Intel Core i9-14900K

[W1zzard]

Possibly the most puzzling "Editor's Choice" I've seen ever given on this website, this thing is just a slightly overclocked 13900k.

I will bite because "puzzling" and maybe not just trolling ..

1) 13900K is Editor's Choice, which nobody doubts? It's in a ton of rigs, these people can't be idiots
2) Giving Editor's Choice to the exact same CPU, at same pricing, with a different name, is reasonable, right? Just a name change doesn't change how it works in your PC? or am I reviewing naming schemes?
3) If that CPU now runs a bit faster, still at the same price, minor improvements, no drawback, we should we be taking away Editor's Choice?

I think people are just sad that "14" is not a lot faster than "13", which I agree is sad, and a failure by Intel.

It doesn't change the fact that the 14900K is the best high-performance Intel CPU available.
It offers amazing application performance AND amazing gaming performance (and the same crazy power draw of 13900K, which apparently a lot of people don't care about, see #1)
A lot of people will be buying it, just like the 13900K

 

[btk2k2]

I can not remember a CPU generation that has ever had such little gains. Has there ever been a less impressive u

P4 had regressions vs the faster P3s.

I will bite because "puzzling" and maybe not just trolling ..

1) 13900K is Editor's Choice, which nobody doubts? It's in a ton of rigs, these people can't be idiots
2) Giving Editor's Choice to the exact same CPU, at same pricing, with a different name, is reasonable, right? Just a name change doesn't change how it works in your PC?
3) If that CPU now runs a bit faster, still at the same price, minor improvements, no drawback, we should we be taking away Editor's Choice?

I think people are just sad that "14" is not a lot faster than "13", which I agree is sad, and a failure by Intel.

It doesn't change the fact that the 14900K is the best high-performance Intel CPU available.
It offers amazing application performance AND amazing gaming performance
A lot of people will be buying it, just like the 13900K

On this logic why did the 7800XT not get editors choice? It performs the same as the 6800XT, has lower power draw, is cheaper and it beats by far the 4060Ti 16GB which at launch was the direct price competitor so surely it ticks all the same boxes you just mentioned.

Personally I think a product with new generation branding should offer more than the old part to warrant an editors choice award. The 14700K probably gets there with the MT performance uplift but the 14900K and 14600K fall short, just like the 7800XT falls short since being the best of a bad batch does not make it great.

 

[W1zzard]

On this logic why did the 7800XT not get editors choice? It performs the same as the 6800XT, has lower power draw, is cheaper and it beats by far the 4060Ti 16GB which at launch was the direct price competitor so surely it ticks all the same boxes you just mentioned.

Very good question, it was a really close call. I actually went back through my history for you and looked up the internal discussion. When 6800 XT launched there was a shortage, no GeForce 40, no DLSS 3, RT didn't matter much. 7800 XT RT is lower, power is high, RTX 4070 is just $50 more. FSR 3 was vaporware at the time, it's released now and I'm still somewhat undecided about it until I've seen it in more games. If it turns out to be competitive with DLSS FG and supported in a decent number of games the 7800 XT would be Editor's Choice

4060 Ti 16 GB is stupid anyway, even though it's one of my best investments. I spent like 500 euros for it and the review is the 2nd most popular one after 4060 Ti FE and it keeps getting good traffic. the card is included in all of my gaming perf articles for 8 GB vs 16 GB, it's made the cost back several times already.

 

[btk2k2]

Very good question, it was a really close call. I actually went back through my history for you and looked up the internal discussion. When 6800 XT launched there was a shortage, no GeForce 40, no DLSS 3, RT didn't matter much. 7800 XT RT is lower, power is high, RTX 4070 is just $50 more. FSR 3 was vaporware at the time, it's released now and I'm still somewhat undecided about it until I've seen it in more games. If it turns out to be competitive with DLSS FG and supported in a decent number of games the 7800 XT would be Editor's Choice

4060 Ti 16 GB is stupid anyway, even though it's one of my best investments. I spent like 500 euros for it and the review is the 2nd most popular one after 4060 Ti FE and it keeps getting good traffic. the card is included in all of my gaming perf articles for 8 GB vs 16 GB, it's made the cost back several times already.

