Final Words & Conclusion
Final words & conclusion
The year 2019 has been challenging for Intel, never has competition been more present throughout the desktop and many-core processor market. Today's tested product sits smack-down in the middle of everything available relative to a number of cores. There's no denying it, this processor is fast and agile, but is fighting with the 749 USD costing Ryzen 9 3950X, which has 16-cores. In that respect AMD has got the better hand a processor that is almost a quarter less expensive. Seen from that perspective, Intel will likely need to further lower its price for this proc to remain competitive enough. We like the fact that the Core i9 10980XE has been hardened against most recent processor vulnerabilities, and you will also need to acknowledge that the gaming performance is a better compared to the competition when you fire an enthusiast-class GPU at it. Intel is capable of managing that by applying Turbo boost 3.0, having 4.8 GHz on a single thread really helps in gaming.
Of course, you will not be purchasing an 18-core processor to play games, that would be ludicrous. However as the results show, it certainly is a very capable processor to do so. Processors like shown today are of course fantastic for the streamers, video editors, content creators, the developers and companies that need to run a fairly affordable multi-core server for a bit of virtualization and such. Here the Core i9-10980XE Extreme does well. But is it enough though?, well that is a hard to answer question really, AMD is very strong in threaded and single-threaded performance with applications, it's only gaming where they perform a notch less. They do have yet another trump card, their pricing per core is better as well. The new 16-core Ryzen 9 3950X, is extremely close to this 18-core model. You also need to look at platform differences really, AMD has PCIe Gen4.0 throughout the eco-system, whereas with the Core i9 10980XE is tied to the X299 platform.
Performance & tweaking
We'd rate the new 18-core part as "very good" for the results as tested. Temps remain good as well (depending on the choice of cooling), we obviously are going to recommend a good LCS cooler. At the OC levels you are looking at up-to 1.25~1.35V needed on that CPU core (LCS cooling) for a decent tweak, however, and that is the same for AMD, tweaking many-core processors is complicated as you are bound to run into core limitations, heat and power consumption. With processor like these, you really need to wonder if you want to tweak, as really, as the best configuration is already there at defaults. At fairly low voltages you'll reach an all-core 4600 MHz, even on a proper heatpipe cooler. LCS got us into 5 GHz (all cores), while benchmarks like CPU-Z finished, others like Cinebench would not. At that stage, I had applied 1.45 Volts VCORE and we were closing in at 500~600-Watts power consumption. In order to get Cinebench stable I would have needed 1.50 Volts or even higher, I as such forfeited there as I did not want to risk damaging the processor. With serious cooling, the potential is there though.
I do have to state that I have been using an ES sample so I cannot say anything conclusive on the final retail products (these might run even cooler). The infrastructure that X299 offers is sound as well as has proven to be reliable and easy to use. Tweaking wise you increase the CPU voltage and multiplier and you are good to go. Another plus for the Intel platform is that over the years they have been able to refine their memory controllers, pop in anything XMP 2.0 and you have a 98% chance it'll work straight out of the box with very fast memories. However, the effect of faster frequency memory is far less significant, so opt volume would be my advice. Also with quad-channel memory available as an option, we'd always suggest going with a nice affordable 3200 MHz kit, as bandwidth on quad-channel simply is just not that relevant in your gaming experience.
Power consumption
With eighteen cores you get a 165 Watt TDP processor. With the system at idle with a GeForce RTX 2080 Ti installed / 16 GB memory / SSD and the X299 motherboard hovers at roughly 85 Watts in IDLE. That's just fine really, but the load values are rather significant. When we stressed the processor 100% run we reach roughly 325 Watts with this 18-core part. Including the platform and averaged out that is 18 Watts per core, and that really is a good and fair value.
Conclusion
The Core i9 10980XE leaves a rock-solid impression. Most vulnerabilities will have been patched at the hardware level and the performance certainly is there. Intel's biggest trump card is that they slashed the prices in half, but still is struggling against the Ryzen and (soon) Threadripper lineup from AMD. The biggest competitor for the Core i9 10980XE is not at all Threadripper 3000 as you'll find out later today, no it is the Ryzen cheaper Ryzen 9 3950X, which dances all around the Core i9 10980XE performance-wise with it's PCIe gen 4.0 platform advantage. As so often, platform and brand preference will be important for any potential consumer. The performance is good, the load temperatures are really good as well, the price reduced in half certainly is appetizing, and the compatibility with a simple BIOS update with the existing generation of motherboards (X299) is a much welcomed added benefit for most users. Tweaking wise there is a lot to say for the i9 10980XE, as explained 4600 MHz all cores is quite easy and I do foresee some lucky folks reaching a stable 5.0 GHz on all 18 cores. However, you really need to wonder if that is worth it. as at that point, you are looking at 500+ Watts power consumption. But for kicks and giggles, sure why not.
A closing thought, if you need this kind of horsepower, then a thousand bucks will get you there. But never ever has competition been so strong, and depending on your workload and preference, I obviously must advise you to take a look at some of our Ryzen and Threadripper reviews, as well as they, do have the advantage of strong application IPC as well as PCIe Gen 4 throughout the infrastructure. AMD shook up the processor market and that is the reality anno the year 2019. No matter what you choose, you will enjoy the platform and performance. Seen from the Core i9 9980XE things are dimmer though, you get a slightly faster single turbo bin and 4 extra PCIe lanes. The benefits stop their though and also if you bought a Core i9 9980XE and look at the Core i9 10980XE pricing slashed in half, you're not going to be happy. But yes, we can certainly recommend Cascade Lake-X as the 10980XE is a bit of a beast alright, and sure you'll have a game performance advantage over the competition, albeit that difference is getting more and more marginal as well.
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