Intel Core i9 X-Series 9820X 10-core LGA 2066

The 9820X posts a 20,569 PassMark multi-core score, good for the 77th percentile, which makes it a legit workstation chip for rendering and video work. But the 165W TDP and 53.6 efficiency score mean you'll need serious cooling and a beefy power supply. At USD 139 to USD 248 in the US, it's a decent value for 10 cores if you know what you're signing up for.

The multi-core PassMark score of 20,569 is the headline here. That puts it in the 77th percentile for multi-threaded performance, which means it's well above average for heavy lifting like video rendering, 3D work, and audio production. The 10 cores and 20 threads at a 4.1GHz boost clock do real work when you feed them parallel tasks. The quad-channel DDR4-2666 memory support helps too, giving the chip enough bandwidth to keep all those cores fed.

But the single-core score of 2,455 is a different story. It sits in the 69th percentile, which is solid but unremarkable. Games and lightly-threaded apps won't feel dramatically faster than a mid-range modern chip. And the efficiency score of 53.6 is the real weak spot. At 165W TDP, this thing pulls serious power under load. You'll need a beefy cooler and a quality power supply, or you'll be listening to fan noise all day.

Against the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, this Intel chip looks dated. The 9800X3D is a modern gaming monster with 3D V-Cache that crushes single-threaded workloads, while the 9820X wins on raw core count for heavily parallel tasks. The Dell Xeon E5-2637 V2 is a server pull with fewer cores and lower clocks, so it's not really in the same conversation unless you're building a cheap homelab. The G.Skill Trident Z Neo and be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 5 aren't even CPUs, they're memory and a cooler, so they're only relevant as things you'd pair with this chip. The real takeaway is that the 9820X is a niche buy in 2025. It's for people who need 20 threads on a budget and don't care about single-core speed or power efficiency.

Pricing is all over the map depending on where you shop. In the US, you'll find listings from USD 139 to USD 248, a spread of USD 109 across just two vendors. That's a huge gap for the same silicon. If you're in Europe, the EUR 357 to EUR 560 range is even wider, a EUR 203 difference across four listings. The best deal we're seeing is at the low end of the US range, but you'll want to check seller reputation before jumping on the cheapest option. For a 10-core chip with this kind of multi-threaded muscle, even the higher end of the US pricing is reasonable if you actually need the cores. Just don't pay European prices for it if you can avoid it.

The Core i9-9820X posts a PassMark multi-core score of 20,569, which lands it in the 77th percentile for multi-threaded work. That's a strong showing for a 10-core Skylake-X chip, but the single-core score of 2,455 tells a different story. It's fine for everyday tasks, but modern chips have left it behind in lightly-threaded workloads. You're buying this for the core count, not the clock speed.

At 165W TDP on the aging LGA 2066 socket, this is a workstation chip with workstation demands. The 17MB of L3 cache and quad-channel DDR4-2666 support give it real bandwidth for rendering and video work. But the efficiency score of 53.6 out of 100 is the weakest area in our database, and that power draw is the reason. This is a chip you buy when you need 20 threads on a budget, not when you want a balanced daily driver.

Skip this chip if you care about power efficiency or single-core speed. The 53.6 efficiency score is the weakest area in our database, and the 165W TDP means your electricity bill and cooling budget both take a hit. Gamers should look elsewhere too, the 2,455 single-core PassMark score is only in the 69th percentile, and modern mid-range chips will feel snappier in everyday use. And if you're building a new system from scratch, the dead LGA 2066 socket means you're buying into a platform with zero upgrade path. This is a chip for people who already have an X299 board or who find one dirt cheap and need 20 threads for rendering or virtualization on a budget.

The Core i9-9820X is a chip with a very specific audience. If you're rendering video, running VMs, or doing audio production where 20 threads matter more than single-core speed, the 20,569 PassMark multi-core score makes a compelling case at the right price. But the 165W TDP, the mediocre single-core performance, and the dead LGA 2066 socket mean this isn't a chip for most people. The 4.4-star customer rating suggests owners who knew what they were getting are happy, but the 22nd percentile user sentiment score tells us plenty of buyers ran into power and cooling headaches. Buy it for a workstation build, not a gaming rig, and only if you find it at the low end of the price range.