That is fair, the competitive landscape in the GPU market has changed more since the 6800XT launch than the competitive landscape in the CPU market changed since the 13900K launch. I also think the Highly Recommended award for the 7800XT is spot on, good card, has some caveats but also some advantages vs NV so depends on user preference.

 

[BoggledBeagle]

I am aware that under volting/lower power limits can make them more efficient.

But that goes for all cpu's and gpus for that matter.

But it dosent change the fact that intel and amd Stock run these cpus way out of there efficiency curve and it is not all that have the knowledge to limit power or lower voltage. So i still see it as a problem, Specielly for those less knowledge of it or Dont know example bios settings or maybe are afraid of changing things because they are afraid of damage the cpu in the process.

Well, normal people should buy finished PCs or not extreme special series CPUs for enthusiasts.

Unfortunatelly the normal 14900 "non K" will most likely have the same problem with power draw and temperature as the special K variant.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I will bite because "puzzling" and maybe not just trolling ..

1) 13900K is Editor's Choice, which nobody doubts? It's in a ton of rigs, these people can't be idiots
2) Giving Editor's Choice to the exact same CPU, at same pricing, with a different name, is reasonable, right? Just a name change doesn't change how it works in your PC? or am I reviewing naming schemes?
3) If that CPU now runs a bit faster, still at the same price, minor improvements, no drawback, we should we be taking away Editor's Choice?

I think people are just sad that "14" is not a lot faster than "13", which I agree is sad, and a failure by Intel.

It doesn't change the fact that the 14900K is the best high-performance Intel CPU available.
It offers amazing application performance AND amazing gaming performance (and the same crazy power draw of 13900K, which apparently a lot of people don't care about, see #1)
A lot of people will be buying it, just like the 13900K

Because reviewer's gave it nice words, some only buy ,Intel and some are not aware of the choices.

I disagree with your badge for the 13900k though too so I agree with same same statement.

That however makes this less of a must choose not more.

High praise for Intel's zero effort will just inspire zero effort, again IMHO.


Plus ALL the positives, ARE countered by "your own" negatives Wtaf, zero sum game then.


Maximum Meh power.

 

[Outback Bronze]

so, today is the end of era

Yep, that's right.

No more i9, i7, i5 or i3. They are history. The first Core i7 was released back on November 3, 2008, and boy did a lot of people jump on the X58 bandwagon.

I have purchased quite a few i7 CPUs since that start date and I'm sure many other people can say they have purchased the odd one here or there too.

It's a damn shame they didn't finish the i7 branding with a bang after all these years, but I can happily say fare well to all my overclocking and computing history to the Core i7 family.

 

[Tomgang]

Well, normal people should buy finished PCs or not extreme special series CPUs for enthusiasts.

Unfortunatelly the normal 14900 "non K" will most likely have the same problem with power draw and temperature as the special K variant.

You can buy oem build pc with these high end cpu, so the noob end user can as well get them.

Typically the none k parts have lower wattage and core clock as well they tend to be more locked down when it comes to overclock.

Example 13900 none k has pl1 of 65 watt and lp2 219 watts. While 13900K has lp1 at 125 watt and lp2 at 253 watts. So no, the none k parts should not run as hot, but neither as fast.

 

[Omega Race]

I will bite because "puzzling" and maybe not just trolling ..

1) 13900K is Editor's Choice, which nobody doubts? It's in a ton of rigs, these people can't be idiots
2) Giving Editor's Choice to the exact same CPU, at same pricing, with a different name, is reasonable, right? Just a name change doesn't change how it works in your PC? or am I reviewing naming schemes?
3) If that CPU now runs a bit faster, still at the same price, minor improvements, no drawback, we should we be taking away Editor's Choice?

1. You probably have done this long enough to know that best sellers are not always best choices. We can agree that OEM machines are trash and people buying them are idiots, right? Looking at retail sales, AMD dominates. That means most of these CPUs go for OEM machines.

2. and 3 You forgot something: that is AMD.

