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"<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Introduction</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is certainly no secret that Intel is in the midst of redesigning the very foundation of their consumer-orientated CPU’s architecture. This change will be so large and promises to be so groundbreaking that Intel is actually changing the very name the models will be called. However, such a massive change from monolithic to ‘compute tiles’ is still not quite ready for primetime. This is indeed a shame, but this delay has given Intel’s engineers the chance to let their Core-I branding go out with a bang and not a whimper. That is the key to understanding the 14th Generation Core-I series as it is not intended to be a radical departure from the past. Instead, it is meant to memorialize a series that revolutionized the CPU industry <i>multiple times</i> during its reign as Intel’s desktop brand of CPUs.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is why not much has changed from the Core-I 13th to 14th generation. For the i9-14900K buyers can expect to gain access to 8 ‘Big’ p-cores running at between 5.6GHz (when all are active) to 6.0Ghz (1 or 2 active), 16 ‘Little’ e-cores that run at (up to) 4.4GHz… and all 24cores (32 threads) having access to 36MB of L3 and 32MB of L2. Whereas the i5-14600K will net buyers 6 p-cores running at up to 5.3GHz backstopped by 8 e-cores chugging along at a peppy 4.0Ghz. With all 14 cores (20 threads) accessing 24MB L3 and 20MB L2 cache.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/intro.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To put all that in perspective Intel engineers have taken their 13th Generation and turned the multiplier up by 2 steps on the base clock and 2 on the Thermal Velocity Boost for their BigBoi i9. On the i5 things are a bit more complicated as the base clock is the same but the 6 big cores get an extra 2 on the multiplier and the e-cores get just 1 extra. That does not sound like much… as it is not much. Especially when the same DDR5-5600 (and not the rumored DDR5-6x00) is the maximum memory frequency supported… and the same UHD770 iGPU is baked in. However, that i9 at 6GHz is God Tier silicone speeds and does so at stock ‘out of the box’ configurations. This means that buyers of this generation will get more performance without increasing heat production. Put another way buyers get ‘KS’ performance without KS heat and KS costs.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That may be a wee bit of a tough sell to most buyers who do not care about the history of a series. They just want as much power for their hard-earned buck as they can get. Thankfully, the devil is indeed in the details. Not only is Intel offering all that power at a reasonable price ($589 and $319 … or the same MSRP as what the 13th Core-I’s launched at) they have once again pulled out all the stops when it comes to the Power Delivery profiles. With the 14th Gen, if one so chooses, buyers can allow their i9 to slurp down 400As (200A for the i5) of power via an Extreme Power Delivery Profile that all Z790s (and most Z690s) will be getting via a BIOS update. This in turn means this is the first time in a long time that Intel has given motherboard buyers three generations of support. So all those 12th-generation system owners have a viable inexpensive upgrade path. Now that may just be enough to make this Swan Song a ‘Greatest Hit’ and keep price-sensitive buyers away from Team Red and the necessary hardware upgrades that go along with the Ryzen 7000 series.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Closer Look P.1</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/over2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Let us start with the large, pink, elephant in the room. The 14th Generation is best described as a refinement of the 13th Generation. Yes. One could cut and paste the 13th generation’s data… and just change the frequencies the CPUs run at to create the ‘new’ 14th Generation data sets. Yes. We can already see the next salvo in the ongoing meme war being “10nm++++” and “the Great Lakes Recycling” being all the rage with AMD fans. We do not consider this a deal breaker but certainly will understand and sympathize with those frustrated with the current state of the consumer desktop CPU marketplace.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/delayed.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The reason for this recycling is varied but boils down to Intel’s inherent conservativism. Yes. The 14th generation was coyly hinted at being both Intel’s debut of Compute Tile technology (their take on ‘chiplets’) and the ‘sunsetting’ of their monolithic architectural design… and the ‘end’ of the “Core-I” brand (with the ‘-I’ being dropped). Since Intel refused to purposely release a half-baked product (e.g. Zen 1 and its latency storm issues) this did give Intel’s design team a chance to let their Core-I monolithic design go all out in one last blast. So, it is indeed true that this is (technically) the fourth generation to use Intel 7 / “10nm” fab process (12,13,14th gen + blink and you missed it Tiger Lake). It is also indeed true this is the 13th Generation with a speed bump and a new name. It is even true that this will harm the Intel brand in the short term – as only enthusiasts and historians will get what Intel is doing.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The upside to all this controversy is buyers get access to a 6GHz twenty-four core (8 p-core, 16 e-core) monster for about what AMD wants for their flagship sixteen core model. Yes, the 13900KS was also (somewhat) clocked the same as the 14900K but thanks to a smidgen more node process refinement the 14900K does not require as much voltage to offer 6GHz and is a tiny bit cooler running than the last generation’s 5.8GHz 13900K… and noticeably cooler running than the 13900KS.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/rapt.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The downside is obvious. There is a grand total of <i>zero</i> architectural changes in the i5 and i9 14th Generation Core-I processors (the i7 is a different matter, but as we do not have one on hand, we will not comment on it). This means up to eight ‘p-’ / Performance cores in two blocks of (up to) 4 cores configuration (for the i9 with the i5 once again having 2 of the p-cores disabled/laser cut). Also, with the 13th generation these ‘big’ p-cores make use of 80KB of L1 cache per core, 2MB per core of L2, and total L3 being ‘up to’ 36MB (including the L3 for the e-cores… and once again the i5 with two cut p-cores and two blocks of e-cores ‘only’ has 24MB L3 in total).