For people saying this CPU is a beast or super fast or games never ran better, etc... unless you're literally creating heavy auto CAD, rendering, hosting you are not going to see any improvements over a i7 4790k(in regards to gaming/general use NOT in regards to newer tech on board). My old 4790k was OC to 5.0Ghz and paired with a simple 1070 GPU and 16Gb 2400Mhz RAM, I was running Cyberpunk 2077 and 99% of other games on ULTRA at 144Hz and at least 6OFPS. No issues other than minor things. Compared to what others have said online about all the problems, I experienced very few. Just saying because I upgraded to a i9 9900k and there's not much noticable improvement. Yeah it's scoring better but when I play games it's not much different. It's OCd to 5.0Ghz and im ... MoreFor people saying this CPU is a beast or super fast or games never ran better, etc... unless you're literally creating heavy auto CAD, rendering, hosting you are not going to see any improvements over a i7 4790k(in regards to gaming/general use NOT in regards to newer tech on board). My old 4790k was OC to 5.0Ghz and paired with a simple 1070 GPU and 16Gb 2400Mhz RAM, I was running Cyberpunk 2077 and 99% of other games on ULTRA at 144Hz and at least 6OFPS. No issues other than minor things. Compared to what others have said online about all the problems, I experienced very few. Just saying because I upgraded to a i9 9900k and there's not much noticable improvement. Yeah it's scoring better but when I play games it's not much different. It's OCd to 5.0Ghz and im running 32Gb 3200Mhz RAM with same 1070 GPU. I only returned my 9980EX when I found a 9900k for 250$. The money I saved was nice but what I wanted more was just a decent CPU that I wouldn't have to replace again for another 10 years. I had that Devil's Canyon for almost 9 years I think and consistently scored in the 90th percentile for benchmarks. Not bragging but the normal gamer will have ZERO use for more than 8 actual cores with HT doubling that. The OC speeds mainly benefit the single cores anyways and the little .3 to .5Ghz we get when OCing might raise our "benchmark numbers" but in reality doesn't really speed things up by much. People get all razzle dazzle by these big numbers of cores but I guarantee you the majority of owners will never use those cores in day to day actual gaming or computing. Yes some might but very few. It seems the average consumer thinks newer is better and bigger numbers make go faster. No. A 9700k will be good for another 10 years mark my words. Unless there's some huge breakthrough in game development/programming, my old 4790k would still probably be good enough for the average gamer/user. It's funny tho to see reviewers who've bought this CPU and actually kept it leaving reviews without really saying what they're using it for and using words like super fast, mind blowing speeds, beast of a CPU only to reassure themselves that spending that much$ on a CPU was a good idea. Remember Intel needs to sell chips and without sucker's like us they'd be bankrupt. Newer isn't always better and price doesn't equate to performance. It's like buying an NSX with 50 extra Vtech valves but never being able to drive fast enough to use those extra valves other than when on a private track once a year and at home you tell everyone how fast it was but yet 364 days out of the year you use it to drive 2 blocks for groceries when a hatchback turbo VW would have sufficed. To each his own I guess but at least know where when and how the cores work and single vs. Multi threads, HT, Turbo Boost, etc...

Crazy expensive but very powerful

System this went in to: Asus WS x299 Sage 128gb GSkill 3866 DDR-4 Samsung 2tb NVMe 2 x 2080ti cards in SLI I game at 4k and so far every game has ran maxed out visually and ran at my current monitors max of 60 FPS. This isn't the best processor for only gaming at the moment, but I hoped it would do decently and it does. For whatever reason, my Asus WS x299 Sage motherboard detects and identifies this processor correctly as having a stock 3.0ghz frequency, but from the very beginning it automatically clocks it at 3.8, even in the BIOS. Now, obviously people buy a K or X processor to overclock it, but for me I always baseline everything at stock frequency and the only way I could do that was to set max CPU multiplier to 30. I can't pull in the reins of this ... MoreSystem this went in to: Asus WS x299 Sage 128gb GSkill 3866 DDR-4 Samsung 2tb NVMe 2 x 2080ti cards in SLI I game at 4k and so far every game has ran maxed out visually and ran at my current monitors max of 60 FPS. This isn't the best processor for only gaming at the moment, but I hoped it would do decently and it does. For whatever reason, my Asus WS x299 Sage motherboard detects and identifies this processor correctly as having a stock 3.0ghz frequency, but from the very beginning it automatically clocks it at 3.8, even in the BIOS. Now, obviously people buy a K or X processor to overclock it, but for me I always baseline everything at stock frequency and the only way I could do that was to set max CPU multiplier to 30. I can't pull in the reins of this thoroughbred! So far, the only overclocking I have been doing is setting it at 3.8ghz all stock voltages and then let it OC itself in Windows. It will run 4.2 ghz on all 18 cores at 100% with the temps still below the 80's. When not using this PC for gaming or editing tasks, I run Folding@home on it so the CPU gets pegged at 100 and stays there. If I run the Intel Turbo Boost 3.0 suite it then boosts it further and this is where I start getting an occasional crash. Gaming, it will boost up to 4.7ghz but for 24/7 100% use it ran hotter than I like. Keep in mind this is very early testing, having had it for only a couple of weeks. I am sure as I test more with voltage and such it will only get better. So far all manual testing has been done at stock volts.