From performance summary, 13900K review: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-13900k/25.html

Applications:
i9-13900K Stock: 100%
Ryzen 9 7950X: 95.7%

Games 720p:
i9-13900K Stock: 100%
Ryzen 9 7950X: 89.2%

Based on that data only, you can claim Intel is 4.3% faster on applications and 10.8% faster on games. Therefore, you can claim Intel is faster on both games and applications. Now let's see if something has changed:

From performance summary, 14900K review: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-14900k/27.html

Applications:
i9-14900K Stock: 100%
Ryzen 9 7950X: 97.1%
Ryzen 9 7950X3D: 95.1%

Games 720p:
Ryzen 7 7800X3D: 105.7%
Ryzen 9 7950X3D: 100.4%
i9-14900K Stock: 100%
Ryzen 9 7950X: 88.2%

Based on that data only, you can no longer claim Intel is winner on gaming performance.

Overall for 2. and 3., while 13900K was performance king on both applications and games based on data you provided, that is no longer case on 13900K.

It doesn't change the fact that the 14900K is the best high-performance Intel CPU available.
It offers amazing application performance AND amazing gaming performance (and the same crazy power draw of 13900K, which apparently a lot of people don't care about, see #1)
A lot of people will be buying it, just like the 13900K

Using that logic, let's jump two years ahead, this is pure speculation. Intel releases 16900K that is best high-performance Intel available. It's 5% faster than 14900K. At same time AMD has released both Zen5 and Zen 6 that are 30% faster than current Zen 4. Because 16900K is best Intel CPU available, it still receives editors choice award because 14900K also received? Basically, best Intel CPU is guaranteed to have Editors choice award?

Compared to AMD offerings, performance is nothing sort of "amazing".

As told previously, reviewers should stay with other "facts" than "it sells well". You are reviewing products, basically saying if it's good buy or not.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

But the motherboards didn’t last a decade and there was no apparent reason the sockets had to keep changing.

But you didnt need them to, because the CPUs lasted a decade. You know?

You could buy a 3570k (like I did) and 10 years later it was STILL pushing 60 FPS in modern games. You didnt need a new mobo. Think of the savings!

The whole "OMG I need every CPU for 4 gens to fit a motherboard" is BS anyway. You are wasting TONS of cash upgrading every gen for meager gains, and in the end, you could have just bought the 1st gen, used it for 3 years, then bought the 4th gen and a new mobo and spend LESS money in the process. Someone who bought a x370 and 1700, then bought a x570 and a 5800x3d 5 years later, spent a lot less then someone who bought a x370, and a 1700, 2700, 3700, 5700, and 5800x3d (and likely a x570 in there anyway because AMD went OOPS and didnt update the firmware on x370s).

I am aware that under volting/lower power limits can make them more efficient.

But that goes for all cpu's and gpus for that matter.

But it dosent change the fact that intel and amd Stock run these cpus way out of there efficiency curve and it is not all that have the knowledge to limit power or lower voltage. So i still see it as a problem, Specielly for those less knowledge of it or Dont know example bios settings or maybe are afraid of changing things because they are afraid of damage the cpu in the process.

It's done for yields. AMD has been running outside of the efficiency curve for that purpose long before zen (llano laptop k10stat users get in here!)

Well, normal people should buy finished PCs or not extreme special series CPUs for enthusiasts.

Unfortunatelly the normal 14900 "non K" will most likely have the same problem with power draw and temperature as the special K variant.

You and I have completely different definitions of "normal people". If someone can actually assemble a PC they are far beyond normal already.

And pre builts are TRASH. ABSOLUTE trash. Look at the ones that gamer nexus gets. All the issue he highlighted will absolutely happen in prebuilts because these builders are barely sentient at times.

 

[Omega Race]

Another thing:

TechPowerUp

www.techpowerup.com

This is our most valuable award
It is given to a product that truly stands out from the competition, something that does a lot of things better than alternatives

Focusing on that "truly stands out from the competition, something that does a lot of things better than alternatives" -part.

