At an event in New York City, chip giant Intel (INTC -3.67%) announced, among other things, a trio of processors targeted at the gaming desktop personal computer market. The three chips are, in order of increasing performance, the Core i5-9600K, Core i7-9700K, and the Core i9-9900K. You can see the key details of the chips in the table below:
Image source: Intel.
The Core i7-9700K and Core i9-9900K are both chips with eight physical processor cores enabled, although the Core i9-9900K runs at slightly higher frequencies, has more cache memory enabled, and also has a feature known as Hyper-Threading technology turned on, too. The Core i5-9600K, on the other hand, has just six physical cores enabled, with even more cache memory disabled than on the Core i7-9700K. It, like the Core i7-9700K, also has Hyper-Threading disabled.
In fact, if you compare the specifications of the Core i5-9600K with that of its predecessor, the Core i5-8600K, these chips appear nearly identical, save for the Core i5-9600K running at slightly higher frequencies.
| Processor | Base Clock Speed (GHz) | Maximum Single Core Turbo Frequency (GHz) | Cores/Threads | Intel Smart Cache |
| Core i5-8600K | 3.6 | 4.3 | 6/6 | 9MB |
| Core i5-9600K | 3.7 | 4.6 | 6/6 | 9MB |
Source: Intel ARK, data compiled by author.