</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/box1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For the most part, this is fine for one more generation as AMD is still behind the curve on L1 and L2 cache. For example, the (flagship) Ryzen 7950 makes use of 64KB of L1 cache per core and 1MB per core of L2… and Intel’s L1 and L2 cache is still more sophisticated than AMD’s. Intel simply has more resources to research advancements in highly esoteric L1/L2 cache algorithm regiments compared to AMD. To be precise the 14th gen uses a 12(data)/8(instruction)-way configuration for the L1 (vs. AMD’s 8/8) and a 16-way for the L2 (vs. 8 way)… and the AI-Leaning based “L2P” L2 cache algorithms have also been slightly improved. All of this adds up to better efficiency on top of simply more of it compared to AMD. So while disappointing, it is tolerable. For one more generation.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With that said Intel is behind the 8-ball when it comes to L3. Yes, their “Dynamic INI” algorithms (a dynamic inclusive/non-inclusive mechanism that monitors and adjusts in real-time what should be cached based on real-time active workload modeling) introduced in the last generation do make their L3 still cutting edge… but L3 is where AMD has placed more of their limited resources and it has been paying dividends. Even excluding exotic ‘3D’ stacking options, the bog standard R9 7950X offers a whopping 64MB of L3 cache.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/i9_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Yes, L3 is slower than L2 (which in turn is slower than L1)… but it is eons faster than going off-chip to the RAM. Put bluntly, one can have the absolute best L3 algorithms ever dreamed up but “quantity has a quality all its own”. AMD cores can simply make more guesses and put more data in their L3 than Intel. Which in turn closes the performance gap – and sometimes even exceeds it. Once again things are not dire (or even desperate) but Intel will have to release a new generation before AMD releases their next-gen CPUs lest Intel lose all the IPC gains that they clawed back with the 12 and 13th generations.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Shifting over to the Atom… err… ‘e-cores’. Once again nothing has changed beyond frequency boosts. This is fine as Intel already fixed the 12th gen e-core cache issue in the previous 13th generation. This means each e-core has 96KB total (64KB instruction + 32KB data) L1 cache per core and each block of four e-core clusters has a shared L2 cache of 4MB. This means that even when all four e-cores are active they are less likely to have to go to L3 to get a cache hit… which they also share with the p-cores (and thus further increases the chance of a cache hit well beyond what one would expect from a big.Little architecture).</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/hedt.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">So, while it is indeed true we want to see each e-core’s L1 increased (in size and complexity), and have the L2 doubled again (i.e. 2MB per core / 8MB per block) in the next generation… the amount of cache they do have access to results in a fairly consistent user experience. After all, and to put those numbers in perspective, the e-cores in the 14th generation i9 have the same amount of L2 cache as the last Intel 16 core HEDT ever made (Core i9 7960X, which ironically had a Turbo Boost of 4.4GHz… or the same as what the e-cores come clocked at in the i9-14900K); and the e-cores in the 14th generation i5 have the same amount of L2 cache as the Intel 8 core HEDT 7820X processor (which also ironically had a Turbo Boost of 4.0GHz or also the same as what the e-cores come clocked at in the i5-14600K). Needless to say, they are nowhere near as cache-starved as they were two years ago when Intel ‘created’ the idea of desktop e-cores. Nor are they as ‘low performance’ as certain circles of fans have intonated… as these e-cores use a similar(ish) architecture as the HEDT era used.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/i5_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The mesh interconnect (aka ‘Ring Bus’) also has not changed in any notable way from the previous generation. That is to say, it still is extremely fast (mid 4 to 5GHz depending on core load/heat load /etc.), is fairly efficient, and gets the job done in such a way that is not dependent on the Integrated Memory Controller’s frequency. The downside is while the improvements implemented in the 13th generation did indeed negate most of the ‘e-core saturation storm’ the e-cores can still become a smidgen starved under extreme loads… and why some PC gaming enthusiasts still feel the need to (wrongly) disable the e-cores. Instead of taking such extreme measures, for most, a touch of overclocking to the core will eliminate, or at least obfuscate, any bottlenecking in games and allow those uber-hardcore gamers to keep their e-cores active. Which can make a difference as they can handle a lot more than one thinks.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/i5.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Sadly… the IMC has also not changed. While rumors, which in retrospect are “pure copium”, said that Intel would be improving things from the decent DDR5-5600 to DDR5-6400 such things were not meant to be. Instead, the ‘14th’ Generation IMC is once again limited just like the ‘13th’ Generation. That is to say that when using two sticks of single rank memory (AKA ‘1DPC 1R’… aka “One DIMM Populated per Chanel using single rank RAM”) the IMC still supports speeds of only up to DDR5-5600. With two sticks of dual rank DDR5 used (aka ‘1DPC 2R’) the IMC tops out at DDR5-5200, and when one wants to use a Fully Monty 128GB (or 192GB) configuration of 4 bigboi sticks the IMC is going to downclock to DDR5-4400.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/i9.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Of course, this is all ‘factory certified’ performance levels, and just as with the 13th Generation the IMC is capable of more. How much more will vary, but with our samples we easily hit DDR5-5000 with 4 sticks of 32GB DDR5. The same is true with two sticks of 32GB RAM and hitting DDR5-5600 was a snap. Just as it was with the 13th generation. All that will be necessary is to increase the voltages, loosen timings, and play with things… as XMP is still not 100 percent reliable when dealing with 2DPC 1 and 2R configurations. This is the same quirk as the last gen… as this is the same IMC as the last gen.