Intel Core i9-11900K, Core i5-11600K, Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero Review

Intel must launch a brand new era of CPUs from time to time, in order that PC producers have greater numbers to advertise and consumers really feel as if they’re getting one thing higher and quicker. Of course, as consumers, it is good to get all the newest requirements and the absolute best efficiency at each worth stage, however the easy truth is that older {hardware} may be very typically ok, and only a few individuals really must improve yearly. Another problem for Intel is that its manufacturing efforts have suffered just a few setbacks over the previous a number of years – we had been purported to be properly past the 10nm node by now, however the firm remains to be unable to serve all its market segments with 10nm elements.

It’s been nearly six years since Intel first introduced that we might not see 10nm desktop CPUs on schedule in 2016, and that as a substitute, the earlier Skylake structure on the 14nm manufacturing course of could be improved and stored in use. Until now, Intel has repeated the process each year, delivering strong enhancements by tweaking the same old architecture.

Limited 10nm manufacturing capability has wisely been allocated to the laptop segment the place energy effectivity and chip density are way more essential, however Intel sadly tied its chip designs to a selected manufacturing node. That has meant a break up technique, the place laptops have benefited from new options with extra trendy architectures on the 10nm node, whereas desktops have lagged considerably, caught with derivatives of the identical previous 14nm design, but each have been marketed as the identical era of chips. Intel is hoping to bridge that hole with the 11^th Gen ‘Rocket Lake‘ desktop household, with one very attention-grabbing trick.

The many derivatives of Skylake have lastly been laid to relaxation, however we’re giving 14nm one final hurrah with a backported version of the 10nm ‘Ice Lake’ architecture which served the earlier era of laptops. What Intel has finished is actually transpose a extra trendy structure onto an older manufacturing course of – an enormous endeavor, however one which it hopes will repay.

This is a brief time period objective, since native 10nm 12^th Gen desktop ‘Alder Lake’ CPUs have already been confirmed for a late 2021 launch. At the tip of the day, although, it is all about efficiency, as indicated by mannequin numbers – most customers do not care in regards to the structure inside their CPUs, a lot much less the trivialities of how they’re manufactured. If you do need to know all the small print although, we have got you lined. In this evaluation, we’ll see whether or not Intel’s uncommon manoeuvre has paid off, and whether or not there are any surprises that you simply want to concentrate on.

14nm ‘Rocket Lake’ CPUs are derived from the 10nm ‘Sunny Cove’ core structure with built-in Xe-LP graphics

Intel ‘Rocket Lake’ 11^th Gen Core structure and platform

Intel now makes use of totally different codenames for its CPUs and the structure of the cores inside them, so we have now ‘Rocket Lake’, the 11^th Gen desktop household, based mostly on ‘Sunny Cove’ cores (now named ‘Cypress Cove’). If you have been following product roadmaps, you may recognise Sunny Cove from the ten^th Gen ‘Ice Lake’ laptop computer processor household in addition to the hybrid ‘Lakefield’ CPU proven off final yr. That means there is a vital distinction between the 11^th Gen ‘Rocket Lake’ desktop and ‘Tiger Lake’ laptop computer CPU households.

This CPU core structure marks a break from the previous a number of years of refreshes, so 11^th Gen desktop Core CPUs achieve just a few options which have already debuted on laptops, most notably AI and neural community acceleration. (To add to any potential confusion, there are actually additionally 11^th Gen desktop ‘Tiger Lake’ CPUs, though these are prone to be discovered solely in OEM techniques since they’re designed to be soldered to motherboards and never offered as modular socketed CPUs).

Along with these CPU cores, most Rocket Lake CPUs even have integrated Intel Xe-LP graphics, which you may recognise from the 11^th Gen ‘Tiger Lake’ laptop computer household. Only models with an -F suffix should not have built-in graphics capabilities. If you select a kind of fashions you may additionally miss out on up to date video encoding and decoding {hardware}.

Intel has simply gone with its previous UHD Graphics tag quite than taking part in up the Xe title, which tells you to not get too excited. That’s most likely as a result of Intel has in the reduction of on the variety of graphics execution models in comparison with Tiger Lake CPUs. This will not be an issue for most individuals, since high-end PCs with CPUs like this normally have discrete graphics playing cards, however a giant leap in built-in graphics energy would have been good, particularly with graphics playing cards so scarce these days and costs taking pictures via the roof.