Intel Core i9-14900K Review - Reaching for the Performance Crown

Core i9-14900K is Intel's new flagship with clock speeds of up to 6 GHz. It's actually clocked even higher than the 13900KS, thanks to an extra 100 MHz when more than two cores are active. Our review confirms that Raptor Lake Refresh is amazing for both applications and gaming, if you can live...

www.techpowerup.com

We have here:

• Matches 13900KS performance, beats it in some cases

- This is not comparison on main competitors.

• Faster in productivity than any other AMD CPU

- This argument is valid if you want to see it that way.

• Runs at up to 6.0 GHz

- AMD runs at up to 5.7 GHz. This is not something that "truly stands out from the competition"

• Incredible gaming performance

- If competition is Ryzen 7 7800X3D or Ryzen 9 7950X3D, then it does not stand out from the competition.

• Support for PCI-Express 5.0

- It does support PCIe 5.0 but with only pathetic 20 lanes. Most AM5 CPUs have 28 lanes.

• Multiplier unlocked

- Competition has also.

• Integrated graphics

- Competition has also.

• Intel APO promises interesting benefits

- Not very interesting to be honest. And this doesn't really make any difference vs competition.

• AI Assist in XTU helps newcomers

- You want to overclock CPU that already runs Superhot (good game btw)?

• Compatible with 600 and 700 Series chipset motherboards

- Something AMD does not have, but upgrade wise AMD is still much better.

• Support for DDR4 & DDR5 memory

Who pairs DDR4 with high end CPU today? It does stand out from competition but is pretty much useless feature for this CPU.

Now for questions:

1. What are those things 14900K do better than alternatives?

2. What makes 14900K really stand out from the competition?

My answers:

1. It does have bit better application performance overall based on your benchmarks. What is another thing, remains mystery. Can we really find even TWO things that 14900K does better and those are things that really matter too?

2. Positive list is very short. Negative list is much much much longer.

Seriously, how is editors choice award for 14900K justified? Based on Techpowerup own award standards, I just cannot see it.

 

[toyo]

I am beyond puzzled by the difference in tone between written reviews and those on YouTube like from GN and HUB.
The top award for... This?
I'll just have to see myself out. I think it's reasonable to expect reviewers to be more adversarial to these large corporations.

 

[rv8000]

There are very nice efficient chips hiding in each of these fire breathing monsters. You just need to limit them to sane frequencies and power draw.

I have a 13600K now, which is limited already pretty well from the factory to 5100 MHz and it draws max. 160 - 170W, if I remember correctly. I have an air cooler on it. It is still a reasonable product out of the factory.

Thats not even close to efficient when the 7950X exists in terms of performance and power draw; nothing intel has produced in the last 3 years can be called efficient when it comes to power consumption.

The fact intel has to push boost/boost limits and the processors so hard in general is very telling on the efficiency front.

On the award argument, I see both sides, but I disagree with the award. 14th gen is essentially a rebrand with more ecores on the 14700k, its a steamy, HOT, pile. It’s always sad to see tech media handing out free passes like hot cakes.

 

[AnotherReader]

P4 had regressions vs the faster P3s.



On this logic why did the 7800XT not get editors choice? It performs the same as the 6800XT, has lower power draw, is cheaper and it beats by far the 4060Ti 16GB which at launch was the direct price competitor so surely it ticks all the same boxes you just mentioned.

Personally I think a product with new generation branding should offer more than the old part to warrant an editors choice award. The 14700K probably gets there with the MT performance uplift but the 14900K and 14600K fall short, just like the 7800XT falls short since being the best of a bad batch does not make it great.

Only the earliest Pentium 4 had regressions compared to the Pentium III. In less than a year, Pentium 4 had reached clock speeds twice as high as that of the Pentium III on the same process, and that was more than enough to thoroughly outclass its predecessor. I'm afraid that this is a worse release than the original Pentium 4 since that made up its IPC deficit by quickly dialling up the clocks.

But you didnt need them to, because the CPUs lasted a decade. You know?

You could buy a 3570k (like I did) and 10 years later it was STILL pushing 60 FPS in modern games. You didnt need a new mobo. Think of the savings!