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This is, in our opinion, the largest complaint many will have with the 14th gen being a refined 13th gen. While it is true oddball 48GB sticks are becoming commonplace (allowing for 96GB in 1DPC 2R at DDR5-5200 without IMC overclocking) and those dual kits will satisfy some, 128GB of RAM is and about the only way to keep 24 cores from being RAM starved for HEDT / “workstation on a budget” user scenarios. We sincerely hope that Intel’s next-gen IMC is much more robust… as much like L3 cache levels DDR5 IMC performance is an area AMD is quickly pulling ahead of Intel.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Thankfully, the upside to the IMC not changing is the fact that Intel once again is allowing value-orientated buyers the luxury of using DDR4 sticks. This benefit really cannot be overstated or overhyped. While there is a bit of performance impact… being able to ignore DDR5 pricing for another round of system upgrades is going to be a major selling feature for a lot of buyers. Especially since AMD AM5 is DDR5 only and this is an ‘Intel exclusive’ feature.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/btf.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This brings us to the actual major changes that Intel has introduced with the 14th generation. Namely, frequencies, which we have already gone over, and power level profiles. With AMD moving the Overton Window into formerly ‘here hold my beer’ territory, Intel has felt comfortable enough with offering even higher power profiles. Yes. The 13th generation already turned the dial to ‘10’ with PL2 settings of 253 watts for the i9 and 181 watts for the i5. With the 14th generation, these defaults have stayed the same… but Intel has added another power level tier. Aptly named the ‘Extreme Power Delivery Profile’ which allows the amperage to peak at 400A for the i9 and 200A for the i5. Furthermore, with amps now specified there is no longer a PL1 (aka “Processor Base Power”) vs. PL2 (aka “Maximum Turbo Power”) distinction, nor is ‘Tau’ (aka the length in seconds the CPU is allowed to stay in PL2 mode) a setting one need worry about. Instead, it is now all about power draw. Basically, there is no longer a timer on the PL2 power peaks and if one so chooses, PL1 and PL2 are now basically the same as far as the internal power algorithms are concerned. So instead of X seconds at 181/253 watts, and then it drops down to a lower tier…. 14th Gens can run in PL2 as long as they do not A) try and slurp down more than 2/400A of power and B) the temperatures stay below the thermal limitations set out by Intel and your motherboard’s BIOS (e.g. below 73c for Thermal Velocity Boost, below 100C for true thermal limitation). Needless to say, this is not a good idea if you do not use an ultra-high-end cooling solution. We recommend a 360mm AIO as a good starting point if such things interest you.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/z690.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Last but certainly not least is due to the extremely short interval between the 13th and 14th generation Intel has made the extremely wise decision of breaking with “tradition” and allowing a 3rd generation of processors to be used with the same socket. They have gone as far as not releasing a new chipset to accompany the 14th Gen Core-I processors! As such, instead of a ‘Z890’ motherboard is required to use the 14th generation CPUs… existing 13th and 12th Gen owners need only upgrade their Z690 or Z790’s BIOS and swap in the new CPU. That is a game changer for value-orientated buyers who want/need/desire more power but really cannot afford an entirely new system.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Of course, motherboard manufacturers are not exactly enthused with this breaking of the status queue ante and have released improved Z790 motherboards. For example, MSI calls their Z790 gen 2 motherboards Z790 “Max” motherboards. In a future review, we will go over what changes the gen 2-based Z790s bring to the table but the biggest is the inclusion of WiFi 7. It remains to be seen if such tweaks warrant a new generation of models, but if one is looking for a new motherboard to go along with their new Intel 14th Gen CPU MSI Z790 ‘Max’ options are certainly worth considering over their non-Max predecessors.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Test Beds</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Intel LGA 1700 (z790) Testbed:\r\n• Windows 11 (22H2)\r\n• Motherboard: MSI MPG Carbon WiFi\r\n• CPU: Intel 13-series (various)\r\n• RAM: 32GB (16GBx2) Corsair Vengeance Memory DDR5-5600\r\n• Cooling: Artic Liquid Freezer II 420 w/ 3 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Intel LGA 1700 (z690) Testbed:\r\n• Windows 11 (22H2)\r\n• Motherboard: Gigabyte Aorus Pro\r\n• CPU: Intel 12-series (various)\r\n• RAM: 32GB Crucial Desktop Memory DDR5-4800\r\n• Cooling: Artic Liquid Freezer II 420 w/ 3 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ryzen 7000-series Testbed:\r\n• Windows 11 (22H2)\r\n• Motherboard: MPG X670E CARBON WIFI\r\n• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7000-series (various)\r\n• RAM: 32GB (16GBx2) Corsair Vengeance Memory DDR5-5600\r\n• Cooling: Artic Liquid Freezer II 420 w/ 3 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ryzen 5000-series Testbed:\r\n• Windows 11 (22H2)\r\n• Motherboard: ASRock X570 Taichi\r\n• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X\r\n• RAM: 32GB Ballistix Elite DDR4-3600\r\n• Cooling: Artic Liquid Freezer II 420 w/ 3 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ryzen 3000-series Testbed:\r\n• Motherboard: ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING 4\r\n• CPU: AMD Ryzen various 3000-series\r\n• RAM: 32GB Ballistix Elite DDR4-3600\r\n• Cooling: Corsair H115i w/ 4 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Intel LGA 2011-v3 Testbed:\r\n• Motherboard: Asus TUF X99 Mark 1\r\n• Processor: Intel (various)\r\n• Memory: 32GB GSkill TridentX DDR3-2400 4x8GB\r\n• Cooling: EVGA CLC 280 AIO\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Intel LGA 1151-200 Testbed:\r\n• Motherboard: ASUS RoG STRIX Z370-E Gaming\r\n• CPU: Intel (various)\r\n• RAM: 