9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K
- iGPU:
- Intel UHD Graphics 630
- Boost/Base Clock:
- 5.0 GHz / 3.6 GHz
- Core/Thread Count:
- 8 Core / 16 Thread
- Cache:
- 16MB L3 + 2MB L2 + 512KB L1
- TDP:
- 95 W
- CPU Process Node:
- 14 Nanometers
- CPU Socket:
- FCLGA1151
- CPU Series:
- Coffee Lake Refresh, 9th Gen Intel Core
- Memory Support:
- DDR4-2666
- Form Factor:
- Desktop
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Manufacturer: Intel Last updated: September 9, 2026
9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K Review
The 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K is Intel's Coffee Lake Refresh flagship, an 8-core, 16-thread unlocked desktop processor running a 3.6 GHz base clock that boosts to 5.0 GHz within a 95 Watt TDP on the LGA 1151 socket.
This was Intel's first mainstream desktop chip to reach 5.0 GHz out of the box, and it earned a widespread reputation as one of the best gaming CPUs of its generation thanks to genuinely strong per-core performance.
Intel UHD Graphics 630
A basic integrated GPU intended for display output; enthusiast desktop builds around this flagship chip typically pair it with a high-end discrete GPU.
How Is the Core i9-9900K in Terms of Performance
The combination of 8 cores, 16 threads, and a 5.0 GHz boost clock made this chip Intel's strongest mainstream gaming and productivity option at launch, with genuinely excellent per-core performance that kept it competitive in gaming benchmarks for years.
Benchmarks
The benchmarks below are published results for specific applications. They are measured separately and do not feed the two scores above.
Puget Bench for Photoshop v1.0 - points (More is Better)
- Apple M5 Max15043.83 points
- Apple M5 Pro14885.21 points
- Apple M512095.89 points
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D12088.31 points
- Intel Core i9-14900KF10029.96 points
- 11th Gen Intel Core i7 11700K7098.88 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9-10900KF6892.97 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (this product)5730.15 points
Puget Systems runs a fixed set of real Photoshop jobs: opening and saving large files, resizing, content-aware fill, blurs and filters. A higher score means less waiting on the tasks a retoucher repeats all day.
Photoshop is decided mostly by how fast a few cores are, not how many there are, so a chip with fewer but faster cores often beats one with more cores. Treat a gap under about 5 percent as something you would never notice while working.
Puget Bench for Premiere Pro v1.0-1.1 - points (More is Better)
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9-10900KF8213.67 points
- 11th Gen Intel Core i7 11700K8123.47 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10920X8063.5 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10900K7881.73 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9-10980XE7835.06 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10850K7227.4 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900KS7211.33 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (this product)7079.27 points
Plays back and exports 4K and 8K timelines across several camera codecs, with effects and multi-stream sequences, in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Export time rewards more cores, but much of the timeline work runs on the hardware decoder and the graphics card instead of the processor. A small gap here rarely changes how the edit feels.
Puget Bench for After Effects v1.0-1.1 - points (More is Better)
- Intel Core i9-14900KF13588.09 points
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D12906.24 points
- Apple M5 Max11280.89 points
- Apple M5 Pro9928.85 points
- Apple M57261.63 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (this product)6945.81 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10900K6799.67 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i5 10400F5598.67 points
RAM preview and rendering of 2D and 3D compositions in After Effects, including camera tracking.
After Effects still runs largely on one core at a time, so per-core speed decides this and extra cores add very little. This is the benchmark where a high-clock chip pulls ahead of a many-core one.
Puget Bench for DaVinci Resolve v1.0-1.2 - points (More is Better)
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10900K7805.2 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9-10980XE7088 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 109006352 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10850K6101.6 points
- 11th Gen Intel Core i7 11700K6038.67 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10920X5853.67 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (this product)5670.25 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10700K5033.4 points
Grading, effects, AI tools and export in DaVinci Resolve Studio, across the codecs a colourist actually works in.
Resolve leans harder on the graphics card than on the processor, so the CPU difference here is usually smaller than the difference your GPU choice would make. Use it to rule out a bottleneck, not to pick a winner.
Puget Bench for Premiere Pro v2.0 - points (More is Better)
- Apple M5 Max149750.46 points
- Intel Core i9-14900KF129174.45 points
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D126611.82 points
- Apple M5 Pro106874.78 points
- 11th Gen Intel Core i7 11700K82202 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10850K78258 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i7-9700K77118.8 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (this product)61772.8 points
Plays back and exports 4K and 8K timelines across several camera codecs, with effects and multi-stream sequences, in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Export time rewards more cores, but much of the timeline work runs on the hardware decoder and the graphics card instead of the processor. A small gap here rarely changes how the edit feels.
