Overclocking
With a peak speed of 5GHz and an all-core speed of 4.7GHz, is there likely to be much overclocking headroom to play with? Perhaps, albeit with the caveat that despite a soldered heatspreader, the chip gets exceptionally hot when pushed to the absolute limit.
Our sample was able go to 5.2GHz across all cores with an extreme 1.45V seeping through its veins, but temperatures would soar past 100ºC, even when strapped to a 280mm Corsair liquid cooler. Enthusiasts with more elaborate cooling configurations will have fun testing 9900K's limits, but we chickened out, settling on an all-core 5.1GHz at 1.37V. Still more voltage than you're comfortable with? 5GHz on all fronts was achievable with 1.28V, though your mileage on a retail chip may vary.
An all-core 5.1GHz is what it takes for the eight-core Core i9-9900K to nudge ahead of the 10-core Core i9-7900X in Cinebench.
