As we head towards Christmas what better use of your hefty bonus than buying yourself the flagship Intel CPU? Is it worth the investment?
Intel Core i9 9980XE 18 Core CPU Review
Intel Core i9 9980XE 18 Core CPU Review
- Thread starter tinytomlogan
- Start date
As we head towards Christmas what better use of your hefty bonus than buying yourself the flagship Intel CPU? Is it worth the investment?
Intel Core i9 9980XE 18 Core CPU Review
AngryGoldfish
Old N Gold
Those are insane temperatures. I mean, it's amazing that we've hit a temperature ceiling with something like a 360mm AIO at max fan speeds. It shows how Intel's CPUs scale with voltage and remain stable. But it feels like such a shame, like such an odd product.
AlienALX
Well-known member
Isn't it just a +++++++++++1wouldbuyagain refresh?
Eddie long
Member
I've watched a couple of overview/reviews of the 9980xe and they all come to similar conclusions as the boss , if you really want intel 18 core your better off with the 7980xe if pushing the clocks is your objective . And at least you can de lid the older one if your brave 
How is 68 degrees insane?
If you complain that is gets hot when you start OC'ing then you are missing the point here. This is not a product made for manual OC'ing.
It seems to run perfectly fine, when used as intended.
tolagarf
Member
Well actually the HEDT platform from Intel has always been marketed as intended for overclocking, so you're a bit wrong on that part. But then again one should question weather you *should* overclock such a high powered CPU anyway. And buying a former model with the intent on de-lidding it, is not always a great idea as it's easy to damage the CPU if you're not experienced doing this.
WYP
News Guru
Well, Intel's own webpage for the processor advertises overclocking. There is also the fact that this is an (XE) eXtreme Edition processor. If it wasn't meant to be overclocked, Intel wouldn't sell it unlocked.
https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/products/processors/core/x-series/i9-9980xe.html
Yeah, it's fine at stock, but when one of the main selling points of this processor is the fact that it's soldered, it's more than a little disappointing to see this CPU be hotter than its predecessor when using the same volts/clocks.
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AngryGoldfish
Old N Gold
I'm not sure you understood my point. I'm not saying that 68°C is insane. It's more that it's strange and somewhat disappointing that we have got to the stage where we are severely temperature limited, not clock speed limited. It's like there's performance there in the tank that no one can access. It's odd. And this has not usually been a major issue. In the past, if you wanted to get 4.6Ghz on a 5960X, a high-end AIO would do the job. It would be loud but doable. Now, even with better coolers, it's not possible. The CPU can physically remain stable at very, very high clock frequencies—which is amazing as I said—that would give this CPU incredible performance, but the temperatures prevent it. And not just prevent it because we want to use big air coolers or 240mm AIOs. Even high-end custom liquid cooling with 480mm radiators would not be able to keep this CPU at usable temperatures. So we've hit a temperature ceiling. This is not common. Again, temperature ceiling, as in, without subzero cooling, this CPU will throttle. Not the 240mm AIO/big tower air cooler type of ceiling.
And also, as already said, this product is definitely made for overclocking. In fact, that's the biggest thing that Intel have right now, overclocking headroom. Take away that and the only benefit they have is in gaming scenarios and a few other situations (music production for instance) where the ring bus architecture has lower latencies and offers more consistent performance.
realneil
New member
I've watched a couple of overview/reviews of the 9980xe and they all come to similar conclusions as the boss , if you really want intel 18 core your better off with the 7980xe if pushing the clocks is your objective . And at least you can de lid the older one if your brave
I agree about using the i9-7980XE instead of the i9-9980XE because of the better thermals.
De-lidding (if its possible with your CPU) is a viable option as well. I de-lidded my i9-7900X and got vastly lower temps with it.
