New Intel Core i9-10850K official, save US$35 and lose 100 Hz on the Core i9-10900K

The rumor mill was strong on this chip and it has indeed come to fruition as expected. The new Comet Lake S high-end chip is dubbed the Core i9-10850K and features 10 cores and 20 threads as does the flagship Core i9-10900K but has its base clock tuned to 100 Hz lower at 3.6 GHz. It sports a single-core boost of 5 GHz and can boost across all cores at 4.7 GHz. In Thermal Velocity Boost it can at 5.2 GHz on single threads and 4.8 GHz in all-core TVB mode with an overall TDP rate at 125 W.

In all key specs, it is exactly 100 Hz slower across the board and for that, you can enjoy a US$35 saving. While it is always useful to give customers a choice of price points, there have been suggestions that the chip exists as binned Core i9-10900K parts that didn’t quite cut the mustard. Given that is how much of Intel’s line up is designed these days, that shouldn’t really come as any surprise, if true.

Currently, both chips are the two fastest gaming CPUs on the market, although AMD plans to have something to say about that with the launch of its forthcoming Ryzen 4000-based desktop CPUs. In terms of bang-for-your buck, Intel’s own Core i7-10700K/F chips are probably the sweet spot in Intel’s Comet Lake S-based line up. Although only 8-core and 16-thread parts, they start from just US$349 compared to US$453 for the Core i9-10850K and US$488 for the Core i9-10900K but offer 97 percent of the performance.