32GB Ballistix Elite DDR4-3600\r\n• Cooling: Corsair H115i w/ 4 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Intel LGA 1151-300 Testbed:\r\n• Motherboard: ASUS TUF Z370-Pro Gaming\r\n• CPU: Intel 8-series and 9-series (various)\r\n• RAM: 32GB Ballistix Elite DDR4-3600\r\n• Cooling: Corsair H115i w/ 4 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Intel LGA 1200 (z490) Testbed:\r\n• Motherboard: ASUS TUF Z490-Plus\r\n• CPU: Intel 10-series (various)\r\n• RAM: 32GB Ballistix Elite DDR4-3200\r\n• Cooling: Corsair H150i w/ 3 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Intel LGA 1200 (z590) Testbed:\r\n• Motherboard: ASUS RoG Maximus Xiii Hero\r\n• CPU: Intel 11-series (various)\r\n• RAM: 32GB Ballistix Elite DDR4-3200\r\n• Cooling: Corsair H150i w/ 3 fans\r\n• Video Card(s): ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3090Ti\r\n• SSD: 1x Crucial MX500 1TB\r\n• Power Supply: Corsair AX860i</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Overclocking</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/box1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When comparing different generations of processors things are never simple. There is always nuance and complexities involved in any analysis. Which most people do not care about. As such many people can get lost in the weeds. So, let’s start with an analogy.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In simplistic terms, the 12th generation’s theme song was Rob Zombie’s “Dragula”. It may not have come out of nowhere, as it borrows heavily from previous ideas and themes, but it was a smash hit. It is iconic and for the younger generation, it will be what he is best known for… and not his earlier works with White Zombie. The same is true for Intel. They were on the ropes with memes about 14+++++ abound. Little room for overclocking, and generally speaking a “little went a long way” for system builders. Make no mistake they were still good but few were great. Then they released the 12th Generation and all that changed. However, just like Robert B. “Zombie” Cummings's music, the first gen of Intel’s take on big.LITTLE was not everyone’s cup of tea, nor was it a great fit for every build. AMD simply offered better overall MP performance with highly competitive single/low thread performance. All without the risk of purchasing first-generation technology… or having to upgrade to Bars on the Window… err… “Windows 11”.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The 13th gen also had a theme song. Unlike the 12th generation, it could be any one of several smash hits. For us, though the 13th gen is best summed up by saying it, just like its design core, is a hybrid anthem. Mixing equal parts of Kayne West’s cover/remake of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” with Smash Mouth's cover/remake of “I’m A Believer”. We say this as the 13th Generation is not revolutionary like the 12th Generation before it. Rather it is the logical continuation of the foundation that Intel laid in the 12th Generation.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/meteor.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This brings us to the 14th Generation. One that was originally going to be an entirely new (super) beast. One that did away with monolithic designs and went to a more agile Compute Tile multi-part architecture. That did not happen and instead, Intel released one last generation of the Core-I monolithic architecture. In other words, this is a swan song generation. Unlike many who will think of Sinatra’s “My Way”, when we think of swan songs we are reminded of Otis Redding and his iconic postmortem hit “(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay”. There is no denying it is a great song by a great artist. However, the iconic whistling at the end turned a forgettable pablum pop song into something special? Yeah, that was originally ‘filler’ that he was going to replace once he finished writing the song. Sadly, it was left in the final form because he was murdered by his father before he could complete it… and the whistling adds a haunting layer that transforms pure pablum into a decade-defining hit.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">That would be a very good analogy for the 14Th Generation Core-I. However, we think “Då Som Nu För Alltid” (Then as Now Forever) by the highly, highly underrated band Kent is equally fitting. Specifically, the video they released for it. In the ‘song,’ there are no lyrics. It’s a nearly three-minute drum solo with a sorrowful chorus/chant overdubbed. You either know what they were about and you mourned the fact that Kent was no more… or you listened to it thought it was ‘alright’ and moved on with your day. Entirely missing the nuance and the callbacks to all their greatest hits they had made over 12 freakin’ albums that columnated in the Then as Now Forever album. Which is arguably perfection – if you liked Kent.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To be blunt. That is the 14th Generation in a nutshell. A generation of Core-I’s that come with a 6GHz core setting? That isn’t a special edition ‘K(ostly)S(ilicone)’? That is the stuff dreams are made of. However, that sorrow is there… if you listen for it. One that hints at what could have been but never will be… as Big Daddy Intel already shot the Core-I brand dead and this is the Intel engineer’s eulogy to the end of an era.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Make no mistake. This is the end of the monolithic era. An era that saw Intel launch a comeback after AMD’s paradigm-shifting Athlon 64 X2 put a pin in the premium Pentium era. An era that saw Intel CPU engineers go from superstars to meme makers (“14nm++++++++++++”). An era that saw those selfsame Intel engineers regain their pride and help usher in a new way of looking at desktop CPU architecture. So, if one has to go out it's best to go out on a high note… and this is the kind of high note that people will remember for years to come. Even if they miss most of the nuance behind it.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The upside to this fanservice level eulogy is there is just no good reason to want to manually overclock a 14th Gen Core-I. Intel’s engineers have already done 99 percent of the work for you and getting that last one percent is rarely going to be worth it. They ‘Just Work’ and they have handed all you could ask for on a silver platter. But if you really, really want to get all you can out of your new purchase it's going to be a fairly easy task. Even the “complexity” of overclocking two different core types at the same time is going to be a non-event. Intel makes things so simple… so bloody easy that even a novice can do it with just a few clicks.