Comet Lake Discussion Thread

[SteelCrysis]

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-...-packaging

Intel posted a product change notice (PCN) yesterday announcing that it is axing its specialty dodecahedron packaging for its Core i9-9900K processor. Intel's fancy translucent twelve-sided package debuted with the Core i9-9900K as a response to AMD's elaborate packaging that comes with its Threadripper processors, and like those chips, it didn't have to make room for a bundled cooler, as Intel doesn't include one.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel...00/22.html

Averaged over our mix of single/low and multi-threaded applications, the Core i3-10100 shows large gains over the Core i3-9100F. With a 17% lead, the difference is significant, higher than what we got in previous releases, generation over generation. AMD's Ryzen 3 3300X beats the Core i3-10100 by around 9%, and the much more affordable Ryzen 3 3100 is only 3% behind. We reviewed the Core i5-10400F last week; thanks to its six-core/twelve-thread design, it is 22% faster than the Core i3-10100. Overall, the Core i3-10100 offers very decent performance for applications that often rivals that of the more powerful last-generation Ryzen 5/Core i5 models. Now, if you are rendering or encoding video all day, you should of course definitely look at a stronger processor, especially when you make more money the shorter your wait. For the general consumer who browses the Internet and uses Office, or conducts other such tasks, the Core i3-10100 is perfectly sufficient.

When it comes to gaming, the Core i3-10100 does fine. It trades blows with last generation's Core i5 models and is 10% faster at 1080p than the Core i3-9100F. Against AMD Ryzen it does even better, basically matches the Ryzen 5 3600X, and is just a few percentage points behind the Ryzen 9 3900X. The differences are really small when it comes to gaming though, especially at higher resolutions like 1440p and 4K, because the bottleneck shifts to the graphics card and the CPU no longer is the limiting factor. That's why it's a good idea to save as much as possible on the processor, which frees up budget to buy a faster GPU. If you absolutely want to future-proof, a six-core CPU for gaming could be the better choice, but for now, a 4-core/8-thread processor is perfectly sufficient and the wiser investment. AMD's Ryzen 3 3300X is a strong alternative though, especially if you are looking for a more balanced mix between application performance and games and want to save a buck or two.
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BCLK overclocking adds around 2–3 % real-life performance, which is probably not worth the trouble. AMD's Ryzen 3 3000 series CPUs have unlocked multipliers. Overclocking on the Ryzen 3 3100 yields almost 10%, so it is definitely worth playing with; the Ryzen 3 3300X on the other hand has no headroom. In this Core i3-10100 review, we also tested "stock" performance vs. "Max Turbo," which is the processor running with all its power limits removed. On the Core i3-10100, these are PL1 = 65 W and PL2 = 90 W. If you scan through the charts, you'll see that there's almost no difference between both results. The reason is that the Core i3-10100 doesn't really hit those power limits. If you look at the power consumption page, even the Prime95 stress test only shows minimal differences, so not even that can drive power consumption high enough. This is good news for motherboard choice, as you don't need a board with extra strong VRM, or other fancy tweaking ability. Just pair the CPU with the cheapest board you can find and you'll be good to go.
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With a retail price of around $130, the Core i3-10100 is a solid successor to the Core i3-9100, but it's under heavy pressure from AMD's recent Ryzen 3 releases. The Ryzen 3 3100 only costs $100 and is not much slower. The $120 Ryzen 3 3300X offers better application performance, and gaming FPS is "close enough." When the Core i3-10100 is installed on a lower-cost motherboard, the 2666 MHz memory penalty causes gaming performance to fall behind even the Ryzen 3 3300X. Unless Intel can drop the price of the Core i3-10100 to around $100, AMD Ryzen is the better option. The only exception is if you do not plan on using a discrete graphics card. Here, the Core i3-10100 is an excellent choice for price/performance because its integrated graphics are good enough for all desktop work and the Quick Sync video engine accelerates video encoding in many applications. AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X lack any sort of integrated graphics, so they must be paired with a graphics card, which makes sense for gaming, but is a waste of money for office and non-gaming consumer systems. AMD does have Ryzen APUs with integrated graphics, but these are quite slow because they are not based on the latest Zen 2 architecture.