The hex-core i5-9600K is third in the latest line-up of Intel’s 9th generation of unlocked CPUs based on their refreshed Coffee Lake 14nm architecture. This round of releases also includes the 8 core, 8 thread i7-9700K and the flagship 8 core, 16 thread i9-9900K, out of which the 9600K at USD $280 is the value leader. The 9600K supersedes last year’s similarly priced 6 core 8600K and out of the box operates at higher clocks: base 3.7 GHz vs 3.6 GHz, all core 4.3 GHz vs 4.1 GHz and single 4.6 GHz vs 4.3 GHz. The 9600K has a TDP of 95W and will require a large cooler to match. The new Z390 or last years Z370 chipset with a BIOS update are both supported. Intensive multi-threaded task masters would do better to spend a similar amount on the Ryzen 7 2700X, where an extra USD $10 buys 2 more cores and 10 more threads resulting in multi-core benchmarks 70% higher than for the 9600K. However, for the vast majority of users that undertake up to quad-core workloads, the 9600K offers very reasonable bang for your buck, and when fully overclocked, almost second to none performance for gamers. ^{[Oct '18 CPUPro]}

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