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/etu_bruteh.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For example, 6.0GHz is phenomenal… but it is only on two of the p-cores and the rest ‘merely’ running at 5.6GHz. Oh, the horror. However, for a lark we unleashed the Beast Mode power profile and wanted to see if we could match all the core boost settings to be the same as the Thermal Velocity Boost. So we asked Intel’s ETU ‘auto overclocking’ application to set the i9 to all p-core overclock of 6Ghz, with an all e-core overclock of 4.5, and rebooted. No additional voltages. No tweaking. Just a couple of clicks. The result? It worked. Seriously. It worked with just a few clicks. All with just with an increase in heat output (and thus noise). That is where most will want to stop as 6GHz is an iconoclastic setting… and it is a haunting whistle of what Intel 5 fab process would have been able to offer buyers if Core-I monolithic designs were still a ‘thing’ in future Intel CPUs.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/14900K_proof.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Of course, Intel XTU doesn’t really ‘do’ (or even get the reason for why you would want to do) memory overclocking. So, we did go back and set things to stock, then uninstalled Intel’s ETU… before doing the same via the BIOS. The only thing we did differently was set our DDR5-5600 to DDR5-6000 with a simple increase of 0.05v to the vdd/vddq ram voltage, and the IMC voltage; and changed LLC to be more aggressive. Bam. Truly done…ish.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With 6Ghz easily accomplished we wanted to see how much ‘gas’ was ‘left in the tank’. After extensive testing, the answer is… not much. Even pushing the voltages sky high a mere two hundred additional Megahertz is all that we could cajole out of the i9. With that said, 6.2 GHz all-(p-)core overclock is nothing to sneeze at. It just is rarely going to be worth the additional power consumption, massive heat increase, and generally less-than-pleasant noise profile that goes along with that minor bump in speed. After all, if most people were fine with a loud and obnoxious system they would be more receptive to buying AMD!</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/14600K_proof.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The same ease of use, but little room for overclocking, phenomena happened when we tested the core i5-14600K. Enter the BIOS. Set our official 2 sticks of RAM (“1DPC 1R”) to what we know they can do above their rated specifications, set the P cores to 5.5GHz, the e-cores to 4.3GHz (aka better than a 12900KS with just two fewer p-cores), increase voltage to ~1.385v, save, reboot. Done. Go grab a beer and start testing with overclocking. With all that said, these results are the same we were able to get with the 13600K and as such we would be less than enthusiastic about choosing a more expensive i5 14600K over a i5 13600K if overclocking was our main goal. If it was just plug-and-play ease of use… the opposite is true. The 14th gen 14600K comes with higher clocks and thus more performance ‘right out of the box’ so its added cost (but easier to source nature) does make it a natural progression for system builders.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Adobe Performance</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Adobe Photoshop CC</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems for macOS and Windows. To further make loading slower we have included a bunch of extra brushes that need to be loaded before the program is ready to use.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/adobe.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Adobe Premiere Pro </span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based video editing software application developed by Adobe Systems and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. To stress the CPU we have disabled GPU acceleration, and instead Premier Pro will use the CPU only.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/pp.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Blender &amp; CineBench Results</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Blender Benchmark </span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Bender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software toolset used for creating animated films, visual effects, art, 3D printed models, interactive 3D applications and video games. Also included is a CPU benchmark Utilty. For testing we have opted for the standard ‘BMW’ demo.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/blend.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> CINEBENCH R20 &amp; R23 </span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/r23.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/r20.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">DaVinci &amp; Handbrake</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> DaVinci Resolve Studio Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>For this test we are using DaVinci Resolve Studio and have taken a one hour 1080P (30,000Kbps) resolution video and exported it using MP4 format, H.264 codec, UltraHD resoltuion (4K) at 20,000Kbps using only the CPU. No effects beyond super-scaling, standard fade in from black at start, and fade to black at end have been used.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/dav.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Handbrake X265</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>HandBrake is a free and open-source transcoder for digital video files, originally developed in 2003 by Eric Petit. Since then it has continued to evolve. Included in its list of features is the ability to transcode existing video from x264/MPEG-4 AVC to x265/HEVC. For this test we are using a one hour length 4K x264 file and using the H.265 MKV 1080p30 preset transcoding it to 1080p resolution.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/x265.