Skip to content
Main Navigation Puget Systems Logo
  • Solutions
    • Content Creation
      • Photo Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe Lightroom Classic
        • Adobe Photoshop
        • Stable Diffusion
      • Video Editing & Motion Graphics
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe After Effects
        • Adobe Premiere Pro
        • DaVinci Resolve
        • Foundry Nuke
      • 3D Design & Animation
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk 3ds Max
        • Autodesk Maya
        • Blender
        • Cinema 4D
        • Houdini
        • ZBrush
      • Real-Time Engines
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Game Development
        • Unity
        • Unreal Engine
        • Virtual Production
      • Rendering
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Keyshot
        • OctaneRender
        • Redshift
        • V-Ray
      • Digital Audio
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Ableton Live
        • FL Studio
        • Pro Tools
    • Engineering
      • Architecture & CAD
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk AutoCAD
        • Autodesk Inventor
        • Autodesk Revit
        • SOLIDWORKS
      • Visualization
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Enscape
        • Lumion
        • Twinmotion
      • Photogrammetry & GIS
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • ArcGIS Pro
        • Agisoft Metashape
        • Pix4D
        • RealityCapture
    • AI & HPC
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Data Science
      • Generative AI
      • Large Language Models
      • Machine Learning / AI Dev
      • Scientific Computing
    • More
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Compact Size
      • Live Streaming
      • NVIDIA RTX Studio
      • Quiet Operation
      • Virtual Reality
    • Business & Enterprise
      We can empower your company
    • Government & Education
      Services tailored for your organization
  • Products
    • Puget Mobile
      Powerful laptop workstations
      • Puget Mobile 16″
    • Puget Workstations
      High-performance desktop PCs
      • AMD Ryzen
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • AMD Threadripper
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • Full Tower
      • AMD EPYC
        • EPYC 9004:
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Core Ultra
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Xeon
        • Xeon W-2500:
        • Mid Tower
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • Full Tower
    • Custom Computers
    • Puget Rackstations
      Workstations in rackmount chassis
      • AMD Rackstations
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • R132-4U
        • R550-6U 5-Node
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • T121-4U
        • T120-5U
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • T141-4U
        • T140-5U (Dual 5090s)
        • EPYC 9004:
        • E140-4U (Quad 4090s)
      • Intel Rackstations
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • C132-4U
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • X131-4U
        • X141-5U
    • Custom Rackmount Workstations
    • Puget Servers
      Enterprise-class rackmount servers
      • Rackmount Servers
        • AMD EPYC:
        • E200-1U
        • E120-2U
        • E140-2U
        • E280-4U
        • E281-4U
        • Intel Xeon:
        • X200-1U
        • X240-2U
    • Comino Grando GPU Servers
    • Custom Servers
    • Puget Storage
      Solutions from desktop to datacenter
      • Network-Attached Storage
        • Synology NAS Units:
        • 4-bay DiskStation
        • 8-bay DiskStation
        • 12-bay DiskStation
        • 4-bay RackStation
        • 12-bay FlashStation
      • Software-Defined Storage
        • Datacenter Storage:
        • 12-Bay 2U
        • 24-Bay 2U
        • 36-Bay 4U
    • Recommended Third Party Peripherals
      Curated list of accessories for your workstation
    • Puget Gear
      Quality apparel with Puget Systems branding
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • Blog Posts
    • Case Studies
    • HPC Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Press
    • PugetBench
  • Support
    • Contact Support
    • Support Articles
    • Warranty Details
    • Onsite Services
    • Unboxing
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Our Customers
    • Enterprise
    • Gov & Edu
    • Press Kit
    • Testimonials
    • Careers
  • Talk to an Expert
  • My Account
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Hardware Articles
  4. /
  5. Photoshop CC 2019: Intel X-series 2018 Refresh Performance

Photoshop CC 2019: Intel X-series 2018 Refresh Performance

Posted on November 13, 2018 by Matt Bach
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on November 13, 2018. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Test Setup & Methodology
  • Benchmark Results
  • Benchmark Analysis
  • Are the 2018 Intel Core X-series Processors good for Photoshop?

Introduction

Over the last few years, both Intel and AMD have been steadily adding more and more cores to their CPUs. However, the new Intel Core X-series processors breaks this trend completely as they don't have any more cores than the previous generation. Intel did decide to drop the odd-ball 6 core model, but the standard lineup still ranges from 8 to 18 cores. Instead, these CPUs just have a slight frequency increase and other minor architecture updates. At first glance, these processors are underwhelming, but there are often hidden architecture changes that can significantly impact on performance so we will reserve judgement until after our testing.

