Intel’s 14th Gen CPU lineup for the desktop is finally and officially here. And while the CPU series is essentially a Raptor Lake Refresh, it does come with some updated features.
First, let’s start with the top-of-the-line model of the Raptor Lake Refresh, the Core i9-14900K. Like its Raptor Lake predecessor, the 14900K is a 24-core monster comprising eight P-Cores and 16 E-Cores, bringing the total logical thread count up to a whopping 32 units. However, unlike its predecessor, the party piece of this SKU is that it is able to turbo up to a whopping 6GHz on a single P-core, much like the 13900KS that launched last year. Further, it has the same Intel Smart Cache of 36MB and will support DDR5-5600, as well as DDR4-3200 memory.
In terms of performance, Intel reckons that the 14900K of its Raptor Lake Refresh line is approximately 15% faster than its direct rival across a board of games, although those seem to be titles that appear to be CPU intensive, and not just graphics-focused.
Moving down the line, the Core i7-14700K is the high-end CPU SKU of the Raptor Lake Refresh lineup, coming in with a 20-core configuration comprising 8 P-Cores and 12 E-Cores, translating to 28-threads total. The CPU has a Turbo Boost 3.0 clock of up to 5.6GHz, with 5.5GHz on the P-Cores and 4.3GHz on the E-Cores. Its Intel Smart Cache is slightly smaller than the 14900K at 33MB as well.
Lastly, there is the Core i5-14600K, which is the mid-ranger of the Raptor Lake Refresh lineup. Sporting 14-cores comprising 6 P-Cores and 8 E-Cores and a total thread count of 20, this CPU comes with an Intel Smart Cache of 24MB and a boost clock of up to 5.3GHz for the P-Cores and 4GHz on the E-Cores. Like its more powerful 14700K and 14900K, the CPU supports both DDR-5600 and DDR4-3200 memory.
With Raptor Lake Refresh, Intel is also introducing discrete support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity. Further, it will also be bringing support for the upcoming Thunderbolt 5 connectivity that provices up to 120Gbps bandwidth, making it ideal for high bandwidth display experiences.
In total, Intel will be releasing six SKUs of the Raptor Lake Refresh lineup: you get the typical “K” series models, which all come with an Intel UHD Graphics 770. Then there are the “KF” that are essentially the same processors, sans the integrated graphics. Pricing starts at US$294 (~RM1,392) for the 14600KF, US$319 (~RM1,510) for the 14600K, US$384 (~RM1,818) for the 14700KF, US$409 (~RM1,937) for the 14700K, US$564 (~RM2,671) for the 14900KF, and US$589 (~RM2,789) for the 14900K. In case you’re wondering, these are more or less the same prices as when the 13th Gen lineup was launched.
