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Intel
Intel Core i9-10900K
Intel's last and largest 14 nm mainstream flagship: ten Skylake-derived cores boosting to 5.3 GHz, the highest stock single-core clock on LGA1200. It was built to win gaming benchmarks against Zen 2 at any power cost.
Pros
- 5.3 GHz Thermal Velocity Boost — the fastest stock single-core clock of the socket
- 10 cores / 20 threads with 20 MB L3
- Turbo Boost Max 3.0 plus TVB stack extra frequency on the best cores
- Unlocked with a soldered IHS; thinned die helps heat transfer
- UHD Graphics 630 for display output and QuickSync
Cons
- 250 W PL2 and genuinely hot — high-end cooling is mandatory, not optional
- PCIe 3.0 only, with no Gen4 path on the platform
- No cooler included; also needs a Z-series board with heavy VRM for full boost
- The i9-10850K is 100 MHz slower for meaningfully less money
Below average
Computed from specs & benchmarks via our public methodology.
Full specifications
Everything we track for the Intel Core i9-10900K
General
- Announced
- 2020
- Socket
- LGA1200
- Process
- 14 nm
- Base TDP
- 125 W
- Max turbo power
- 250 W
- Unlocked multiplier
- Yes
- Cooler included
- No
Cores & Clocks
- Cores
- 10
- Performance cores
- 10
- Efficiency cores
- 0
- Threads
- 20
- Base clock
- 3.7 GHz
- Boost clock
- 5.3 GHz
- L2 cache
- 2.5 MB
- L3 cache
- 20 MB
Integrated GPU
- iGPU
- Intel UHD Graphics 630
- iGPU clock
- 1,200 MHz
Memory
- Memory support
- DDR4-2933
- Max memory
- 128 GB
- Memory channels
- 2
Platform
- PCIe version
- 3
- CPU PCIe lanes
- 16
Benchmarks
- Cinebench R23 (single)
- 1,340Bottom 33%
- Cinebench R23 (multi)
- 16,300Top 42%
- PassMark
- 22,218Top 50%
- PassMark (single thread)
- 3,107Bottom 45%
Quick answers
Is the Intel Core i9-10900K good in 2026?
The Intel Core i9-10900K earns an Inno Score of 47.1/100 (“Below average”) based on its specs and benchmark results. Intel's last and largest 14 nm mainstream flagship: ten Skylake-derived cores boosting to 5.3 GHz, the highest stock single-core clock on LGA1200. It was built to win gaming benchmarks against Zen 2 at any power cost.
What are the key specs of the Intel Core i9-10900K?
Cores: 10 · Threads: 20 · Boost clock: 5.3 GHz · Socket: LGA1200
What are the closest alternatives to the Intel Core i9-10900K?
Its closest rivals on InnoReviews are Intel Core i5-12400, AMD Ryzen 7 3800X, Intel Core i5-12400F — open the comparison pages for a spec-by-spec breakdown.
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