Since Photoshop tends to primarily rely on just a handful of cores, another question is whether these new X-series models are able to keep up with the more moderately priced Intel 9th Gen Core i9 9900K. When we benchmarked that CPU in our Photoshop CC 2018: Core i7 9700K & i9 9900K Performance article, we found that it was easily the fastest CPU for Photoshop available at that time. The updates to these CPUs are likely to close that gap somewhat, but we will have to see if it is enough to make the X-series processors useful for Photoshop users.

One thing we will note is that we currently only have access to the i7 9800X, i9 9900X, i9 9920X, and i9 9980XE models. Because of this, we will be focusing on how much faster these new models are compared to the previous generation. Once we get the full lineup, we will publish a more in-depth roundup article include all the X-series models as well as other CPUs like AMD Threadripper.

If you would like to skip over our test setup and benchmark result/analysis sections, feel free to jump right to the Conclusion section.

Test Setup & Methodology

Listed below are the systems we will be using in our testing:

Test Hardware    
Motherboard: Gigabyte AORUS Z390 Pro WiFi Gigabyte X299 Designare EX
CPU: Intel Core i7 8700K 6 Core
3.7GHz (4.7GHz Turbo)


Intel Core i9 9900K 8 Core
3.6GHz (5.0GHz Turbo)
Intel Core i7 7820X 3.6GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 8 Core


Intel Core i9 7900X 3.3GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 10 Core


Intel Core i9 7920X 2.9GHz
(4.4GHz Turbo) 12 Core


Intel Core i9 7980XE 2.6GHz
(4.4GHz Turbo) 18 Core
Intel Core i7 9800X 3.8GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 8 Core


Intel Core i9 9900X 3.5GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 10 Core


Intel Core i9 9920X 3.5GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 12 Core


Intel Core i9 9980XE 3.0GHz
(4.5GHz Turbo) 18 Core
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S Noctua NH-U12DX i4
RAM: 4x DDR4-2666 16GB
(64GB total)
8x DDR4-2666 16GB
(128GB total)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
Hard Drive: Samsung 960 Pro 1TB M.2 PCI-E x4 NVMe SSD
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Software: Photoshop CC 2019 (ver. 20.0.0)

For the testing itself, we will be using version 18.10 of our Puget Systems Photoshop CC Benchmark which is currently available for public download. This benchmark tests a range of general tasks (open/save, resize, content aware fill, etc.), filters, as well as panorama photomerge. Full details on the benchmark are available on the benchmark download page.

Benchmark Results

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each type of task, we also wanted to provide the individual results in case there is a specific task someone may be interested in. Feel free to skip to the next section for our analysis of these results.

Benchmark Analysis

Our Photoshop benchmark tests a large number of tasks that we split into 4 categories: General, Filter, Photomerge, and GPU-accelerated (which contains both general and filter tests). In addition, with the exception of Photomerge, we also run each test in both 8 bits/channel and 16 bits/channel mode. Typically, we would go through each of these groups of tests one by one, but in this case, there were no real surprises so we decided to keep it at a high level and just look at the overall score.

If we sort by the overall score, you can see that the new X-series CPUs are not quite able to catch the Intel 9th Gen Core i9 9900K that was launched last month. However, with the exception of the i7 9800X, all the new models out-performed even the fastest X-series processor from the previous generation. It may not be by a huge amount, but there is definitely a small performance gain to be had with these new CPUs.

Are the 2018 Intel Core X-series Processors good for Photoshop?

The new X-series CPUs are certainly not bad for Photoshop, but if you are looking for the best performance, the more moderately priced Intel Core i9 9900K is still going to be the best you can get. Depending on the X-series model, the i9 9900K will be anywhere from 10-15% faster.

Intel Core X-series 2018 refresh i7 9800X, i9 9900X, i9 9920X, i9 9980XE Photoshop Benchmark Performance
Overall, the new 2018 X-series CPUs from Intel are OK for Photoshop, but probably not the right choice if Photoshop is your primary tool. If you are a video editor or otherwise use Photoshop in more of a secondary role, however, these CPUs are likely to be just fine. They won't be the best, but unless you are doing really difficult things in Photoshop, they shouldn't hold you back either.

