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Intel Core i9-14900K review – Is Intel’s new flagship worth it?
Is the Raptor Lake Refresh worth the wait? Will the 14900K blow us away?
Updated: Oct 25, 2023 1:15 pm
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Table of Contents
It’s here, the Intel Core i9-14900K. The new king has arrived, and Intel has finally lifted the veil on its 14th-generation Intel CPUs. Despite being bound to the same core architecture, and the same 20-core and 32-thread configuration, Intel has still managed to up the ante in performance with its latest generation flagship.
So the top line? Well the Core i9-14900K can achieve a massive 6GHz max turbo frequency, just like the 13900KS before it. That’s interesting. Mostly because it seems that even Intel feels it has met the upper limits of its latest architecture at this point, at least from a traditional raw performance perspective. Yet it has still decided to refresh Raptor Lake regardless. So How? Why? Well, as we will soon see, there are other ways to squeeze extra performance out of a CPU. It’s not just dependent on clock speeds and transistor counts.
Intel Core i9-14900K
Core configuration:
24 (8+16)
Threads:
32
P-Core Speed:
5.8GHz (boost) 3.2GHz (base)
E-Core Speed:
4.4GHz (boost) 2.5GHz (base)
DDR5 support:
Yes @ 5600MHz
TDP
125W base 253W PL1 & PL2
Pros
- Efficient performance gains over the last generation
- Higher DDR5 XMP speeds beyond 8000MT/s
- Overclocking potential is high
- Intel Application Optimization is impressive
Cons
- Expensive, of course
- Has issues with ASUS MCE tech at present
However, this new performance comes at a cost, and the 14900k can get pretty toasty when you’re putting it through the wringer, but in day-to-day operation, it stays calm, cool, and collected. Well relatively for a processor with billions of transistors firing off 1s and 0s in rapid succession every moment.
I was incredibly interested in the 14th-generation CPUs in particular, thanks largely to the confusion over the Meteor Lake release we experienced earlier on in the year, and whether the 14th gen was going to be a new architecture. But, after spending the last couple of weeks reviewing both the 14900K and the 14600K, I can happily say that Intel did not disappoint.
The Intel 14900K may just be the CPU that every enthusiast is looking for
Me, the reviewer
With AMD sprinkling yet more of its secret weapon, X3D SKUs, Into the CPU market, Intel needed to do something to retake the performance crown that the 13900K worked too hard to achieve, enter the 14900K, and its massive performance uplifts.
Is the performance increase enough to warrant a new high-end price tag? That, my friend, is up to you.
i9-14900K price
The Intel Core i9-14900K is priced at $589, just like the 13900K did before it. Which is still expensive but is a pleasant surprise. Most of the world’s prices have increased, and everything from Milk to GPUs has gone up, so it’s nice to see something stay consistent.
This time around, there’s no need to upgrade your motherboard either, which helps keep the upgrade cost low. Usually, when Intel releases a new CPU, you have to snatch up a new motherboard to support it, this time, as long as you have an Intel 600 or 700 series socket LGA 1700 motherboard, you’re golden.
Intel Core i9-14900K design
Amazingly, the architecture is the same, but it has had a little boost in performance thanks to the boffins over at Intel. It still on the same Intel 7 Processor technology, and the same amount of Cache memory across the board. Honestly, if you put the 14900K side by side with the 13900K, you’d only be able to tell them apart by the core speeds and the etching on the top of the chips.
A person holding up a cpu chip for Intel Core i9-14900K review.
Person, Intel CPU
Design-wise, the 14900K is much of the same, It supports the same Intel LGA 1700 socket, the same CPU coolers, and boasts the same IHS design, although I do wish the thermal interface material was a little more efficient.
The IHS is soldered onto the CPU substrate, much like the 13th gen CPUs, which makes de-lidding and adding your own TIM impossible, unless you want to shell out for another CPU.
Intel CPUs have always run hot, and this could be one of the reasons why. But re-designing the IHS is not something you can do on an existing in-use socket. Changing the thickness of the IHS will result in cooler mounting inconsistencies that will inevitably lead to thermal issues.
Tech Specs
Core configuration:
24 (8+16)
Threads:
32
P-Core Speed:
5.8GHz (boost) 3.2GHz (base)
E-Core Speed:
4.4GHz (boost) 2.5GHz (base)
DDR5 support:
Yes @ 5600MHz
TDP
125W base 253W PL1 & PL2
Next time around, I’d like to see a change in the way Intel, and AMD for that matter, handle heat exchange from the CPU die, to the IHS, to the cooler.
Performance
Now what matters is how the CPU performs, it can look as good as it wants, but if it doesn’t cut the mustard then it’s all for nothing. The CPU was tested completely stock with no overclocks applied (apart from the automatic overclocking from turbo tech) The memory speed was set to 6800MHz on XMP profile 2.
