The discovery of the Core i7-9700K in the SiSoft Sandra benchmark database confirms a strategy change at Intel. The next core generation will reserve hyper-threading for Core i9. This technology is no longer offered by Core i7.
SiSoft Sandra offers one of the most reliable databases. The application is often used by engineers for various tests. Therefore, it is not uncommon that processors are not yet on the market. As a rule, these are technical patterns that give a foretaste of what is planned.
We have a chip with 8 physical cores but without hyper-threading. It is an 8C/8T processor with a nominal frequency of 3.6 GHz.
The total score is 157.24 GOPs. The character is interesting but does not necessarily reflect reality. We’re probably looking at a technical rehearsal. The performance can improve significantly before the start.
Core i7-9700K, Intel abandons hyper-threading technology
The most important point is not this score, but the fact that hyper-threading does not exist. This confirmation makes us believe that Intel will make a strategy change to improve its high-end product.
Hyper-threading is reserved for Core i9, and Core i5 and Core i7 offer either 6 cores or 8 physical cores. This choice also corresponds to a market reality. The general public mainly uses applications that cannot handle more than 8 threads.
The Core i9-9900K thus finds its place in a niche market, that of demanding users with very special requirements. In a context of highly multi-threaded software, the Core i7-9700K will be outdated, but the gap in current usage should be much smaller.
One of the outstanding questions concerns Core i3, whose existence has not been mentioned so far. Intel planning to give it up? It seems hard to believe at the sight of their popularity. The hypothesis of a second start seems more plausible.