The Intel Raptor Lake refresh is just around the corner, and there’s the potential for these chips to rival some of the current best processors. The chips are still a bit of an enigma, but a leaker has now shared some official benchmarks straight from Intel. The result? Intel’s Core i9-14900K is definitely a match for AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X3D.
HXL on Twitter released a slide with what looks to be official Intel benchmarks that pit the Core i9-14900K against AMD’s best processor in a total of 25 games. It’s a comprehensive test, and it appears that Intel wasn’t cherry-picking titles, as some of the games tend to favor AMD. The chips were tested at 1080p and on high settings to ensure that the CPU does most of the work without the GPU stepping in to assist, which happens more at higher resolutions.
In total, Intel’s new top chip won in 14 tests, whereas AMD’s 7950X3D triumphed in 10 benchmarks. One test ended in a tie. Some of the titles where Intel dominates include Ashes of the Singularity, Starfield, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. AMD came out on top in some popular esports titles, like Fortnite and League of Legends, as well as Cyberpunk 2077.
We expect the Core i9-14900K to come with 24 cores (8 Performance cores and 16 Efficiency cores) and 32 threads. The boost clock speed is said to be at 6GHz, and this comes with a maximum power draw of 253 watts. For comparison, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D has 16 cores, 32 threads, a maximum clock speed of 5.7GHz, and a significantly lower max power draw of around 162W.
On the whole, as noted by TechRadar, the Core i9-14900K is around 2.5% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. That’s a win, and that’s nice enough, but there’s another significant factor to consider here — the price.
We don’t know the official pricing of the Core i9-14900K yet, but the Ryzen 9 7950X3D can be found for as little as on Amazon right now. That’s going to be a hard price for Intel to beat. In all likelihood, the Core i9-14900K will cost around what the Core i9-13900KS did at launch, which is $699.
Intel might still get some interest in the new chip based on the high core count, but the 13900K has the same core configuration and a similar clock speed. The upgrade between the Core i9-13900K and the Core i9-14900K is likely going to be marginal, so with that in mind, the market for these high-end chips is probably pretty scarce.
Let’s not forget that the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is currently the best processor for gaming, and that’s unlikely to change. The Core i9-14900K will end up in high-end PC builds, but there’s almost no chance for it to beat AMD in pure gaming and performance per dollar.
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