The whole "OMG I need every CPU for 4 gens to fit a motherboard" is BS anyway. You are wasting TONS of cash upgrading every gen for meager gains, and in the end, you could have just bought the 1st gen, used it for 3 years, then bought the 4th gen and a new mobo and spend LESS money in the process. Someone who bought a x370 and 1700, then bought a x570 and a 5800x3d 5 years later, spent a lot less then someone who bought a x370, and a 1700, 2700, 3700, 5700, and 5800x3d (and likely a x570 in there anyway because AMD went OOPS and didnt update the firmware on x370s).

It's done for yields. AMD has been running outside of the efficiency curve for that purpose long before zen (llano laptop k10stat users get in here!)

You and I have completely different definitions of "normal people". If someone can actually assemble a PC they are far beyond normal already.

And pre builts are TRASH. ABSOLUTE trash. Look at the ones that gamer nexus gets. All the issue he highlighted will absolutely happen in prebuilts because these builders are barely sentient at times.

The right move for an AM4 user would have been to buy the 1700 or 1700X and then upgrade to the 5700X or the 5800X3D as Techspot tested. That would have been cheaper than your hypothetical upgrade of both the motherboard and the CPU. Of course, the user would have lost out on PCIe 4, but that is a minor drawback compared to the ability to upgrade to Zen 3.

 

[Ravenas]

I will bite because "puzzling" and maybe not just trolling ..

1) 13900K is Editor's Choice, which nobody doubts? It's in a ton of rigs, these people can't be idiots
2) Giving Editor's Choice to the exact same CPU, at same pricing, with a different name, is reasonable, right? Just a name change doesn't change how it works in your PC? or am I reviewing naming schemes?
3) If that CPU now runs a bit faster, still at the same price, minor improvements, no drawback, we should we be taking away Editor's Choice?

I think people are just sad that "14" is not a lot faster than "13", which I agree is sad, and a failure by Intel.

It doesn't change the fact that the 14900K is the best high-performance Intel CPU available.
It offers amazing application performance AND amazing gaming performance (and the same crazy power draw of 13900K, which apparently a lot of people don't care about, see #1)
A lot of people will be buying it, just like the 13900K

W1zzard I don’t disagree in terms of performance. However, there are TWO heavy cons which should have weighed this out of editor’s choice in my opinion:

1. Ridiculous power consumption.
2. Ridiculous channels limiting x8 when Gen 5 slot in use.

Further, I have the same opinion about the 13900K, and it shouldn’t have been an Editor’s Choice in my opinion.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Only the earliest Pentium 4 had regressions compared to the Pentium III. In less than a year, Pentium 4 had reached clock speeds twice as high as that of the Pentium III on the same process, and that was more than enough to thoroughly outclass its predecessor. I'm afraid that this is a worse release than the original Pentium 4 since that made up its IPC deficit by quickly dialling up the clocks.

It wasnt the clockspeeds that fixed Northwood, it was the cache. The 128k l2 cache celeron Ds, even at 2.6 GHz, were even SLOWER then first gen williamettes.

The right move for an AM4 user would have been to buy the 1700 or 1700X and then upgrade to the 5700X or the 5800X3D as Techspot tested. That would have been cheaper than your hypothetical upgrade of both the motherboard and the CPU. Of course, the user would have lost out on PCIe 4, but that is a minor drawback compared to the ability to upgrade to Zen 3.

Given how rare such a build is compared to the number of ryzen 5000+500 series boards, I'm gonna say that most people chose not to do that. AMD themselves tried, HARD, to prevent it, until the community revolted.

But yes, on a technicality that would be best. Assuming your 300 series board got the proper BIOS updates and was not abandoned, and you didnt want PBO support, of course.

 

[AnotherReader]

It wasnt the clockspeeds that fixed Northwood, it was the cache. The 128k l2 cache celeron Ds, even at 2.6 GHz, were even SLOWER then first gen williamettes.

Given how rare such a build is compared to the number of ryzen 5000+500 series boards, I'm gonna say that most people chose not to do that. AMD themselves tried, HARD, to prevent it, until the community revolted.