Definitely Future-Proof

it comes in an extremely protected bunker (as well it should considering its Price). Not many thing are compatible with the 18-core beast.

Everything I expected.

I paired this with 128 GB Corsair Dominator RAM on a Asus Prime Deluxe II mobo and thus far I have some interesting experiences.First the processor:This thing runs HOT as everyone has pointed out. I am using a Noctua nh-d15 as a CPU cooler and it puts the processor about 35 degrees C idle. From what I have seen this is normal. Under load I see 68-72 degrees. This is well within limits but this cooler is massive. I have no idea about an AIO and I did not want to chance the risk of leaks, breaks, or anything else so I went with tried and true.18 cores means problems with Win 10. For those struggling you CANNOT install from USB straight up with anything over 10 cores. You MUST turn the cores off to install. Allow the machine to update and then turn the cores on. ... MoreI paired this with 128 GB Corsair Dominator RAM on a Asus Prime Deluxe II mobo and thus far I have some interesting experiences.First the processor:This thing runs HOT as everyone has pointed out. I am using a Noctua nh-d15 as a CPU cooler and it puts the processor about 35 degrees C idle. From what I have seen this is normal. Under load I see 68-72 degrees. This is well within limits but this cooler is massive. I have no idea about an AIO and I did not want to chance the risk of leaks, breaks, or anything else so I went with tried and true.18 cores means problems with Win 10. For those struggling you CANNOT install from USB straight up with anything over 10 cores. You MUST turn the cores off to install. Allow the machine to update and then turn the cores on. I went with 4 cores to install and then packed the cores on after. BSODs were present prior to this.Next up Asus and the wisdom of AI overclocking. Avoid this. Honestly I think the chip itself is fine until production started, meaning gaming was fine. Then Adobe started crunching video and BSODs were all over. System exceptions from overclocking were seen. This was due to mismatched chip tolerance and RAM tolerance.Note the limits of the processor and decide if XEON is right or this. I could not get a XEON for the price of the process and MOBO so I went this route.Aside from the issues described this processor melts math. I came from i9 9900k and illustrate / animate in 4k at least, with the old it chugged at 100 layers, even with an RTX 2080 ti. With the new machine it flies. I have had zero slowdowns and zero hangups. Once it is stable it is a dream come true.Motherboard:Asus or MSI pretty much sum up the motherboard market on this thing. Flip a coin with reviews being 3 stars on both. ASUS has generally put a decent product out so I went there. It is okay, there are some building problems with it though. I am not happy with their gimmicky heat sink stuff covering the PCI bridge ejection tab. The noctua is massive and paired with a EVGA RTX 2080ti FTW you cannot access the push tab to eject the video card without a long screw driver. This means if you are not ultra careful you will bend a fin of the heatsink.Next their Overclocking software. Yes it is very open ended but it seems to pair RAM speed to processor clock speed. Honestly I got so fed up with blue screens I defaulted the settings and run DRAM at 2666. This means I paid a little extra for 3000 which I do not use.The board is great build, sometimes too good. The BITE of the board caught voltages .012 Volts out of specifications (tolerance on the chip is .02) and halted post. This means BUY A PLATINUM PSU.I returned my original Corsair 850 and went with an ASUS Thor 850W.All in all the processor rocks the house and I can animate until my hand cramps up or I fall over from exhaustion. This means the only limits here is me. Lovely product!

