Intel’s new i9-10900K—fast, yes; competitive, not so much
We finally got our grubby paws on the flagship SKU of Intel's new Comet Lake desktop processors—the (sorta) 5.3GHz, (well over) 125W TDP i9-10900K. Intel's extremely lackluster performance marketing led us to believe the processor would probably be little if any improvement over last year's i9-9900K—but, happily, that's not the case.
The more troubling thing for Team Blue is that it isn't only competing with its own CPUs. Intel's real competition isn't itself, it's AMD—and for now at least, the company is still struggling to keep its head above water. Intel's new flagship i9 desktop CPU is, as you would expect, very fast indeed. Also as you would expect, for the most part its Ryzen 9 3950X equivalent kicks sand in its face and runs away laughing.
