An Intel Core i9 10900K CPU overclocked to 5.3 GHz on all cores consumed a peak power of 331W. Note that this is the power consumption of the processor only, not the entire test rig platform. It is like running two Xbox One X consoles at maximum just to run Intel's new CPU.

In the words of the astonished Gordon Ramsay, fuck you.

Today, the performance lid was lifted off the new 10th generation Intel Comet Lake processors and a review of the Core i9 10900K was published. Indeed, it is a great gaming CPU, boasting the fastest speeds in the world, but given that graphics cards have a greater impact on gaming performance at 1080p and beyond, the value of this title is questionable.

However, it is also a very power-hungry CPU at peak operation. Out of the box, with all 10 cores and 20 processing threads at 100% performance and 4.9 GHz on turbo boost, it consumes almost 200W. This alone is quite demanding. However, when playing games, not all cores are running at full capacity, bouncing around 5.2 GHz and very occasionally around 5.3 GHz.

However, when the entire chip is overclocked, the situation does not look so rosy. Using the new and improved Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU), the unfeasibly expensive Asus ROG Maximus XII Extreme Z490 board (£860!) ), we were able to achieve a consistent all-core clock speed of 5.3 GHz; cooling with the NZXT Kraken Z63 chip chiller required using the app's new voltage/frequency curve adjustment to keep the CPU below 90°C.

With the i9 10900K undervolted, the 5.3GHz overclock was stable and never exceeded 90°C.

At this speed, CPU benchmark scores took a huge leap forward and game frame rates dropped. I am not a serious overclocking expert, but this seems odd. But then again, gaming performance isn't the goal of overclocking, is it, to beat meaningless numbers on a test screen that can be submitted to HWBot?

Anyway, ignoring the actual fps and benchmark results, it was the power consumption that had my jaw firmly planted on the floor. Seriously, 331W is far more than what I saw as peak platform power consumption for a high-end system running games on the RTX 2080 Super. This is a complete system, not just a single component.

I know that this chip only peaks during overclocked runs of tests that strain every core of the processor, but if you want to push this chip for video rendering or 3D work, you have to be prepared for hot and hungry CPU action That being said. To be fair, if you want a chip for video rendering and 3D work, I would probably recommend the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, which is $120 cheaper with 12 cores and 24 threads.

You don't need to overclock to beat the 10900K for productive work.

In other words, even though the Intel Comet Lake flagship CPUs can be overclocked quite well, don't bother. They don't seem to be very good for gaming, and they certainly aren't very good for Earth either. [I did some testing on a Core i5 10600K and was able to get gaming performance close to the 10900K by running all 6 cores and 12 threads at 5GHz. This is the fastest gaming CPU in the world.