Intel Core i9-11900K engineering sample benchmarks: 5.3 GHz clock and PCIe issues

Yesterday, benchmarks for an engineering sample of the Intel Core i9-11900K processor leaked online. Tech outlet ChaoWanKe got their hands on a pre-release version of the rare chip and tested it with a relatively weak GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card. It's currently unclear whether this specific GPU is to blame for the processor's built-in PCIe controller running only at PCIe 1.1 instead of stepping up to the card's native PCIe 3.0:

There is a small chance the processor couldn't wake the PCIe controller from its idle state, leaving it stuck in a power-saving mode.

Either way, this issue could have severely impacted the gaming benchmarks, so take these results with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Fortunately, ChaoWanKe's testing of the Intel Core i9-11900K wasn't limited to games. Let's look at some application and synthetic benchmarks:

Running at 5,300 MHz, the new chip comfortably beat its predecessor, the 10900K, in CPU-Z's single-threaded test. However, due to the obvious core-count disadvantage (8 cores versus 10), it couldn't replicate that success in multi-threaded tests. Its single-thread lead over the Ryzen 9 5900X is also quite narrow, meaning we shouldn't expect Intel's new chip to completely dominate AMD's 8-core competitor.

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We see a similar picture in Cinebench R20, where the 11900K holds its own against its predecessor. However, compared to AMD's silicon, the newcomer's single-core results are hardly impressive.

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Video encoding shows more of the same. The 11900K has only eight cores, making it tough to compete with its predecessor, the 10900K, let alone AMD's 12-core competitor, the Ryzen 9 5900X.

Finally, let's take a look at the gaming benchmarks:

The PCIe 1.1 limitation heavily skewed these results, so they don't reflect real-world performance at all.

Check out the full video review below: