Intel Core i9 9900K Linux Benchmarks - 15-Way Intel/AMD Comparison On Ubuntu 18.10

Between the Ryzen 7 2700X and Core i9 9900K I also ran some additional benchmarks while the Phoronix Test Suite was monitoring each system's AC power consumption using a WattsUp Pro power meter. Here are the system specifications during this complementary test runs.

Besides the Core i9 9900K tending to deliver better raw performance over the Ryzen 7 2700X, it also translates into much better performance-per-Watt. As a reminder, the i9-9900K has a 95 Watt TDP while the Ryzen 7 2700X comes in at 105 Watts. But for these performance-per-Watt metrics anyhow they are automatically generated by the Phoronix Test Suite based upon the real-time power consumption during each benchmark.

Lastly is a look at the AC system power consumption collected over the wide variety of benchmarks carried out. The Core i9 9900K with ASUS PRIME Z370-A and RX Vega 64 had an average AC power draw of 224 Watts and a peak of 386 Watts. The Ryzen 7 2700X with ASUS CROSSHAIR VII HERO motherboard and RX Vega 64 had a average power draw of 254 Watts and a peak of 420 Watts.

The Core i9 9900K was being tested with an Arctic Freezer 12 cooler since no stock heatsink is bundled. The Core i9 9900K had an average temperature under load of 44 degrees and a peak of 64 degrees while at idle was about 30 degrees. The reference AMD Ryzen 7 2700X results are with its stock heatsink.

It's admittedly taken a bit long for Intel to introduce an eight core / sixteen thread processor in the sub-$500 space to take on the AMD Ryzen 7 series and now they have with the Core i9 9900K squeezing in at $499 USD. As shown by our wide variety of real-world open-source/Linux benchmarks in this article, almost across the board the Core i9 9900K was delivering better performance in the multi-threaded workloads and especially in most single-threaded tests. Intel also came ahead in the power efficiency / performance-per-Watt.

But for many of these tests the Core i9 9900K was coming in at 10~20% faster than the Ryzen 7 2700X while this 9th Gen Intel CPU costs about 60% more with its current retail pricing. The Core i9 9900K delivers the better performance but at a significant premium. If cost is no factor, the Core i9 9900K is the faster option between these competing CPUs. For multi-threaded workloads the Core i9 9900K is obviously a sizable upgrade over the likes of the Core i7 8700K while in the case of single-threaded tests the Core i7 8086K performed similarly. But with the i7-8086K retailing for about $440, it's more worthwhile going with the i9-9900K due to the extra cores/threads for just $60.

If you wish to see how your own Linux CPU performance compares to the processors tested in this article, it's very easy to do so with the open-source Phoronix Test Suite. With the Phoronix Test Suite on your Linux system(s) simply run phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1810170-SK-COREI999026 for your own fully-automated, side-by-side benchmark comparison against the data found in this article.

Thanks to Intel for supplying the Core i9 9900K for our launch-day Linux benchmarking and for ASUS with the PRIME Z390-A and their continued support with our Linux hardware testing. Additional benchmarks of the Core i9 9900K with various Linux distribution comparisons, some BSD testing, and other complementary data points will be published on Phoronix in the days ahead. If you are interested in gaming, be sure to see the initial Ryzen 7 2700X vs. Core i9 9900K Linux gaming benchmarks.