Despite the numerous distinction in architectures between 10^th and 11^th Gen desktop Core CPUs, Rocket Lake is suitable with most previous-gen 400-series motherboards, and older CPUs will work on new boards with 500-series chipsets as properly. Intel surprisingly managed to implement its backported structure to make use of the identical socket as final yr’s CPUs, however you do not get all the advantages of the platform until each CPU and motherboard are new. Of course you may need to verify precise particulars of required BIOS updates and help along with your motherboard vendor if you happen to’re planning a drop-in improve.

Platform-level options embody 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes, additional bandwidth between the CPU and platform controller, help for as much as DDR4-3200 RAM, and native USB 3.2×2 (20Gbps). Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6E, and a couple of.5Gbit Ethernet will be added by motherboard OEMs. Memory overclocking is now supported on mid-range 500-series chipsets, not simply the top-end Z590.

Having extra, quicker PCIe lanes means that you may run a graphics card at x16 in addition to an SSD at x4 concurrently. There are nonetheless 24 extra PCIe 3.0 lanes originating from the platform controller. It might be as much as motherboard makers to allocate lanes between slots and different onboard {hardware}, and to resolve what to let customers configure.

eleventh Gen desktop Core CPUs use the identical LGA-1200 socket because the earlier era

Intel ‘Rocket Lake’ 11^th Gen specs and options

As of launch time, there are solely Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9 fashions within the Rocket Lake household. The marketplace for lower-end Core i3 and Pentium CPUs might be served by refreshed 10^th Gen fashions, at the least for now. The lineup contains low-TDP fashions with the -T suffix, overclockable unlocked -Ok fashions, and -F fashions with out built-in graphics. There are additionally just a few new variations when it comes to differentiation between these product tiers that it’s best to learn about.

Core i5 fashions all have six cores and 12 threads, and Core i7 fashions all have 8 cores and 16 threads. Most curiously, Core i9 fashions should not have extra cores – this era tops out at eight. This may look like an enormous regression, contemplating that the 10^th Gen ‘Comet Lake’ Core i9-10900K had 10 cores. It’s additionally a daring transfer since prime competitor AMD has provided consumer CPUs with 12 and 16 cores for almost two years now, and shoppers positively do have a look at this as a measure of efficiency.

Intel acknowledges that it is a potential weakness in terms of marketing, and that the truth is the previous-gen flagship may outperform the brand new one in workloads which might be closely multi-threaded. However, the corporate says that is balanced by Rocket Lake’s general efficiency uplift, which is claimed to be within the area of 19 p.c when it comes to directions per clock, plus the brand new built-in graphics and the platform-level enhancements. It is not clear precisely why Intel determined to threat being perceived as regressing – it might need to do with die house, value, warmth and energy budgets, enhance frequency targets, or manufacturing efficiencies.

So with equivalent core counts, how are the Core i9 and Core i7 tiers differentiated? One issue is a elaborate retail field for the Core i9. More importantly, there’s reminiscence pace – all fashions are rated to help DDR4-3200 RAM, however solely the Core i9 can achieve this at 1:1 reminiscence timing, whereas others prime out at DDR4-2933 formally, or DDR4-3200 at 2:1. Interestingly the Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero motherboard used for this evaluation claims to help overclocking as much as DDR4-5333, so this limitation is clearly extra of a suggestion.

The different large differentiator is Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost characteristic, which is unique to the Core i9 tier. As its title suggests, that is primarily an opportunistic approach to enhance clock speeds past even the Turbo Boost score for a brief time period if energy and thermal situations permit for it.