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">POV-Ray &amp; OpenSCAD</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> OpenSCAD “Pistol” Rendering Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>This benchmark combines the power of OpenSCAD (https://openscad.org/) with a custom rendering script created, and maintained by Michael Larabel (https://www.michaellarabel.com/). It is part of the \"Phoronix Test Suite\" (https://github.com/phoronix-test-suite). This fairly quick benchmark runs a custom script that times how long it takes to render the 'Pistol\" SCAD asset(s) to PNG output. All tests are run 5 times with the average result in seconds displayed.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/os.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> POV-Ray Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a ray tracing program which generates images from a text-based scene description, and is available for a variety of computer platforms.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/pov.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">SolidWorks &amp; TrueCrypt</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> SolidWorks Performance Test (CPU only)</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>SolidWorks is a solid modeling computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided engineering (CAE) application published by Dassault Systèmes. While not as well known as some other professional CAD programs it is a powerful CAD program that can bring even the most powerful of systems to their knees. To help ensure professionals actually have enough horsepower it comes with a simple, yet decent, benchmark. Consisting of many parts it tests the entire system. However, only the CPU portion of the results are recorded.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> TrueCrypt AES Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file, or encrypt a partition or the whole storage device (pre-boot authentication). While discontinued its built-in benchmark using AES is still extremely relevant. Included result is the average of both encryption and decryption performance</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/tc.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">winRAR &amp; x264 HD</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> winRAR Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>WinRAR is a popular file compression and decompression tool that also happens to be multi-threaded application. While it does have a built in benchmark we have opted to use a custom 5GB test consisting of small, medium, and moderately large files. We then time how long it takes to compress the files into one .rar file with all WinRAR settings left at their defaults.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/rar.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> x264 HD Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>x264 HD Benchmark is a benchmark that allows you to measure how fast your PC can encode a 1080p video clip into a high quality x264 video file. It allows for an easy comparison because everyone running it will use the same video clip and software. The x264 video encoder has a fairly accurate internal benchmark (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encode and it also uses multi-core processors very efficiently. All these factors make the x264 HD Benchmark an ideal tool in comparing the video encoding performance of different processors and systems.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/x264.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">AC:V &amp; Borderlands 3</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Assassins Creed: Valhalla Gaming Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Assassins Creed: Valhalla is an historical action-adventure video game, published by Ubisoft and released in November 2020. Like a few of its predecessors Assassin's Creed Valhalla features an in-game benchmark, which lasts about 90 seconds nd consists of a panning shot through a village. The settings used in the testing below are stock Ultra quality setting, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/ac.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Borderlands 3 Gaming Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Borderlands 3 is an action role-playing first-person shooter video game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K. It was released on 13 September 2019. Borderlands 3 features an in-game benchmark that simulates heavy combat and is rather stressful on both the CPU and the GPU. The settings used in the testing below are stock “Badass” Ultra quality setting, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/bl3.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">CS: GO &amp; Metro Exodus</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Counter Strike: Global Offensive</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a 2012 multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment. While older it is still actively maintained by Valve and beloved by many. As it is an older game, it has become CPU bound with even lower end modern video cards capable of pushing FPS in the hundreds. For testing we are using SamIsAlreadyTaken's benchmarking script (https://github.com/samisalreadytaken/csgo-benchmark) at low, and at 1920x1080 resolution.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/cs.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Metro: Exodus</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. It was released in 2019. Metro Exodus features an in-game benchmark that we have used at Ultra preset at 1920x1080P. </i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/met.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">RDR2 &amp; Tomb Raider</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Red Dead Redemption 2 Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>Red Dead Redemption 2 is a 2018 action-adventure game developed and published by Rockstar Games. The game is the third entry in the Red Dead series and a prequel to the 2010 game Red Dead Redemption. The game has a built-in benchmark that mimics game play fairly well. We used the Ultra Settings at 1920x1080 resolution. An average of four runs was taken.</i></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/rdr.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Shadow of the Tomb Raider Gaming Benchmark</span></p>\r\n<i>Rise of the Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game published by Square Enix and released in January 2018. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken.\r\nThe settings used in the testing below are Highest default settings for quality (with 'Pure Hair' shading set to normal, ambient occlusion set to HBAO+), VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080.