Core i9-9960X: specs and benchmarks
Aggregate performance score
Core i9-9960X provides good benchmark performance at 19.05% of a leader's which is a 96-core EPYC 9655P.
Summary
Intel started Core i9-9960X sales 19 October 2018 at a recommended price of $1,684. This is a Skylake (server) architecture desktop processor primarily aimed at office systems. It has 16 cores and 32 threads, and is based on 14 nm manufacturing technology, with a max turbo frequency of 4500 MHz and an unlocked multiplier.
Compatibility-wise, this is FCLGA2066 processor with a TDP of 165 Watt. It supports DDR4-2666 memory.
Primary details
Core i9-9960X processor market type (desktop or notebook), architecture, sales start time and pricing.
| Place in the ranking | 303 | |
| Place by popularity | not in top-100 | |
| Cost-effectiveness evaluation | 4.74 | |
| Market segment | Desktop processor | |
| Series | Intel Core i9 | |
| Power efficiency | 10.93 | of 100.00 (Core Ultra 7 164U) |
| Architecture codename | Skylake (server) (2017−2018) | |
| Release date | 19 October 2018 (6 years ago) | |
| Launch price (MSRP) | $1,684 | of 17,906 (Xeon Platinum 8280L) |
Cost-effectiveness evaluation
Performance per price, higher is better.
Detailed specifications
Basic microprocessor parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base frequency and turbo boost clock, lithography, cache size and multiplier lock state. These parameters can generally indicate CPU performance, but to be more precise you have to review its test results.
| Physical cores | 16 (Hexadeca-Core) | |
| Threads | 32 | |
| Base clock speed | 3.1 GHz | of 4.7 GHz (Ryzen 9 7900X) |
| Boost clock speed | 4.5 GHz | of 6.2 GHz (Core i9-14900KS) |
| Bus type | DMI 3.0 | |
| Bus rate | 4 × 8 GT/s | |
| Multiplier | 31 | of 42 (Core i7-7700K) |
| L1 cache | 64 KB (per core) | of 80 KB (EPYC 9965) |
| L2 cache | 1 MB (per core) | of 2 MB (Xeon 6980P) |
| L3 cache | 22 MB (shared) | of 1152 MB (EPYC 9684X) |
| Chip lithography | 14 nm | of 3 nm (Core Ultra 9 285K) |
| Die size | 484 mm2 | |
| Maximum core temperature | 85 °C | of 110 °C (Core Ultra 9 185H) |
| 64 bit support | + | |
| Windows 11 compatibility | + | |
| Unlocked multiplier | + |
Compatibility
Information on Core i9-9960X compatibility with other computer components and devices: motherboard (look for socket type), power supply unit (look for power consumption) etc. Useful when planning a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. Note that power consumption of some processors can well exceed their nominal TDP, even without overclocking. Some can even double their declared thermals given that the motherboard allows to tune the CPU power parameters.
| Number of CPUs in a configuration | 1 (Uniprocessor) | of 8 (Xeon Platinum 8454H) |
| Socket | FCLGA2066 | |
| Power consumption (TDP) | 165 Watt | of 3100 ‑ 4500 (Ryzen 7 7435H) |
Technologies and extensions
Technological capabilities and additional instructions supported by Core i9-9960X. You'll probably need this information if you require some particular technology.
| Instruction set extensions | Intel® SSE4.1, Intel® SSE4.2, Intel® AVX2, Intel® AVX-512 | |
| AES-NI | + | |
| AVX | + | |
| Enhanced SpeedStep (EIST) | + | |
| Turbo Boost Technology | 2.0 | |
| Hyper-Threading Technology | + | |
| TSX | + | |
| Turbo Boost Max 3.0 | + |
Security technologies
Processor technologies aimed at improving security, for example, by protecting against hacks.
| EDB | + |
Virtualization technologies
Supported virtual machine optimization technologies. Some are specific to Intel only, some to AMD.
| VT-d | + | |
| VT-x | + |
Memory specs
Types, maximum amount and channel number of RAM supported by Core i9-9960X's memory controller. Depending on the motherboard, higher memory frequency may be supported.
| Supported memory types | DDR4-2666 | |
| Maximum memory size | 128 GB | of 6 TiB (EPYC 9654) |
| Max memory channels | 4 | of 12 (Xeon Platinum 9221) |
| Maximum memory bandwidth | 85.33 GB/s | of 460.8 GB/s (EPYC 9654) |
Graphics specifications
General parameters of a GPU integrated into Core i9-9960X.
| Integrated graphics card | N/A |
Peripherals
Specifications and connection types of supported peripherals.
| PCIe version | 3.0 | of 5.0 (EPYC 9655P) |
| PCI Express lanes | 44 | of 128 (EPYC 9655P) |
Benchmark performance
Single-core and multi-core benchmark results of Core i9-9960X. Overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range, higher is better.
Combined synthetic benchmark score
This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.
Passmark
Passmark CPU Mark is a widespread benchmark, consisting of 8 different types of workload, including integer and floating point math, extended instructions, compression, encryption and physics calculation. There is also one separate single-threaded scenario measuring single-core performance.
GeekBench 5 Single-Core
GeekBench 5 Single-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses only a single CPU core.
GeekBench 5 Multi-Core
GeekBench 5 Multi-Core is a cross-platform application developed in the form of CPU tests that independently recreate certain real-world tasks with which to accurately measure performance. This version uses all available CPU cores.
Send your test results of Core i9-9960X.
AMD equivalent
According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to Core i9-9960X is Ryzen 7 5800XT, which is nearly equal in speed and lower by 3 positions in our ranking.
Here are some closest AMD rivals to Core i9-9960X:
Similar processors
Here is our recommendation of several processors that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
Recommended GPUs
People consider these graphics cards to be good for Core i9-9960X, according to our PC configuration statistics.
These are the fastest graphics cards for Core i9-9960X in our user configuration statistics. There is a total of 30 configurations using Core i9-9960X in our database.
