Today, Intel formally unveiled their updated portfolio of Raptor Lake CPUs. The business has dubbed them 14th Gen CPUs even though the majority of them just provide an increase in their highest turbo clock. Almost precisely a year after launching Raptor Lake for the first time on October 20, 2022, the company will release three updated chips (with six SKUs) on October 17. With these processors going up against AMD’s 7000-series CPUs once more—but this time, they’re going for its V-Cache chips, which weren’t even around when AMD released Zen 4 in September 2022—In essence, this will give Intel another chance at the apple.
With each CPU coming out in both K and KF versions, Intel’s Core i9, i7, and i5 CPUs will be the leading edge in the impending silicon war. The KF variant forgoes the iGPU and often costs $20 less as a result, whilst the K version has integrated UHD 770 graphics. The final chips’ specifications are in line with earlier rumors; the i7 chip gains more cache and four extra E-cores for improved multi-core performance, while the i9 and i5 processors merely get a turbo clock bump. The Core i9-14900K will, as anticipated, turbo to 6GHz right out of the box, becoming the first Intel CPU to do so without any additional branding.
“AI-guided overclocking,” a new function exclusive to Intel’s 14th generation processor, is accessible only through the eXtreme Tuning Utility, or XTU. According to the business, XTU will provide one-click overcooking with AI assistance, holding your hand the entire time and requiring no prior cooking knowledge. On the other hand, this feature’s landing page states that it is “offered for 14900K/KF processors.” When we contacted Intel for clarification, they informed us that the 14900K/KF will be the only CPU to debut with this capability. Support for CPUs further down the stack—which can only refer to the i5 and i7—will be added later.
In terms of performance, Intel claims that the 14900K would deliver “up to” 23% more frames per second in Starfield than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. Additionally, it anticipates breaking global records for overclocking the flagship CPU—an area in which Intel has historically excelled. Since the core configurations of these CPUs are mostly unaltered from the 13th Gen CPUs—at least for the i9 and i5 CPUs—not much of a performance boost is anticipated overall, even with the slight overclock provided to these CPUs.
It’s surprising that Intel is charging the same price for its 14th generation CPUs as it did before. The Core i7-14700K/KF will retail for $409 and $384, while the Core i9-14900K/KF will be available for $589 and $564. All six of the midrange Core i5-14600K/KF models will be available for $319 and $294, respectively, and will be shipped to OEM and retail locations tomorrow, October 17. Similar to their predecessors, all three variants are 125W CPUs that support DDR and DDR5 memory in addition to 600 and 700-series chipsets.