The Intel Raptor Lake refresh is just around the corner, and these chips have the potential to rival some of the best processors out there. The chips are still an enigma, but a leaker has now shared some official benchmarks straight from Intel. Result? Intel’s Core i9-14900K certainly matches AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X3D.
HXL on Twitter released a slide with official Intel benchmarks that pit the Core i9-14900K against AMD’s best processors in a total of 25 games. This is a comprehensive test, and it appears that Intel was not cherry-picking titles, as some games favor AMD. The chips were tested at 1080p and higher settings to ensure that the CPU does most of the work without the help of the GPU, which is higher at higher resolutions.
Overall, Intel’s new top chip won in 14 tests, while AMD’s 7950X3D won in 10 benchmarks. A test ended in a tie. Some titles in which Intel dominates include Ashes of the Singularity, StarfieldAnd counter Strike Global Offensive, AMD comes out on top in some popular eSports titles Fortnite And League of Legendsas 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 6GHz, and it 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 maximum power draw of around 162W.
Overall, as TechRadar points out, the Core i9-14900K is about 2.5% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. That’s a win, and that’s nice enough, but there’s another important factor to consider here – the price.
We don’t know the official price of Core i9-14900K yet, but Ryzen 9 7950X3D can be had for this low
Now on Amazon. This will be a hard price for Intel to beat. In all likelihood, the Core i9-14900K will be priced around the same price as the Core i9-13900KS at launch, which is $699.
Intel may still have some interest in the new chip based on the higher core count, but the 13900K has the same core configuration and similar clock speeds. The upgrades between the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-14900K are likely to be marginal, so with that in mind, the market for these high-end chips is probably quite 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.