It’s no surprise at this point that Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake-S desktop processors, like their preceding four generations will be another 14nm Skylake rehash. We’re getting the same CPUs with hyperthreading enabled and a slightly higher operating clock. The top-end Core i9-10900K is expected to get two additional cores, bringing the total count to 10, but that’s about it. Unfortunately for Intel, increasing the boost clocks and threads on the same chips results in a higher power draw and worse thermals. At CES, we got reports that the Comet Lake-S processors had been delayed due to the 10900K exceeding its power limit of 300W. Today, some SiSoft benchmarks have surfaced that confirm the high power draw of Intel’s 10th Gen desktop chips, without any significant improvements in performance.

Here, you’ve got the AMD Ryzen 7 3800X with the same count as the Core i7-10700KF running at 4.5GHz and drawing just below 130W. It registers a slightly higher score than the latter: 65.78GOPS/GHz and a performance per watt rating of 2.37GOPS/W. This results in an overall score of 295.09GOPS for the 3800X.

Now, you’ve got the 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10700HK drawing a whopping 250W despite having the same number of cores. The operating frequency is higher by 400MHz but despite that the performance is worse off than the 3800X: 59GOPS/GHz (vs 65.78 on the R7). The power efficiency is quite dismal too with a rating of 1.18GOPS/W. That’s nearly half as much as the Ryzen 7 3800X. The overall score is 294.33GOPS, still a tad bit lower than its direct competitor (despite drawing nearly twice as much power). This just highlights how little innovation Intel has brought about in the last decade or so. It’s upcoming 10th Gen CPUs draw twice as much power than their Ryzen competitors and still fail to beat them. On top of that, we can say with a good level of certainty that they’ll cost more too.

Now, let’s have a look at the Ryzen 7 3700X. The performs slightly worse than its elder R7 sibling but draws much less power too, just 73W. However, the performance isn’t that far off with a score of 4.09GOPS/W (3800: 65.78; 10700KF: 59,95). It has the highest performance per watt rating of 4.09, twice as much as the 3800X and nearly 4 times more than the Core i7-10700KF.

As far as Intel’s 9th Gen lineup is concerned, the power draw of the Core i7-9700K mostly stayed under 50W while the i9-9900K did cross 200W in certain scenarios. Considering that the 10700KF is essentially the previous-gen i9 on steroids, it”s very plausible that its power consumption would reach 250W.

We should see the 10th Gen Comet Lake-S and H lineups hit retail in the coming two months. Till then, it’s best to keep your expectations in check.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

