Core i9-11900KF vs Core i9-10900KF

Compare the Core i9-11900KF and Core i9-10900KF on real gaming and productivity benchmarks, full specifications, live retailer prices and performance-per-dollar, then jump straight to the cheapest in-stock option.

Core i9-11900KF
From$449.00
Buy
Core i9-10900KF
From$439.00
Buy

The short answer

The Core i9-11900KF is the better buy here: it's both faster for gaming and gives more performance per dollar.

  • Core i9-11900KF is about 9% faster for gaming at 1080p (gaming index 53.7 vs 49.4).
  • Core i9-11900KF is roughly 10% faster in multi-core work, an edge in rendering, encoding and compiling.
  • Core i9-10900KF is the cheaper chip right now, by roughly 2%.
  • Core i9-11900KF delivers about 6% more gaming performance per dollar.
  • Core i9-10900KF has more cores (10C/20T vs 8C/16T), which helps in heavily threaded workloads.

Gaming performance

CPU-bound gaming score: a geometric mean of in-game frame rates at 1080p, normalized so the fastest gaming CPU we track = 100.

Core i9-11900KF53.7
Core i9-10900KF49.4

Does the CPU matter at 1440p or 4K? Much less. At higher resolutions the graphics card sets the frame rate, so the gap between two CPUs shrinks — often to nothing. The 1080p figure above is the demanding case, where the CPU is stressed and the difference actually shows.

Performance per dollar

Gaming index divided by the current lowest price — higher is better value. This moves with the market as prices change day to day.

Core i9-11900KF12.0 / $100
Core i9-10900KF11.3 / $100

The Core i9-11900KF gives about 6% more gaming performance per dollar at today’s prices.

Full platform cost

A complete-platform price needs a live CPU price and an in-stock compatible motherboard on both sides. We can’t build one for Core i9-11900KF and Core i9-10900KF right now, which is common for older sockets like AM4 where we don’t track current boards. The gaming, value and specs comparisons still apply.

Specs head-to-head

Core i9-11900KF
Core i9-10900KF
Price (from)
$449.00
$439.00
Gaming (1080p index)
53.7
49.4
Cores / threads
8 / 16
10 / 20
Boost clock
5.3 GHz
5.3 GHz
Base clock
3.5 GHz
3.7 GHz
L3 cache
16 MB
20 MB
L2 cache
4 MB
2.5 MB
TDP
125W
125W
Max power
250W
250W
Socket
LGA1200
LGA1200
Memory support
DDR4, 3200
DDR4, 2933
Integrated graphics
None
None
Architecture
Rocket Lake
Comet Lake
Process node
Intel 14nm
Intel 14nm
MSRP
$564.00
$509.00

Productivity & compute

Core i9-11900KF
Core i9-10900KF
PassMark (multi-core)
24,516
22,197
PassMark (single-thread)
3,516
3,119
Geekbench 7 (multi-core)
10,953
10,733
Geekbench 7 (single-core)
2,062
1,744
Cinebench R23 (multi-core)
16,211
15,945
Cinebench R23 (single-core)
1,686
1,382

Efficiency

Gaming performance per watt (gaming index per 100W of TDP) — higher means more frames for the heat and power.

Core i9-11900KF43.0
Core i9-10900KF39.5

Where to buy

Core i9-11900KFfrom $449.00
RetailerAvailabilityPriceBuy
AmazonIn stock$449.00
Buy
Core i9-10900KFfrom $439.00
RetailerAvailabilityPriceBuy
AmazonIn stock$439.00
Buy

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