Review: Intel Core i9-10980XE

Test Methodology

Intel Core i9-10980XE Specifications

Notes

Last Thursday evening, Intel communicated to the press that it wanted to move the NDA time from the regular 14:00 time - the same as AMD 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper - to 08:01. The only reasonable explanation was that it didn't want its best HEDT compared against AMD's best, because the Core i9-10980XE would be decimated in multi-threaded benchmarks. And having an earlier activation time, without the Threadrippers in the graphs, would show the Core i9-10980XE in a better light than it ought to be, given they're all launching on one day.

Moving the NDA forward meant only one thing; Intel was running scared of the Threadripper threat. We took the editorial decision not to publish at 08:01 today. Doing so would have precluded the 3rd Gen Ryzen Threadripper results, which would have been disingenuous to understanding the true HEDT picture for any would-be purchaser.

Given that the Core i9-10980XE is still firmly in the HEDT firmament, we have redone the benchmarks from scratch. Windows has been updated to v1909, we're using newer Nvidia drivers (441.20), system memory is pushed to 64GB (4x16GB) and most importantly, we have a greater number of CPU tests than in our regular processor suite. All chips are run with their correct Turbo frequencies and motherboards with the latest BIOSes.

In particular, Blender is updated to 2.80 and uses a different, more intense workload, KeyShot, V-Ray, POV-Ray, Corona, and SPECwpc all make an appearance, and we only look at gaming performance at 1080p.

Last but not least, we have included comparative performance from the 18C36T Core i9-7980XE. We had hoped to include last year's Core i9-9980XE, but Intel failed to secure us a sample on time. It has promised one for next week, so we'll update the graphs as soon as it's benchmarked.