Intel Core i9-10900K

It’s another refresh, but it’s still one heck of a chip

- ZAK STOREY

IT SEEMS WE’RE long past the days of monolithic chip designs—it’s all about providing a modular solution by carefully weaving core complexes together, and having different transistor sizes across different components. That way you create a processor that not only provides impressive performance but is also affordable and simple to mass-produce.

This is where Intel has come unstuck in the great core war, as its monolithic designs are far harder to produce, especially to add more cores to. To get around the loss in overall number of cores and lack of a die shrink, the company has been aggressively targeting clock speed to bolster its multi-core performance and hold on to the single-core IPC and gaming crown its held for so long.