That page is embarrassingly wrong about how power management works in Intel CPUs. By default Intel CPUs will not allow their rolling average power consumption over a period of ~1 minute to exceed the specified TDP (95 W in this case). Once the limit is reached the CPU reduces its frequency to bring power consumption down. Intel optimizes their CPUs to achieve a good balance between efficiency and performance when operating at the TDP.
What you see in Anandtech's review is the result of motherboard firmware effectively disabling the power limit by setting it to a very high value. This is a common practice among enthusiast motherboards in order to boost scores in reviews. Unfortunately it also results in drastically lower power efficiency and lots of clueless people, including many tech writers, complaining about unrealistic TDP numbers.
> By default Intel CPUs will not allow their rolling average power consumption over a period of ~1 minute to exceed the specified TDP (95 W in this case).
From the page in question: "In this case, for the new 9th Generation Core processors, Intel has set the PL2 value to 210W. This is essentially the power required to hit the peak turbo on all cores, such as 4.7 GHz on the eight-core Core i9-9900K. So users can completely forget the 95W TDP when it comes to cooling. If a user wants those peak frequencies, it’s time to invest in something capable and serious."
95W is the required power to sustain the base clocks.
Also, calling AnandTech clueless... Are there any better hardware review sites? I would consider them a tier 1 site, with HardOCP and not a whole lot else...
The "new" sites seem to be up-and-coming Youtube channels.
Anandtech's quality has dropped since Anand Lal Shimpi left for Apple. Its still decent, but they're missing that Anand chip-level wizardry that they used to have. I still consider them a good website, just down a few notches.
The new sites with quality are Youtube-based. Its just where the eyeballs and money are right now.
GamerNexus is probably the best up-and-coming sites (they have a traditional webpage / blog, but also post a Youtube video regularly). And Buildzoid is one of the best if you want to discuss VRM-management on motherboards. These focus more on "builder" issues than chip-level engineering like Anand used to write about.
Like I said, the Anandtech article has a lot of inaccurate information in it. Unfortunately the quality of tech journalism has taken a dive the last few years as most of the good writers have been hired away by the very tech companies they used to cover.
See this article on Gamers Nexus for a much better summary of the power consumption situation for Intel CPUs
I would find it hilarious if this conversation somehow prompted it.
Anyways, AnandTech's position seems to be:
We test at stock, out-of-the-box motherboard settings, except for memory profiles. We do this for three reasons -
1. This is the experience almost all users will have.
2. This is what the benchmarks published by Intel reflect.
3. This is what damn near every other review site has done forever, and to do otherwise would make results less useful.
So that's why their power draw number was 170W and not 95W for the i9-9900k - motherboard vendors take Intel's recommended settings and laugh. But so does Intel for benchmarks.
Add in all the ancillary hardware (motherboard, memory, hard drive, PSU losses) and that efficiency number is going to take a nosedive.