This means there are actually multiply frequency ranges in play – the Core i9-11900K has a base frequency of three.5GHz, after which Intel’s longstanding Turbo Boost characteristic will permit all eight cores to go as much as 4.7GHz or commerce off in order that two cores go as much as 5.1GHz when wanted. On prime of that, Turbo Boost Max 3.0 permits two “favoured cores”, those which might be discovered to be most effective, to go as much as 5.2GHz. On prime of all that, Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) permits one or two cores to go as much as 5.3GHz on demand so long as your cooler can preserve the CPU under a sure temperature threshold. And as if all that wasn’t sufficient, Intel’s new Adaptive Boost Technology (ABT) works counter to TVB, bumping up the opposite six cores to as a lot as 5.1GHz (the two-core Turbo Boost restrict) when it makes extra sense to have all cores working barely slower versus two cores working quite a bit quicker.

It can get fairly complicated, and it actually simply exhibits that clock pace is not a single quantity and might’t simply be used to match one processor towards one other from a unique tier, era, or producer. In truth, a number of assessments of the identical CPU underneath totally different situations may also produce totally different outcomes – your motherboard, energy provide, cooler, case, and even ambient situations will have an effect on when these enhance targets are reached and the way lengthy they are often sustained. To simplify all of it, “classic” Turbo Boost is what your CPU needs to be able to on a regular basis, whereas TVB and ABT will permit energy customers to take advantage of high-end cooling {hardware}. Intel has additionally acknowledged that ABT doesn’t violate your guarantee because it an marketed characteristic and never thought-about overclocking.

Our Core i5-11600K is quite a bit less complicated – it has a 3.9GHz base pace and 4.9GHz Turbo Boost pace. It doesn’t get Turbo Boost Max 3.0, TVB, or ABT. The -Ok suffix means it’s overclockable similar to its sibling. Both CPUs have 125W TDP rankings, and neither comes with a inventory cooler within the retail field.

Intel has added PCIe 4.0 help plus a number of up to date platform-level IO requirements

Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero specs and options

If you are going all out on a Core i9-11900K, you may need an ultra-premium motherboard to go along with it. The Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero is without doubt one of the top-end ATX gaming motherboards from Asus this era. It has loads of bells and whistles, as you may count on given its avenue worth of roughly Rs. 45,500. It is after all based mostly on the Intel Z590 platform which was launched particularly to let consumers benefit from the incremental updates that Rocket Lake presents over Comet Lake.

Key options embody high-end energy circuitry with 14+2 levels and Japanese capacitors; huge heatsinks overlaying the facility parts, M.2 slots and chipset itself; twin Thunderbolt 4 ports plus a USB 3.2×2 header; and naturally aggressive styling with RGB LEDs. Asus claims that this board helps reminiscence overclocking as much as DDR4-5333.

This motherboard seems suitably costly, with almost all-black parts and chunky matte metallic heatsinks that really feel strong. The RGB LED lighting is comparatively delicate and is contained to 2 zones: the heatsinks across the CPU socket, and the heatsink over the platform controller. Thankfully Asus has ditched its cringey “cybertext” graffiti-like sample.

The Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero has an excellent format with 4 M.2 slots hid beneath the heatsinks

There’s sufficient clearance across the CPU socket for all however the largest of air coolers, plus headers for all types of liquid cooling equipment. This motherboard has three full-sized PCIe slots (solely the primary one can harness a full 16 lanes) and yet one more x1 slot, plus there’s one way or the other room for 4 M.2 slots, all laying flat with thermal pads and heatsinks. Unfortunately, all these slots plus the six SATA ports share bandwidth, so you possibly can’t use all of them on the similar time. This is a restrict that Intel imposes on its client CPU tier. You’ll additionally want a Rocket Lake CPU to learn from PCIe 4.0 pace, and even then it will solely profit the primary PCIe and M.2 slots. Some slots might be disabled and others will fall again to PCIe 3.0 if utilizing a previous-gen CPU.

The rear port cluster is completely packed, and there is an built-in IO protect which makes life a lot simpler when assembling a PC. To the left, there are buttons to reset and replace the BIOS proper off a USB drive. Then, you get two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports and two Wi-Fi antenna terminals, HDMI 2.0 video out, 5 gold-plated 3.5mm audio jacks plus optical S/PDIF output, two USB 2.0 ports, six USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-A ports, and two Thunderbolt 4 ports which additionally help DisplayPort 1.4 video output.

