Intel Core i9-9900KS, 8 Cores 7 16 Threads Turbo Unlocked Desktop Processor with Intel UHD Graphics 630

I got lucky and managed to get the 9900ks for retail and it’s definitely the best cpu for gaming however if your doing video editing or workstation tasks with how much these are marked up now you could easily go 3rd gen AMD ryzen 9 or even a lower end treadripper chip but for gaming this is still the best. I also got lucky and hit the silicon lotto and got a golden chip that stable overclocks to 5.1 or 5.2 if you really want to push it but you’ll def need a mobo with beefy vrms to get there. I paired it with a Maximus xi extreme mobo, RTX 2080ti founders and did a complete custom loop with dual 360rads, one for cpu and one for gpu with all ekwb waterblocks. Overclocked with 64gb ram @3200mhz with stable xmp enabled I was able to run stress tests for 12 hours and never got above 70c on the cpu and 45on gpu. This processor doesn’t come with thermal paste or a cooler so I’d highly recommend going thermal grizzly or arctic mx4 thermal paste and some sort of watercooling and just note If you really want to get this stable at high clocks you’ll need a premium mobo that can deliver the power to the cpu, and if your doing custom loop I’d recommend setting up the loop so the gpu doesn’t go straight to the cpu and try to separate them for optimal temperatures. Got this for my gaming pc, but think for my streaming and workstation machine I’ll be going ryzen 9 3950x

This cpu is fast. Absolutely no reason to overclock it. This was compatible with a BIOS update ver. 4.20 for my Asrock Z370 extreme 4 Motherboard. Everything is groovy. I highly recommend it. It is only going up in price. I got mine early at intel's suggested retail rate, which it is almost double now. These are very limited this edition. Very happy.

BUYER BEWARE: I purchased this item on December 11th 2023; I received my package from the seller on December 13th 2023, and noticed immediately upon receipt that they sent out the non-S variant, the Intel Core i9-9900K. Went back and verified that what I ordered was advertised in the listing and sold as the Intel Core i9-9900KS.I contacted the seller to request they send out the correct item, and they told me that they no longer had one to send me. I also saw that they had raised the price from $316.23 to $1,299.00 the same day. They offered to refund $35 off of the purchase price for the difference in value to keep the incorrect item, or to refund in full and send it back, at which point I could purchase a new one from them. They said this knowing full-well that the full refund would only cover about a fourth of the raised price. When I mentioned I would contact customer support, one magically appeared for them to send out. Got the replacement on December 28th 2023, and with that, I thought this was finally over...9 months down the line I discovered I was wrong.I had to rebuild my PC around this CPU. When I encountered issues after installing it in the new setup, with a number of other new parts installed alongside it, it took time to work out what was causing crashes and freezing. Long story short, the CPU was seriously degraded, I'm assuming it came off of their RMA pile. While running it in my system over the last 9 months, it has caused various issues and ultimately caused my original RAM, original CPU cooler, and original 2TB m.2 SSD all to fail. I replaced each, one by one, assuming each time that was the cause for my woes.Fast forward to now, roughly $500 in replacement parts later, I'm finding that the CPU was the issue behind everything all along. Running tools like CPU Burn Test, and Cinebench R15, focused solely on the performance of the CPU itself under stress, it failed repeatedly even in a separate test bench from my main build. This indicated that the CPU had been severely degraded.I'm now in the process of working with Amazon Customer Support, which I should have done from the beginning, to get them to properly RMA the item.

This processor works like new! Don't know if it was used or not but it came in a clamshell with fairly factory looking stuff on it. Obviously no fancy box but that's a fair trade off! Signature required was a bit annoying as I lost 260$ in wages waiting for FedEx.