Intel Core i9 9900K review: being the fastest gaming processor in the world is no longer enough

The new Intel Core i9 9900K is the fastest gaming processor that you can buy. It’s no longer just Intel’s paid-for benchmarks which support that, the independent tests that will be washing around the internet as you read this will confirm as much. But, while that is the aim for Intel’s top CPU, we’re almost at a point where that is no longer as relevant a boast as it once was. Intel released a Core i9 processor into both the mobile and high-end desktop markets in the last generation, but the middle-ground mainstream processors were left with the Core i7 sitting at the top of the CPU tech tree. No more, with the launch of the Core i9 9900K Intel has not only added a new high-end tier to its mainstream desktop range, it has also added another pair of cores to the refreshed Coffee Lake lineup. Yes, Intel has finally caught up in the core-count stakes to AMD’s disruptive Ryzen processors. After rushing the six-core Coffee Lake chips out at the tail end of last year it’s now following up with the eight-core, 16-thread Core i9 CPU so that it can dominate both in the gaming performance, as well as multi-threaded metrics.