Intel Core i5-10600K
A tremendous option for gaming and day-to-day computing, even if it’s more expensive than we’d like
SCORE
PRICE £229 (£275 inc VAT) from scan.co.uk
The i5-10600K isn’t Intel’s 10th Gen flagship, but it’s certain to t become one of the new range’s range’ most popular parts – it’s far more affordable than the i9-10900K, and it balances its mid-range price with a much-improved specification.
This new chip has the same six cores as its predecessor, but Intel has ha activated multithreading on its new Comet Lake chips, which means the i5-10600K can address 12 threads. That’s twice as many as the i5-9600K.
The new Core i5 has base and boost clocks of 4.1GHz and 4.8GHz, which also improve on Intel’s older chip. Yet, disappointingly, the Core i5-10600K doesn’t get Turbo Boost 3 Max or Thermal Velocity Boost – those are exclusive to the Core i9 part. On this chip, turbo functions rely on the same Turbo Boost 2 methods as older parts.
Intel’s Comet Lake chips still use the Skylake architecture, which has been around since 2015. That means there are no big internal changes, and it also means that these parts are based on Intel’s older and less efficient (compared to AMD) 14nm manufacturing process.
To combat this, Intel has made its dies thinner, added thicker heatspreaders and applied better internal thermal compound to Comet Lake parts. That helps on the thermal side, but the i5-10600K’s higher clock speeds and added multithreading mean that this part has a relatively high TDP of 125W.
The chip’s price is relatively high too: at £275, it’s nearly £100 more expensive than AMD’s Ryzen 5 3600X ( see p84) and only £15 short of the Ryzen 7 3700X ( see p89). The cost of the chip isn’t the only thing to factor in with Comet Lake, either – the new LGA 1200 socket means you’ll have to buy a new motherboard. That’s not an issue for AMD, where the latest chips can work on older boards thanks to the existing AM4 socket. Such boards tend to be cheaper too.
AMD’s chips compete well on the specification front: the Ryzen 5 3600X is a six-core chip with multithreading, 32MB of cache and clock speeds of 3.8GHz and 4.4GHz, and the Ryzen 7 3700X has eight cores, 16 threads and speeds of 3.6GHz and 4.4GHz.
When it comes to performance, the i5-10600K tells a familiar story: it’s great in games and single-threaded tasks, but less impressive in tougher, multithreaded workloads.
Its Cinebench and Geekbench single-core results are the best in this mid-range group, for instance, and it also led the way in Y-Cruncher’s single-core computation test. It’s easily better than the i5-9600K, and it opens a solid lead over both the Ryzen 5 3600X and the Ryzen 7 3700X. It also squeaked ahead of the Ryzen 5 3600X in the Photoshop test, where singlecore performance remains important.
This is a superb gaming chip. Its 3DMark Time Spy score of 12,434 is the best from this mid-range group, and it was the best mid-range part here in almost every gaming test – although, tellingly, it fell behind in the CPUintensive Total War: Warhammer II 4K and Civilization VI benchmarks.
Head towards tougher workloads, though, and the i5-10600K suffers. In our application benchmarks, it was middling in every test when compared to other mid-range chips – its overall result of 250 lagged behind the 270 of the Ryzen 5 3600X and 337 of the Ryzen 7 3700X.
The i5-10600K was a few hundred points behind the Ryzen 5 part in Cinebench and Geekbench’s multicore tests. Its Adobe Premiere Pro result was a little behind those AMD parts too, and it was a long way behind AMD’s silicon in the cryptography and neural network benchmarks.
Intel’s new chip was disappointing in power tests, which is no surprise considering its 125W TDP. During benchmarks, our rig drew 122W from the mains – 8W more than both AMD parts. When stressed, the AMD chips only drew a little extra power, but the Intel chip leapt up to 143W.
This new Comet Lake chip has its strengths: if you need single-core power for web browsing, imageediting and other relevant workloads, it’s excellent, and it’s impressive in gaming – a few frames quicker than AMD’s competition. The i5-10600K is the best mid-range performer for these situations, so it’s perfect if you’re chasing speed.
Go beyond that, though, and the i510600K is beaten by its AMD rivals. It’s certainly not slow in multithreaded workloads, but the cheaper Ryzen 5 3600X is faster and that chip isn’t far behind in areas where Intel does take the lead. Don’t forget the Ryzen 7 3700X, either: it’s a little more expensive but significantly quicker in several areas.
Nevertheless, if you’re searching for peak gaming and singlethreaded speed for mainstream computing, the i5-10600K is worth the investment. And it is an investment because Intel’s need for a new motherboard adds further cost.
“If you need single-core power for web browsing and image-editing, the i5-10600K is excellent, and it’s impressive in gaming”
4.1GHz/4.8GHz base/peak clock speed 6 cores 12 threads 12MB L3 cache Intel UHD 630 graphics Intel Comet Lake architecture Intel LGA 1200 socket 125W TDP