Benchmarks: CPU
Couple of interesting observations. The 3XS Vengeance XTi is able to top the single-threaded PiFast chart with the Core i9-10900K configured to 5GHz across all cores, but in these light-load scenarios the overclock is actually detrimental; we know the chip can go as low as 12.2 seconds when running with stock frequencies. Hence the availability of the alternative BIOS profile.
Multi-threading should be where the out-the-box overclock pays dividends, yet while a Cinebench score of 6,388 is the fastest we've seen from a mainstream Intel machine, it is startling to find that the overclocked 125W Core i9 chip can't catch the 65W Ryzen 9 3900 in the AWD-IT system costing a fraction of the price. The i9-10900K is ultimately a highly-capable CPU, yet in the face of the competition, multi-threaded performance is good but not exceptional.
GPU manufacturers would also be keen to point out that there are better ways of tackling certain workloads. Blender takes roughly six-and-a-half minutes to render our chosen scene on the Core i9-10900K. Performing the exact same task on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti cuts rendering time by almost 80 per cent, down to under a minute and a half.