It is a really fast one which does beat my AMD 1950X by far

This processor does beat my AMD 1950X by several points.1. I can do several tasks more at the same time.2. overall speed is higher, I can overclock it to 4.2Ghz with air cooling and max temperature is still in the 160f range.3. electrical power usage is much less with more performance.The only disadvantage is the price. the AMD 1950X or the successor of that, the AMD 2950X is not even half of the price of this processor, so if there is no need for saving electrical power nor overclocking, certainly worth to take a look on AMD.I also looked at the AMD 2990WX which is still cheaper but has nearly twice the cores. I decided against because of the nearly twice of electrical power usage, limited overclocking and a low max temperature of 150f.The Intel has a ... MoreThis processor does beat my AMD 1950X by several points.1. I can do several tasks more at the same time.2. overall speed is higher, I can overclock it to 4.2Ghz with air cooling and max temperature is still in the 160f range.3. electrical power usage is much less with more performance.The only disadvantage is the price. the AMD 1950X or the successor of that, the AMD 2950X is not even half of the price of this processor, so if there is no need for saving electrical power nor overclocking, certainly worth to take a look on AMD.I also looked at the AMD 2990WX which is still cheaper but has nearly twice the cores. I decided against because of the nearly twice of electrical power usage, limited overclocking and a low max temperature of 150f.The Intel has a max limit at around 200fWith the i9-9980XE, I'm using a Asus Prime X299-A motherboard, 32GB of Kingston KHX4000C19D4 memory. The processor is running at 4.2 Ghz and the memory at 4Ghz since a month without a glitch.

Surprisingly Impressed

I was concerned with this purchase at first, as I'm sure everyone was or is that purchases it. Especially, after watching LinusTechTips rant about it. It was unclear what to expect at such a price. Granted I am still testing the product after just a month of purchase but have not experienced solid failures I can mention besides maybe one or two spikes in usage at idle. This could be related to my own system. Otherwise, this is a great product found at an even better price. Hooray for Ebay. I will update if need be.

Very fast with liquid cooling - Got it $400 cheaper at B&H

Using it on an EVGA Dark Mobo- as it has fan cooling for the latest m.2 PCIE 4 cards that can get hot. Tried a gigabyte and AsRock board settled on the DARK due to the bios setup, and active fan cooling on VRM & PCH which is nice with a solid heat dissipation setup.Stress test at 100% all 36 logical cores with a 38 multiplier (stock is 30)Temps sit at 42C, - 48C max after a long run. At idle on high-power temps are at 24C.Using Nocta fans on a Corsair 360 water cooler.Paired with a 2080ti, Works great for video rendering.I don’t think there is a need to over lock this chip any further as any editing program most use would be threaded for all cores -and no reason to drive the heat up. Has a bit more L1 cache than the 7980xe and has a metal conductor between ... MoreUsing it on an EVGA Dark Mobo- as it has fan cooling for the latest m.2 PCIE 4 cards that can get hot. Tried a gigabyte and AsRock board settled on the DARK due to the bios setup, and active fan cooling on VRM & PCH which is nice with a solid heat dissipation setup.Stress test at 100% all 36 logical cores with a 38 multiplier (stock is 30)Temps sit at 42C, - 48C max after a long run. At idle on high-power temps are at 24C.Using Nocta fans on a Corsair 360 water cooler.Paired with a 2080ti, Works great for video rendering.I don’t think there is a need to over lock this chip any further as any editing program most use would be threaded for all cores -and no reason to drive the heat up. Has a bit more L1 cache than the 7980xe and has a metal conductor between chip and lid. I did not de-lid as I had with a few past CPUs.CPUZ numbers are around 10,300+ Which is quite a bit faster and runs cooler than the same 79 series I replaced.After hearing, about potential heat problems...I used the graphite thermal paste Arctic 4mx. Very pleased with it -and it is it is not metal based.If you are going to be cranking out 10+ gigabyte sized files, it’s a real timesaver providing your programs are correctly threaded for it.

Warp Factor 10!

I paired this CPU with an Asus Omega motherboard, 32Gb of 4000Mhz DDR4 HyperX, a Samsung 960 Pro SSD, and an AMD Radeon VII. I prefer stability over higher speed with my videocards.This CPU is nothing short of awesome! I haven't run any benchmarks, but can tell it flies by how fast Windows responds to various functions. It seems these days that everyone's focus is on the GPU, while neglecting the very heart of the system. This CPU will show you why Intel is the best, and fastest processor, and how Windows was meant to operate. :-)

Worth every penny

Needed a CPU that could handle building code for my massive project but also be able to handle modern gaming like a champ. What a great purchase this has been. What normally took 45 minutes for a clean build takes about 3 which is amazing. It also doesn't bat an eye using the 3DMark CPU test. Extremely satisfied.

it's a beast

A Lot of People complain about the Price, a year ago this thing cost twice as much.... Make sure your Board has the Latest BIOS, Some older boards will not boot with this.