Top model almost off the market after four months

A theory for the creation of the 9900KS: Intel wanted to give at least some sign of life against AMD's strong Ryzen CPUs due to the lack of other innovations due to their own manufacturing problems.

That was a brief interlude: The Core i9 9900KS from Intel was released at the end of October 2019 and was barely available at the end of February 2020 (via computer base).

It was clear from the start that the special edition of the regular Core i9 9900K would only be available in limited quantities at slightly higher clock rates. No other Intel processor is likely to have such a short lifespan as this CPU.

Looking at our own test results from the 9900KS, that's one loss easy to bear: Both in games and in applications, the advantage over the currently well available Core i9 9900K is very small.

Special edition with little added value

The technical data below also illustrates the slight differences between the 9900K processors. Even the Core i9 9900K is anything but a bargain with costs in the range of 500 euros, the Core i9 9900KS was usually even in the range of almost 600 euros and is currently only available from 700 euros.

Ultimately, it was a prestige object for both Intel and the buyers of the CPU, which has now disappeared from the market after a short time.

A new replacement for the Core i9 9900K is already in the starting blocks: Intel's Core i 10000 series is expected in the second quarter of 2020. Technically, however, most of it will remain the same, the biggest innovation is likely to be the increase in the maximum number of cores from eight to ten.