming tests as Intel previews 11th gen 45 W Tiger Lake and Alder Lake

Apart from launching the Tiger Lake-H35 platform for ultraportable gaming laptops, Intel also briefly previewed its upcoming offerings for mobile and desktop gaming PCs. Intel has been talking about Rocket Lake-S for a while now, and we've even seen several live pictures and benchmarks of engineering samples leak over the past few weeks.

Intel Rocket Lake-S Core i9-11900K

Today, Intel is officially announcing the Core i9-11900K and along with it, some gaming comparisons against the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X. Previously, Intel said that double-digit percentage IPC improvements can be expected with Rocket Lake-S. Now, we are getting to know that number to be up to 19%. Intel is also claiming up to 50% improved iGPU performance and integration of Deep Learning Boost AI features. 

Most of what we've reported previously about the Core i9-11900K has come true in today's announcement. The Core i9-11900K is an 8C/16T part with a single-core thermal velocity boost of up to 5.3 GHz and an all-core boost up to 4.8 GHz. It will offer new overclocking capabilities and support 20 PCIe Gen4 lanes. The Core i9-11900K is designed for Intel's new 500 series chipset but will also be backwards compatible with current 400 series motherboards.

Core i9-11900K vs Ryzen 9 5900X in gaming

Intel showed a slide comparing the gaming performance of the Core i9-11900K with the Ryzen 9 5900X. The numbers show Intel is able to regain back the gaming crown that was briefly usurped by AMD Zen 3 Vermeer Ryzen 5000 desktop processors.

The fine print says both systems are configured with an EVGA RTX 3080 XC3 GPU. Even then, do bear in mind that these are manufacturer claims, and we will get to know the real picture only in actual reviews.

According to Intel's comparisons, the Core i9-11900K is anywhere between 2% to 8% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X depending on the game. Certain anomalies are seen here such as the Metro Exodus benchmark in which even a Core i7-8700K can be faster than a Ryzen 9 5900X.

All said and done, Rocket Lake seems to be able to edge out Zen 3 in gaming, but the gains seem to be within the margin of error. We also don't know the comparative power consumption and temperature measurements, so we'd advise not reading too much into these numbers yet.

Tiger Lake-H 45 W and Alder Lake

Intel also touched briefly upon the upcoming Tiger Lake-H 45 W processors for gaming laptops. No SKUs were announced but these processors will top-out at 8C/16T and feature 20 lanes of PCIe Gen4 from the CPU. 

Intel also briefly demonstrated Alder Lake running Windows 10 and called it the company's most power-scalable SoC. Alder Lake will be built on 10 nm SuperFin and will combine high-performance and high-efficiency cores. Intel is expected to debut Alder Lake some time in H2 2021.