Compared to the previous generation X-series processors, these new models are slightly faster, but in most cases, you would be hard pressed to notice the difference.

Core i7 9800X vs Core i7 7820X for Photoshop

The new i7 9800X is slightly faster than the i7 7820X in Photoshop, but we only measured about a 3% difference which is unlikely to be noticeable. Compared to the less expensive i9 9900K, either of these CPUs should be about 15% slower on average.

Core i9 9900X vs Core i9 7900X for Photoshop

Similar to the 8 core models, the new i9 9900X is slightly faster than the i9 7900X in Photoshop, but only by about 2.5%. Compared to the i9 9900K – which is more suited for Photoshop – either of these CPUs should be about 12% slower on average.

Core i9 9920X vs Core i9 7920X for Photoshop

The i9 9920X saw one of the largest performance gains over the previous generation that we tested. Compared to the i9 7920X, the i9 9920X should be about 6% faster in Photoshop. However, this still is not able to allow it to quite catch up to the i9 9900K which is about 10% faster on average in Photoshop.

Core i9 9980XE vs Core i9 7980XE for Photoshop

At the top of the Intel X-series stack, the i9 9980XE is only about 3% faster than the previous generation i9 7980XE in Photoshop. Once again, compared to the i9 9900K, the i9 9980XE should be about 10% slower on average.

If you are interested in how these new Intel Core X-series Processors perform in other applications, be sure to check out our recent Processor articles as we have a number of articles for Lightroom, After Effects, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, and many other software packages.

CTA Image
Photoshop Workstations

Puget Systems offers a range of powerful and reliable systems that are tailor-made for your unique workflow.

Configure a System!
CTA Image
Labs Consultation Service

Our Labs team is available to provide in-depth hardware recommendations based on your workflow.

Find Out More!

Related Content

  • Z890 vs. B860 vs. H810
  • Do Graphic and Motion Designers Need GeForce RTX 50 Series GPUs?
  • AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and 9900X3D Content Creation Review
  • Is it Worth Upgrading to NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 50 Series for 3D Artists?
View All Related Content

Latest Content

  • NVIDIA Blackwell GPU GenAI Software Support
  • Reflecting on an Incredible NAB Show 2025
  • Windows 10 End of Life: A Guide to What’s Next
  • Meet the 5-Node 6U Rackstation Built with Game Dev in Mind
View All
Tags: 7820X, 7900X, 7920X, 7980XE, 8700K, 9800X, 9900K, 9900X, 9920X, 9980XE, Photoshop

Who is Puget Systems?

Puget Systems builds custom workstations, servers and storage solutions tailored for your work.

We provide:

Extensive performance testing
making you more productive and giving better value for your money

Reliable computers
with fewer crashes means more time working & less time waiting

Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up & running ASAP

A proven track record
as shown by our case studies and customer testimonials

Get Started

Browse Systems

Puget Systems Mobile Laptop Workstation Icon

Mobile

Puget Systems Tower Workstation Icon

Workstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Workstation Icon

Rackstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Server Icon

Servers

Puget Systems Rackmount Storage Icon

Storage

Latest Articles

  • NVIDIA Blackwell GPU GenAI Software Support
  • Reflecting on an Incredible NAB Show 2025
  • Windows 10 End of Life: A Guide to What’s Next
  • Meet the 5-Node 6U Rackstation Built with Game Dev in Mind
  • Now Available: PugetBench for After Effects 1.0!
View All

Post navigation

 Lightroom Classic CC 2019: Intel X-series 2018 Refresh PerformancePix4D 4.3 CPU Comparison: Intel 9th Gen Core & X-series vs AMD Ryzen & Threadripper 
Puget Systems Logo
Build Your Own PC Site Map FAQ
facebook instagram linkedin rss twitter youtube

Optimized Solutions

  • Adobe Premiere
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Solidworks
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Machine Learning

Workstations

  • Content Creation
  • Engineering
  • Scientific PCs
  • More

Support

  • Online Guides
  • Request Support
  • Remote Help

Publications

  • All News
  • Puget Blog
  • HPC Blog
  • Hardware Articles
  • Case Studies

Policies

  • Warranty & Return
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Delivery Times
  • Accessibility

About Us

  • Testimonials
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter

© Copyright 2025 - Puget Systems, All Rights Reserved.