A rebranded i9? The Intel CC150 CPU Review

[cagoblex]

Here is a review of the Intel CC150 processor. According to my knowledge It is custom made for Nvidia Geforce Now europe servers. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with 16MB of L3 cache and 95W TDP. It is running at 3.5GHz but does not support Turbo Boost. It supports ECC Unbuffered memory so it's technically a Xeon E processor rather than an i9. It is not available to the public but you can get them on Taobao.com(The chinese version of eBay) for about $270. It is a retail stepping chip, not ES or QS, so it's not bad for the price.

 

It is not as fast as an i9 9900K since it's lack of TB, however it has absolutely amazing thermal and power consumption. The Vcore is under 1V and it consumes less than 60W even under full load, which is comparable to an i5 9400. 

 

Running small FTTs test in Prime 95 will push this processor to 82W, however that is still about half of what an i9 9900K would consume. Even with the low profile Noctua NH-L9i cooler, the temperature is still well under 70 degrees. I also tested a i5 8400 I have on hand with the same settings, but with the power limits removed, since it only has 65W TDP, and got higher Vcore and performance. Yes I know 8th gen processors use thermal compound instead of soldered IHS, but the i5 8400 only has 6 cores and 6 threads, which kinda even out the difference. 

 

Unlike Xeon E processors that would only work on C246 motherboards, the CC150, although supports ECC memories, can work on any 300 series motherboards, even on H310. However make sure you have the latest BIOS, since it's a R0 stepping chip, not the P0 stepping. 

 

I also tested using ECC memory on 300 series motherboards. Since the memory controller is integrated in the CPU rather than the motherboard, you can use ECC memory with the CC150 on regular 300 series motherboards. You don't need to change any settings in BIOS to make it work, and there is actually no such settings in BIOS anyways. 

 

You can check out the benchmark results, compatible motherboards, and thermal performance in this youtube video:  https://youtu.be/mfpoy_9v3Ik

 

Please post below to let me know what else do you want to know about this processor. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

[cagoblex]

Yeah it's more of an interesting collection. That's why I didn't really recommended it in the video. However there is still reasons to go with Intel for some use case. So it might be good for some people.