Intel Core i9-14900K review
Intel Core i9-14900K review.
We tested the 14900k in a variety of different synthetic and real-world tests, these involved the likes of Geekbench, 3DMARK, Cinebench, CPUz, and more. We will separate the two categories for easy viewing. Overall I was impressed with the performance of the 14900k, it manages some impressive numbers considering it’s on the same architecture as the previous generation of best Intel CPUs.
Synthetic benchmarks
In Cinebench R23, the classic, The core i9-14900K manages a total of 2,191 points for the single-core benchmark, and 40,315 for the multicore benchmark. A compelling uplift based on the 13900K’s scores.
CB 2024
In the new Cinebench 2024, we felt like shaking things up a bit. We saw a 131-point single-core score, and a 2276-point multicore score, which I was given to believe was very good according to the scores stored in the CB 2024 database already.
Geekbench
Geekbench now, and we saw a very big score here too, with the 14900K scoring 3,110 points in the single-core benchmarks, and a massive 22,816 in the multicore benchmarks. Again, I have never seen a score this large on a stock CPU before. These benchmark results are quickly heading towards proving the 14900K as the current fastest CPU.
That title used to belong to the 13900K, but sadly, it only managed single-core scores of 2974, and multicore scores of 22,360 respectively.
CPUz
CPUz preached much of the same, with high scores from the 14900K across the board yet again. The Core i9-14900k pushes 922 points in the single-core benchmarks and 12,199.5 in the multicore benchmarks.
3DMARK
3DMark provided some interesting insight into the 14900K as it was able to break the performance of the CPU down by thread count. We have a batch of results here for your viewing pleasure.
With the maximum number of threads active, the 14900K scored 17,057 points. 16 active threads revealed a score of 12,064 points, whilst the 8-thread test pushed 9,040 points, halving that number to 4, the 4-thread benchmark managed to score a respectable 4,854 points, two threads stole the show with a surprising score of 2,449, and one singular thread came out with a 1,221-point score.
It’s fascinating to see that if you halve the number of active threads, the score does not halve with it. This suggests that the performance of a CPU is not linear and not every core is created equally, which we know, but it’s nice to see results supporting what we know.
Real World benchmarks
On to the gaming benchmarks, and to nobody’s surprise the 14900K excelled here also. We tested the 14900K in three of the latest games that we felt would be an interesting test for the Core i9-14900K. Those games were CS2, Starfield, and Cyberpunk 2077.
We tested all of the games on low settings in 1080p, except for CS2, which was on the high preset. The test bench consisted of the following hardware:
- Core i9-14900K
- MSI Z790 Carbon Wifi
- Corsair Dominator Titanium DDR5 64GB @ 6800MB/s
- Corsair H170i ELITE LCD XT
- RTX 4070 Ti
- ROG Thor 1200W
Cyberpunk 2077 was an interesting test because it was interesting to see a CPU breeze through the game like it was nothing, of course, we had the 14900K paired with a 4070 Ti, so it wasn’t exactly struggling for a powerful GPU counterpart. The benchmark concluded with the 14900K averaging 225 FPS.
Starfield also went supernova with an average FPS of 133, not to mention the gameplay was buttery smooth, and didn’t seem to suffer from any kind of stuttering. Starfield can be quite taxing on the CPU at times, so it’s nice to witness a CPU that can power through it as easily as the 14900K can.
Ah, CS2, is probably the most hyped game in the last 10 years. Of course, the 14900K dominated here too, averaging 340 FPS on the Dust II death match. The benchmark was conducted offline to stop any tick rate or server lag interfering with the benchmark in any way. So results may vary in a real online matchmaking session.
✓
What impact will the 14th gen have on the CPU market?
The release of the 14th gen will likely force a decline in price of the 13th and 12th gen CPUs before it, this is because the people upgrading will likely flog the lesser generations for less, and Intel will mark down the previous generation CPUs to get rid of the stock.
Is the Intel Core i9-14900K worth it?
It’s safe to say that the Core i9-14900K can hold its own in terms of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. While the CPU is expensive, it’s easy to see why that is. The 14900K will be a fantastic CORE – get it? To any system, providing the power and the efficiency whenever and wherever it is needed the most.
The benchmarks speak for themselves, you’ll get some massive numbers in the synthetics and well over 120 FPS in all three games we tested. If you want a CPU that can handle whatever you throw at it, then the 14900K is the CPU for you.
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Intel Core i9-14900K
Core configuration:
24 (8+16)
Threads:
32
P-Core Speed:
5.8GHz (boost) 3.2GHz (base)
E-Core Speed:
4.4GHz (boost) 2.5GHz (base)
DDR5 support:
Yes @ 5600MHz
TDP
125W base 253W PL1 & PL2
