Intel’s New 9th Gen Desktop CPUs: i3-9350KF, i5-9400F, i5-9400, i5-9600KF, i7-9700KF, i9-9900KF

At Intel’s keynote presentation today, the company announced that it would be expanding its current line of 9^th Generation desktop processors, to include new models from Core i3 up to Core i9. Almost immediately, we were given the details, and here they are.

Currently on the market, if you can find them, are the Core i9-9900K, the Core i9-9700K, and the Core i5-9600K, which use the latest Coffee Lake-Refresh design to offer up to eight cores and turbo up to 5.0 GHz. We reviewed all three when they were launched, and now the new parts are a mix of standard, overclockable ‘K’ processors, new ‘F’ processors without integrated graphics, and ‘KF’ which combine the overclocking without graphics.

Here’s the list:

Sitting at the top is the eight-core Core i9-9900KF, which matches the Core i9-9900K through the whole spec sheet, except for not having integrated graphics. Technically it is there on the silicon, but it has been disabled, likely in order to increase yield and perhaps improve binning. Similarly, the Core i7-9700KF and the Core i5-9600KF are identical to their previously released counterparts.

The new processor classes are the Core i3-9350KF, which is an overclockable quad core without hyperthreading and without graphics, but has a 4.0 GHz base frequency and a 4.6 GHz turbo frequency. The Core i5-9400F is a six core processor, without hyperthreading or integrated graphics, but has a 2.9 GHz base frequency and a 4.1 GHz turbo frequency (it's also the only new processor with a price). The Core i5-9400 is the same processor, but with Gen9 Intel HD 630 Graphics.

It is interesting that Intel is releasing processors without integrated graphics, and calling them ‘F’. F was the Xeon name for ones with OmniPath fabric installed. It also marks the first mainstream chips in a long while that Intel has launched without integrated graphics. They’re obviously doing it this way to increase yields, especially if the cores are fine but the graphics isn’t working at the required frequencies. This might be preferred to reducing the core count to allow the graphics to match a lower class of product.

Intel was very cagey about when these processors would come to market. In the official news post, the company said that it ‘expects these processors to start shipping at the end of January’. Personally, I find that working not very committal. It suggests that they don’t know, or it’s likely to be in February and they are hedging some bets. We’ll wait and see if the company will sample us the parts for review, and if not having integrated graphics helps the overclock or the power consumption.

Mobile processors on Core 9th Gen will come in Q2 this year.