Conclusion
Contents
Conclusion
The performance of the Intel Core i7-9700K on the Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI is a pretty decent. If compared to a AMD system running a Ryzen 7 2700X, the processor we tested (unfortunately we do not have a Core i7-9900K) is not a good contender to give a fair judgement as it lacks the double amount of threads, it only has 8 core 8 threads while the AMD series comes with 8 Cores 16 threads.
Nevertheless, the processor and the new Z390 seems to be a refreshed from last year. Although most manufacturers will use the 5 GHz as the selling point, the Z370 can already do that with the Core i7-8700K or Core i7-8086K of yesteryear. The AMD Ryzen 7 2700X on air cool hits a wall around 4.2 GHz.
What we observed is Intel continues to excel in single thread performance. This can be seen in PC Mark10 benchmark test. When it comes to a multicore multithread benchmark like Cinebench R15 or PovRay, the AMD system can compensate for it’s multicore and multithread performance.
Although we can run the processor on Gigabyte motherboard steadily at 5.1 GHz on air which is quite an achievement, a water cool system might be more suitable for prolong usage as the temperatures are readily in the 90 deg C when all cores runs at high speed.
Features wise, this board highlights it’s 12 phase VRM and thermal design which makes it rock stable. The 2×2 802.11ac is something that most will use for connecting to home fibre broadband via 802.11ac router.
Installation is straightforward. I like the idiot proof way of overclocking but just choosing the speed of your choice. Just by selecting 5 GHz, and XMP profile #1, we got it up running at 5 GHz on AIR at C14 DDR4-3200 with 16 GB of G Skill modules.
Documentation is very concise but Gigabyte could have included the ranges of the options available e.g. frequency rage, voltage range. Packaging needs a bit of refresh as we are still supplied a DVD-ROM for drivers. A USB drive would be more suitable as DVD drives are being phased out.
The verdict is simple, if you like to achieve high CPU clock, Intel won’t disappoint. As for performance, AMD systems compensates with more cores with lower clock speeds.
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Pricing
Intel Core i7-8770K pricing $369
Intel Core i7-9700K pricing $409
Gigabyte Z390 AORUS PRO WIFI motherboard $229.99
Gskill DDR4-3200 8 GB X 4 $149
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X $305
Gigabyte X470 AORUS Ultra Gaming $132
Pros
- Turbo BCLK
- Integrated Intel 2×2 802.11ac WIFI
- DDR-4133 support
Cons
- Documentation
- Should bundle LED stripes
Ratings
Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.
|
Category |
Score |
| Performance |
8 / 10 |
| Features |
10 / 10 |
| Ease Of Installation |
10 / 10 |
| Overclocking Features |
10 / 10 |
| Documentation |
9 / 10 |
| Packaging |
8 / 10 |
| Overall Rating : |
9.2 / 10 |
What kind of voltages were you running when you had the 9700k at 5.1? I’m also quite curious as to what temps the vrm had during testing.