Audio is dealt with by a Realtek ALC4082 codec and there is additionally ESS Sabre DAC for the entrance panel headphone connector. You additionally get tri-band Wi-Fi 6E (802.11 ax/az) and Bluetooth 5.2, which require the newest variations of Windows 10 to work. There are inner headers for one USB 3.2×2 Type-C port plus two USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports and 4 extra USB 2.0 ports.

This high-end motherboard has a complete choice of ports and an built-in IO protect

Enthusiast-friendly options embody a surface-mount energy button and one other programmable ‘Flexkey’ button that may reset your PC by default however will be modified to an RGB lighting toggle or protected boot set off. There’s a two-digit alphanumeric code readout for diagnostics. Of course, you additionally get loads of RGB and ARGB LED headers to make your complete case look snazzy. The field contains the Wi-Fi antenna, all of the cables and screws you may want, a bracket to take the burden off a big graphics card, an in depth handbook and even a driver DVD, plus some Asus ROG branded merchandise.

The graphical BIOS is simple to make use of and whereas there are a great deal of tweaking choices, issues are labelled properly sufficient and there are some textual content descriptions. Asus’ Armory Crate software program enables you to synchronise RGB lighting throughout supported Asus merchandise and handle BIOS and driver updates. AI Suite 3 is for Windows-based overclocking, fan management, and monitoring.

The Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero is a great-looking high-end board and has almost each characteristic you may want if you happen to’re an fanatic. The bodily format is excellent and the BIOS is simple to work with. You’ll have to essentially contemplate whether or not you want all these options although, since there isn’t any scarcity of different Z590 motherboards that value rather a lot much less.

Our open-air check system with loads of programmable RGB LEDs

Intel Core i9-11900K and Core i5-11600K setup and efficiency

In addition to the ROG Maximus XIII Hero supplied by Intel together with the CPUs for this evaluation, our open-air check bench consists of a 2x16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB DDR4-3600 RAM package, Sapphire Nitro+ Radeon RX 590 graphics card (when not testing the CPUs’ built-in graphics), WD Black (2018) 1TB PCIe SSD and 1TB Samsung SSD 860 EVO SSD, Corsair H150i Elite Capellix 360mm AIO liquid cooler, Corsair RM850 energy provide, and Asus PB287Q monitor. All assessments had been run underneath Windows 10 20H2 with the newest patches and updates utilized. Intel supplied a BIOS replace and graphics drivers, and all different drivers used had been the newest accessible public releases on the time.

Setup and set up had been very straightforward. The motherboard socket has sufficient clearance, and the format is handy, however there are some quite sharp edges and corners on the warmth sinks. Setting up the Corsair H150i AIO cooler took essentially the most time, nevertheless it comes with clear directions. Every potential screw and accent for Intel in addition to AMD CPUs is neatly labelled and sorted into baggage inside baggage so you possibly can by no means go unsuitable. The pump head, fan energy and fan RGB leads all plug right into a separate “iCue Commander Core” module which is in regards to the dimension of a SATA SSD. It will get its energy from a SATA connector and desires one inner USB 2.0 header which is able to block off two ports. You may must be a bit inventive with cable administration, however adhesive strips are supplied.

The Dominator Platinum RAM has individually addressable RGB LEDs. There are extra on the H15oi Elite Capellix cooler’s pump head and the three 120mm followers. The Commander Core module has extra connectors on your case followers or different merchandise that you simply may need to synchronise. Corsair’s iCue software program can now additionally work with Asus’ Aura Sync RGB framework so the motherboard, parts, and peripherals can all be managed as one.

You’ll want liquid cooling to get essentially the most out of a high-end CPU just like the Core i9-11900K

Thanks to lockdown-related restrictions all through most of 2020, we do not have final yr’s 10^th Gen Core i9-10900K or a Ryzen 9 5950X to match efficiency numbers with. However, most customers might be upgrading after a spot of some years, so the comparisons we have offered under ought to nonetheless be significant. We can see how the Core i9-11900K and Core i5-11600K match up towards the marginally older Core i9-9900K and Ryzen 3xxx series. The Core i9-10980XE based mostly on the Cascade Lake-X (Skylake-X spinoff) structure can be an attention-grabbing reference level, being priced solely slightly greater. We’ve even thrown in some scores from our Ryzen Threadripper 3970X as an instance the variations (and in some circumstances, the similarities) between these vastly totally different lessons of CPUs.

