Intel Tries to Step It Up – Intel’s New 10900k Processor & Z490 Chipset

In recent news, Intel has been having bad times against AMD. While they still may have a hold on overclocking speeds, RAM speeds, single-core performance, and high framerates, AMD still holds the triumphant trophy in terms of overall power and price-to-performance ratios. Last year, their abysmal release of the 10980XE really dug the grave deep for them, and it seemed that AMD would be the king of CPU performance. However, it seems that Intel is trying their hand at taking that throne once more, with their newest releases. Through their new 10900K and Z490, Intel is taking new strides not previously explored by the company.

In terms of their 10900K, everything was bettered: cores, threads, thermal control, and clock speeds. The 10th-gen i9 processor now includes 10 cores, 20 threads, up to 5.3GHz on single-core, and 4.9GHz on all cores; I imagine, however, that many overclocking-enthusiasts will take the all-core frequency even further quite happily. Already this provides a significant advantage to the platform of content creators and gamers that Intel is desperately trying to get a grip on. So far, they’re still holding on pretty well!

The Z490 motherboard platform also offers many significant improvements. In addition to having a brand new socket, specifically built for the new S-series CPU platform, Intel Wi-Fi 6 is replacing the previous 802.11ac / Wi-Fi 5, and the hard-wired connection capability is upgraded to a 2.5-gigabit ethernet connection. 

Should this mean, however, that you should swap out your motherboard completely for a brand new 10900K? No. If anything, AMD still remains at the top in terms of overall performance. For only $50 less, you could get a Ryzen 9 3900X, with 2 more cores, 4 more threads, and overall lower temperatures. Hopefully, though, Intel finally realized that their place needs to be protected before it crashes.