Puget Bench for DaVinci Resolve v2.0-2.1 - points (More is Better)
- Intel Core i9-14900KF135454.8 points
- Apple M5 Max116240.93 points
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D113372.15 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9-10900KF93174 points
- Apple M5 Pro81178.5 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10700K81083 points
- Apple M660099 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (this product)59437 points
Grading, effects, AI tools and export in DaVinci Resolve Studio, across the codecs a colourist actually works in.
Resolve leans harder on the graphics card than on the processor, so the CPU difference here is usually smaller than the difference your GPU choice would make. Use it to rule out a bottleneck, not to pick a winner.
Puget Bench for Lightroom Classic v1.0-1.1 - points (More is Better)
- Apple M5 Max11549.6 points
- AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D10942.9 points
- Apple M5 Pro10909.17 points
- Apple M56668.19 points
- 11th Gen Intel Core i7 11700K6167.4 points
- 10th Gen Intel Core i9 10850K5769.67 points
- 11th Gen Intel Core i5 11600KF5499.67 points
- 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K (this product)4635.96 points
Measures a full Lightroom Classic catalogue workflow: importing, building previews, scrolling the library, exporting JPEGs and running the AI tools such as Denoise.
Import and export spread across every core, so core count counts for more here than it does in Photoshop. The AI tools lean on the graphics card, so a CPU gap matters less if you pair either chip with a strong GPU.
Benchmarks
Cinebench R20 single-core scores of 518 reflect genuinely excellent per-core performance, among the strongest of any Coffee Lake Refresh chip, directly reflecting this chip's 5.0 GHz out-of-the-box boost ceiling.
Our verdict
Reviewed by Burooj Alam. Rated by us, not by users.
Best for
- Gaming and productivity desktop builds wanting Intel's strongest mainstream Coffee Lake Refresh performance
Not for
- Buyers wanting the very latest architecture, considerably newer chips offer meaningful IPC and efficiency improvements
Specifications
What these specs meanIdentity
| Brand | Intel |
|---|---|
| Product Line | Core i9 |
| Model Number | 9900K |
| Codename | Coffee Lake Refresh |
| Release Year | 2018 |
Segment and platform
| Market Segment | Desktop |
|---|---|
| Microarchitecture | Coffee Lake Refresh, 9th Gen Intel Core |
| Socket | FCLGA1151 |
| Socket Status | End of Life |
| Process Node | 14 nm |
Core configuration
| Total Cores | 8 |
|---|---|
| Performance Cores | 8 |
| Efficiency Cores | 0 |
| Total Threads | 16 |
| SMT Enabled | Yes |
Clock speeds
| P-Core Base Clock | 3.6 GHz |
|---|---|
| P-Core Boost Clock | 5 GHz |
Cache
| L2 Cache | 2 MB |
|---|---|
| L3 Cache | 16 MB |
Power and thermal
| Base Power | 95 W |
|---|---|
| Max Turbo Power | 95 W |
Memory
| Memory Type | DDR4-2666 |
|---|---|
| Max Memory Speed | 2666 MT/s |
| Memory Channels | 2 |
| ECC Support | No |
Graphics and AI
| Integrated Graphics | Yes |
|---|---|
| iGPU Model | Intel UHD Graphics 630 |
| Copilot Plus Certified | No |
Expansion
| PCIe Generation | 3.0 |
|---|---|
| PCIe Lanes | 16 |
Commercial
| Launch MSRP | 488 USD |
|---|---|
| Retail Availability | Retail |
| Form Factor | Desktop |
|---|---|
| TDP | 95 W |
| iGPU | Intel UHD Graphics 630 |
Measured results
SPEC CPU 2017
Best published result on spec.org as of 23 Sept 2026.
| SPECrate® 2017 Integer (base) | 51 |
Cores 8 · Tested in SuperWorkstation 5039C-T (X11SCA , Intel Core i9-9900K) · Published by Supermicro, Jan-2019
Full disclosure on spec.org| SPECrate® 2017 Floating Point (base) | 42.9 |
Cores 8 · Tested in SuperWorkstation 5039C-T (X11SCA , Intel Core i9-9900K) · Published by Supermicro, Jan-2019
Full disclosure on spec.orgSPEC®, SPECrate® and SPECspeed® are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Copied by permission of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC). Results retrieved from www.spec.org on 23 Sept 2026.
FAQs
What are the key specifications of the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K?
The 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K has 8 cores and 16 threads, a 3.6 GHz base and 5 GHz boost clock, 16 MB of L3 cache and a 95 W TDP. Integrated graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 630. Socket: FCLGA1151.
Will the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K work with my current setup?
The 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K lists CPU Socket is LGA 1151. Check that against the hardware you already own before buying, since this is the field that most often decides whether a part fits.
Who is the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K best suited to?
Best suited to: Gaming and productivity desktop builds wanting Intel's strongest mainstream Coffee Lake Refresh performance.
What are the drawbacks of the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K?
Not the best fit for: Buyers wanting the very latest architecture, considerably newer chips offer meaningful IPC and efficiency improvements.