Note: Unfortunately, this deal is no longer available.
If you have a need for pure face-melting speed, no processor is faster than the Intel Core i9-9900K when it comes to gaming. The trouble? This part is rarely on sale—but today is one of those days. Amazon is selling the Core i9-9900K for $475 today, down from its previous price closer to $495. This is the all-time low price for Amazon.
The Core i9-9900K is a Coffee Lake CPU featuring eight cores, sixteen threads, a 3.6GHz base frequency, and a boost frequency of 5GHz. In our tests, when we had the multi-core enhancement (MCE) feature enabled via a compatible motherboard, we saw all cores running at 5GHz under heavy loads. Typically, Intel’s boost clock counts for one core with all the others running slower.
The Core i9-9900K’s MCE-boosted performance was fantastic for intense gaming, and it should make any owner kind of shrug their shoulders at the still unreleased Core i9-9900KS. If you need more cores for productivity tasks, also consider the $500 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 3900X—in theory anyway. It’s been consistently sold out for months.
You will, however, need a good cooler for the Core i9-9900K, and there isn’t one included in the box. You’ll also want a premium Z-series motherboard to take advantage of the Core i9-9900K’s overclocking capabilities.
Overall, we felt the Core i9-9900K was well worth the original asking price of $529, but at $475? It’s a no-brainer if you want the fastest gaming performance in the world. You won’t find it going for much cheaper than this, folks.