In some circumstances the place benchmarks have been up to date and scores for older CPUs may not be comparable, they don’t seem to be proven right here, however you possibly can click on via to their particular person critiques to learn extra about them. Test bench configurations, OS updates and driver variations additionally do have an effect on scores, so there are some variances to account for as properly.

There’s normally a transparent distinction between the Core i9-11900K and Core i5-11600K besides in uncommon circumstances that do not profit from having extra cores, and the place maybe the latter’s greater clock pace provides it a bonus. The greater core depend of the Ryzen CPUs pull forward in multi-threaded content material creation assessments however the Rocket Lake CPUs are not any slouches, and you’ll see that there are gen-on-gen benefits. If you are upgrading from even a two-year-old PC, you may see enhancements in lots of productiveness in addition to gaming workloads.

We additionally examined the onboard GPU with just a few artificial benchmarks. Intel has the benefit over AMD right here, since most Ryzen CPUs should not have built-in graphics in any respect. Sure, if you happen to’re shopping for a CPU at this stage, you may very probably need a highly effective GPU, however in occasions like these when graphics playing cards are merely unavailable, and for troubleshooting or surviving a GPU failure, at the least you possibly can boot up your PC and use it. We clearly aren’t anticipating gaming-grade efficiency, and that is what we get. Interestingly, the Core i5 is simply marginally higher than the Core i9 in these assessments. Gaming efficiency after all relies upon primarily on the GPU you employ, and in our assessments, we see that the CPUs usually are not inflicting bottlenecks right here.

As with many “gaming” motherboards, a few of Intel’s inventory suggestions are overridden in order that the CPU can draw extra energy and run hotter for longer than formally meant. A BIOS choice known as “Multi Core Enhancement” is ready to Auto by default, and that was left in place for all assessments. This is a comparatively protected computerized overclocking characteristic that enables all cores to run on the single-core Turbo pace, which has considerably the identical impact as Intel’s new Adaptive Boost Technology.

In truth, ABT is turned off by default and this was examined individually on the Core i9-11900K. In Cinebench R20, the single-core and multi-core scores went from 628 and 5,927 to 635 and 6,116 respectively. Geekbench 5 additionally presents separate single-core and multi-core scores, when went from 1,777 and 9,536 to 1,770 and 9,847 respectively.

One of the principle causes to spend cash on Intel’s -Ok CPUs and a Zxxx-series motherboard is after all overclocking, and you may must spend much more on an excellent AIO liquid cooler in addition to high-spec RAM. You can tinker manually within the BIOS or use Asus’ freely downloadable software program. If you select the latter strategy, there is a one-click overclocking choice which stress-tests your PC to find out how far your cooler and different {hardware} will let the CPU go. In our case, we did not get spectacular outcomes, solely managing 5.3GHz sustained throughout a number of cores. Cinebench R20’s single-core and multi-core scores went up a bit to 641 and 6,184, however Geekbench posted lukewarm figures of 1,747 and 9,841 respectively.

The Core i9-11900K would require heavy responsibility cooling if you happen to’re planning to overclock, and even ABT will pressure your cooler greater than standard. The Corsair H150i Elite Capellix that we used is definitely costly at round Rs. 15,500, however its monumental radiator floor space and three 120mm 2400rpm maglev followers dealt with our evaluation workloads properly. The followers of our cooler, energy provide and graphics card might all spin down utterly when not pressured, which implies even a really high-end PC construct round in the present day’s flagship CPUs will be utterly silent.

The Core i9-11900K and Core i5-11600K are costly, and different eleventh Gen fashions may swimsuit you higher

Verdict

If issues had gone in keeping with plan for Intel a few years in the past, the 11^th Gen Core household would have been a really totally different product, presumably based mostly on a 7nm and even smaller course of. Intel definitely would not have needed to regress when it comes to core depend for its halo product of this era, and efficiency has not grown by enormous leaps throughout the board. Intel determined that it will be finest to have eight cores within the thermal and energy envelopes that may very well be managed with this structure, however ten or extra would have proven vital enchancment in multi-threaded assessments. The built-in graphics might even have used a serious enhance over what we’re presently getting.

With that mentioned, the Core i9-11900K is a formidable processor and will be capable to preserve all of your AAA video games working properly for the foreseeable future. Intel has managed to maintain tempo with AMD’s latest and greatest desktop Ryzens on the subject of gaming, and that is what most individuals might be wanting to buy this CPU for.

Intel has strenuously denied that the Rocket Lake household is a stopgap measure to maintain the market recent, however we already know that the 10nm 12^th Gen Alder Lake structure is on monitor to ship in late 2021, which implies Rocket Lake won’t have a protracted shelf life. Alder Lake will profit from 10nm transistor sizes, Intel’s evolving TremendousFin manufacturing course of, the hybrid design with heterogenous cores, a brand new socket, DDR5 RAM, and (reportedly) PCIe 5.0 – all in all, it is shaping as much as be a large shift and doubtlessly one price ready for.

Buying a brand new CPU to exchange a ten^th Gen mannequin will not get you very a lot return on funding – the Core i9-10900K with 10 cores sells for round Rs. 48,000 today which isn’t unhealthy in any respect, in comparison with the Rs. 61,000 common avenue worth for the Core i9-11900K. In truth, individuals may nonetheless need to go for the older mannequin given these costs.

Lots of potential Core i9-11900K consumers can even need to ask themselves whether or not the Core i7-11700K, priced at Rs. 38,500 with the identical variety of cores, makes extra sense. If Adaptive Boost Technology is not going to make an enormous distinction to you, it can save you fairly a bit of cash. If you are not going to overclock, the non-Ok SKUs make extra sense too. Similarly, with the Core i5-11600K, you may discover higher worth for cash slightly down the stack, within the type of the Core i5-11500.

AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X with 12 cores will do higher in multi-threaded purposes and is likely to be a greater wager when it comes to future-readiness. Street costs are a bit decrease proper now, at round Rs. 55,000, however you do have to have a look at the prices and availability of motherboards as properly. The Ryzen 9 5950X with 16 cores prices round Rs. 76,000, placing it a tier above the Core i9-11900K, however once more, it is the higher choice if cores and threads matter and in case your time is cash. For instance if you happen to play video games and do a variety of content material creation work on the identical PC, you want a steadiness, not simply wonderful single-threaded efficiency.

It’s typically a foul time to be constructing or upgrading a gaming PC anyway, due to the entire lack of graphics playing cards available in the market (at cheap costs at the least) and slowly rising costs of RAM and SSDs. What all of it comes all the way down to is that for most individuals, the 11^th Gen Core desktop household, and significantly the Core i9-11900K, might be skippable. If you possibly can wait until the tip of this yr for the 12^th Gen to launch (and hopefully for graphics card costs to stabilise as properly), you may be a lot happier. However, if you happen to do want a brand new, highly effective gaming PC proper now or are upgrading solely your CPU and motherboard, the 11^th Gen Rocket Lake household does make sense.

Intel Core i9-11900K
Price (MOP): Rs. 61,000

Pros

• Great efficiency in calmly threaded assessments
• Platform options together with Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6E
• Will work with previous-gen motherboards

Cons

• Expensive
• Basic built-in graphics
• Fewer cores than the Core i9-10900K

Ratings (out of 5)

• Performance: 4.5
• Value for Money: 4
• Overall: 4.5

Intel Core i5-11600K
Price (MOP): Rs. 24,500

Pros

• Good efficiency general
• Platform options together with Thunderbolt 4, Wi-Fi 6E
• Will work with previous-gen motherboards

Cons

• Basic built-in graphics

Ratings (out of 5)

• Performance: 3.5
• Value for Money: 4
• Overall: 4

Asus ROG Maximus XIII Hero
Price (MOP): Rs. 42,000

Pros

• Good seems, clear format
• Four M.2 slots, two Thunderbolt 4 ports
• Stable efficiency
• Well designed UEFI BIOS interface

Cons

Ratings (out of 5)

• Features: 4.5
• Performance: 4.5
• Value for Money: 4
• Overall: 4.5