</i>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/tr.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Watch Dogs: Legion, Witcher 3</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Watch Dogs: Legion</span></p>\r\n<i>Watch Dogs: Legion is an action-adventure video game set in a fictionalized version of London. Published and developed by Ubisoft, it was released on October 29th, 2020. Our test uses a custom in game timed benchmark that consists of five minutes of game play near and around the London Eye starting on the bridge. This location was chosen at it offers everything from a variety of NPCs, NPC vehicles, water surface reflections, and generally speaking is both visually stunning and is incredibly hard on a video card. Particularly with ray tracing turned on. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are the defaults for the 'Ultra' display settings, but with Vsync disabled and Ray Tracing enabled. All at a resolution of 1080P.</i>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/wd.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: xx-large;\"> Witcher 3</span></p>\r\n<i>Witcher 3 is an action role-playing video game set in an open world environment, developed by Polish video game developer CD Projekt RED and released on May 2015. Our test uses a real world timed benchmark that consists of three minutes of game play during the 'Beast of the White Orchard' quest. This section of the game incorporates everything from grass, to water, to hair, to numerous NPCs. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultra display settings, but with HairWorks off and Vsync disabled, at a resolution of 1080P.</i>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/w3.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Analysis of Mainstream Consumer CPU options</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As is our usual MO, we like to start with a few caveats. The first is that few 'home consumer' orientated applications are optimally multi-threaded enabled. It is getting better and will continue to do so, but few home users will ever harness the full power of what Intel and AMD are offering in their latest generation of “desktop” line of processors. Furthermore, the number of buyers who do use optimized applications enough to justify picking their processor based on time saved… is only moderate in size. Those that can, have already moved on to ‘true’ workstation-class processors.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The second caveat is we are not the intended target for 'consumer' orientated CPUs. Our typical usage patterns/scenarios not only can, but typically do, max out workstation / HEDT / etc. processors. However, this second caveat is starting to become more and more… fluid – with more and more people (including ourselves) realizing that their usage scenarios are now starting to become adequately covered by these new ‘HEDT-lite’ consumer CPUs.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With that out of the way this generation is unusual. With such little time between their 13th and 14th Generation… not much has changed in the marketplace. The same equations all consumers need to make before opting for Team Red or Team Blue last year apply this year. All that has changed is the amount of performance on tap.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/tenor.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" />(image courtesy of tenor.com)</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">To reduce the chances of a higher profit HEDT sale transforming into a lower profit ‘consumer’ sale AMD still refuses to allow their consumer ‘Ryzen’ series to come with more than 16 cores running in the mid(ish) to low 5GHz range. ‘Big’ cores which are all Hyperthreaded enabled allow for (up to) 32 threads of processing performance. Which in turn offers more processing power than some early-gen HEDT processors. However, there is no replacement for displacement, and more ‘real’ cores will (almost) always beat a virtual/’hyper’ thread. For the final Core-I branded, Intel 14th generation buyers can get a processor with 24 real cores and 32 threads of processing performance. Real cores running at (up to) 6GHz. Once again, a virtual ton of performance is now widely available without HEDT / workstation pricing. Just as it was last year.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What all this also means is that when it comes to heat, noise, and power consumption there is once again no clear decisive advantage to opting for one ‘team’ over the other… but AMD is on the back foot for many scenarios and builds. AMD was caught off guard by the 12th…13th… and now 14th Generation Intel options and still has not been able to release a sane solution to counteract it. Instead, AMD processors are still “designed” to ramp up the frequencies (and voltage) until they are running at 95 degrees Celsius.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_13_series/amd.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" />(image courtesy of KC Green of gunshowcomic.com)</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">AMD fans, and the marketing team, will point out that Intel ‘is just as bad’, and to a certain extent that is indeed true. Intel processors offer Power Level profiles that now allow for not 150, not 350 but 400amps of power to be applied to their i9 cores (i5 is ‘merely’ 200A). This means both the Ryzen 9 and Core-I 9 processors can run hot. Potentially so hot that both recommend 360MM AIOs… and 420mm AIOs are a good idea. Even then, with AMD opting for a bigger and more powerful cooling solution will not decrease noise levels. With Intel, more cooling will result in lower noised profiles, and if that is not possible simply opting to not change the ‘out of the box’ defaults will.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Things are even harsher for AMD when one turns their attention away from the flagship options and looks toward the biggest sellers: the x5 models. When one compares the Intel Core i-5 14600K (i.e. the hottest running ‘i-5’) to AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600X the Intel option will run cooler, quieter, and require nowhere near as robust a CPU Cooling solution as the AMD option. Instead, just as with previous generations there are hard and fast (sane) limits at stock frequencies. AMD owners do not get that luxury and instead must actively work against the nature of their CPU to try and tame its savage nature. As such Intel's 5 owners will have a system with a much easier-to-tune noise profile.