But yes, on a technicality that would be best. Assuming your 300 series board got the proper BIOS updates and was not abandoned, and you didnt want PBO support, of course.

Northwood fixed Pentium 4, but even the later Williamette SKUs such as the 2 GHz one that I linked to were better than the P III at everything. Of course, Athlon was another story and even at 1.2 GHz, Palomino was often faster than the P4 at 2 GHz.

I agree that AMD didn't handle the X370 generation well. It seemed that they didn't want users of X370 or B350 to upgrade to Zen 3. I suppose they wanted the money for the new chipset that the sale of a new motherboard would bring.

 

[Imouto]

Applications:
i9-13900K Stock: 100%
Ryzen 9 7950X: 95.7%

Games 720p:
i9-13900K Stock: 100%
Ryzen 9 7950X: 89.2%

Based on that data only, you can claim Intel is 4.3% faster on applications and 10.8% faster on games. Therefore, you can claim Intel is faster on both games and applications. Now let's see if something has changed:[/B]

LMFTFY: "Based on that data only, you can claim Intel is 4.5% faster on applications and 12.1% faster on games."[/b]

 

[lexluthermiester]

It's reassuring to see that I'm not the only one who thinks the "Editor's Choice" award is handed out too easily.

For the most powerful consumer CPU on the market? No not at all...

 

[Tek-Check]

Keep in mind that these are extremely complex products at the cutting edge of the knowledge of a humankind. There is only so much progress that can be done.

Let's be more down to Earth. Grade-Hopper and MI300 are at the cutting edge, and not Raptor Lake refresh.

Depending on the circumstances in development and manufacturing, there is no wonder that one year a company has nothing really new to offer. This "14th gen" is a PR stunt, nothing more.

Well, it was their choice.

I personally believe that expecting new CPUs each year is dumb and making a new CPU a year actually wastes a lot of resources. Two or three year cadence seems much more reasonable to me. You would get nice performance improvements in this more reasonable cadence too.

I do not expect annual products. It is Intel that decided to shove those CPUs down our throats. They can only blame themselves.

If a refresh is already released, I'd expect to see at least a few meaningful improvements in some components, such as iGPU and chipset. This was the case with Coffee Lake refresh. Here, there is almost nothing, not even upgrade in x4 SSD lanes on CPU from Gen4 to Gen5. The result is that motherboards still "borrow" or "steal" those lanes from one GPU slot to make this provision. It's silly...

 

[Kapone33]

Just to throw some muck into it. I went on Asus website and there was a new BIOS. All it said was Support for Upcoming CPUs. If AMD is going to drop Phoenix APUs as a response it will be a mic drop. Especially now that they release those huge RAM modules running at 7000 Mt/s and sipping 65 Watts.

 

[Daven]

After reading the comments and Wizzard’s responses, I have to agree with the comments. Using the transitive property to award products is not a good idea. The 13900k received an editor’s choice award, the 14900k is the exact same CPU therefore also should receive the same award means that Intel can release the same product every year for infinite time and always receive the editor’s choice award. That doesn’t sound great to me.

 

[ValenOne]

Blender's BMW27 doesn't reflect higher complex scenes e.g. classroom.

 

[sLowEnd]

After reading the comments and Wizzard’s responses, I have to agree with the comments. Using the transitive property to award products is not a good idea. The 13900k received an editor’s choice award, the 14900k is the exact same CPU therefore also should receive the same award means that Intel can release the same product every year for infinite time and always receive the editor’s choice award. That doesn’t sound great to me.

If we had a confirmed, near term launch date of Zen 5 or Arrow Lake, then yeah I'd be strongly against giving an award for the 14900K.

As it stands right now though, Zen 5 is just "some time in 2024", and the 14900K's performance compared to what is currently available is still favourable, albeit disappointingly undistinguished from Intel's previous gen. It doesn't perform much better than the 13900K, but it's also not much more expensive. A KS, without the KS markup.

 

[Prima.Vera]

This Intel release of this "new" gen, is almost as bad as the release of a "new" iPhone 15, compared to 14. Or 13. Or 12. Or...