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_i9_10900K/Intel_i9_10900K_intel.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Furthermore, Intel CPUs once again consume noticeably less power in more mundane scenarios than AMD Ryzen CPUs. Even when comparing an AMD R5 to an Intel i9 there are many scenarios where Intel’s (up to) sixteen e-cores can take over and handle the load without consuming much power, creating much heat, or making much noise. Put bluntly. The P+E-core combination allows a system to run noticeably cooler, and quieter, than AMD options without sacrificing performance. Once again, we do not think many should make their final decision based on heat output, to and lesser extent noise output, but by the same token, a more well-behaved system is always a nice bonus. A nice bonus that is (once again) easier to accomplish with Intel than with AMD.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This segues nicely into performance comparisons. We firmly believe that 90 to 95 percent of the buying public will be happy with both companies’ flagship offerings from a performance point of view. Blindly throw a dart at a dart board and the resulting 'winner' will satisfy their needs. Be it an AMD Ryzen R7, AMD Ryzen R9, Intel Core-I i7 or Intel Core-I i9. All of more than enough horsepower to satisfy the needs of the vast majority of buyers. For those who demand the best, things are even better for Intel than they were in the 13th Generation “days of yore” (aka a couple of weeks ago). Yes, in single and even dual active threads both team’s best CPUs are godly fast – 6.0 vs 5.7(ish). Yes, both offer IPC performance that is insanely good… but 300Mhz extra performance is now a large enough difference to make it a decisive ‘win’ for Intel over AMD in the flagship i9 vs R9 debate.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In 3 to 8 active core debate Intel’s 14900K’s minor speed increase over the last gen i9 widens their lead over AMD and their 5’ish GHz performance. In heavily multi-threaded scenarios, the small boost to Intel’s e-cores frequencies (4.4 i9 and 4.0 i5) also allows them to outmuscle AMD’s R9 and R5 offerings respectively. Yes, it is ‘only’ a smidgen more performance per e-core compared to the 13th generation version. However, instead of taking about 1.9'ish of them to match an AMD Zen 4 core, the comparison is now more like 1.85 to 1. Thus, giving a slight to moderate advantage to Intel on the i9 (“16.8” cores vs. AMD’s 16) and a major advantage to Intel with the i5 (10.4’ish cores vs. R7’s eight or R5’s six).</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/z690_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Turning our attention to secondary considerations like motherboards and even memory options. Yes. Once again the ‘platform’ should be a major consideration for most buyers of this generation. AMD AM4 owners looking to upgrade to AMD’s latest and greatest will have to purchase a new motherboard and new RAM. Intel owners may not even need to buy a motherboard… as 12th Generation ‘Z690’ era motherboards just require a BIOS flash to work with 14th Generation CPUs. Yes… we would be very hesitant to stick a 400-watt i9 in a hooptie ASUS (anything but) ‘Pro’ motherboard, but that selfsame over-priced, underperforming motherboard should be able to handle any 14th gen i5 with aplomb.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">If one so chooses to purchase a new motherboard the Z790 chipset has been out for a full generation now, and most motherboards have had all the BIOS firmware ‘kinks’ worked out. Something that, based on ASUS and their ‘we are so hot that we can catch fire’ AM5 boards, can not be fully said of Team Red options.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Even excluding the motherboard decision from the equation, Intel has once again allowed buyers the luxury of opting out of DDR5 for another system upgrade cycle. AMD not only demands you purchase DDR5 RAM but faster DDR5… as their CPU’s interconnect bus is directly tied to the speed at which their RAM runs. With Intel the CPU performance difference between slow DDR4 vs ‘fast’ DDR5 is rather minor outside of a few edge cases. Thus, Intel is the clear and decisive winner when it comes to secondary considerations… and overall value.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Make no mistake, AMD does have many things going in their favor. AM5 is at the start and not the end of its cycle, so AMD’s AM5 socket does have a longer lifespan ahead of it than the absolutely, positive last gen for Intel’s LGA1700 socket. This will change the next generation (making it a tossup once again) but right now AMD is a clear choice if you do want to reuse your motherboard for future generational upgrade(s). You just need to be willing to eat the upfront cost of DDR5 RAM (and possibly a cooling solution as contrary to AMD claims… AM5 is not entirely backward compatible). You must also understand that future AMD (and Intel) CPUs will most likely require you to purchase new, faster RAM to fully utilize their baked-in improvements. As such the decision comes down to potential motherboard longevity vs. cost of RAM upgrade. AKA “platform longevity” vs. “up-front cost”. Only you can decide which is best for your needs as there is no perfect answer. Anyone who says otherwise is just guessing at what the future holds and/or is narrowly focused on just their specific needs... and/or fanboi'ing.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/i9.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This brings us to specifics on CPUs. With its unique blend of excellent multi-threaded performance with as good to better “PC Gaming” than Team Red’s R9, the Core i9 14900K is just as good and arguably even better value than the 13900K it supersedes. After all, at $589 one now can purchase a 6GHz factory-certified CPU. Yes. AMD is going to have to further cut the asking price of their flagship R9 if they want to compete against Intel in this corner of the market. Which can be considered nothing other than a decisive ‘win’ for Intel and buyers alike.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/i5.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In the hotly contested 2-300 US dollar range Intel’s advantage has also widened. With its combination of six p-cores and eight e-cores, the price-to-performance ratio is heavily weighted in the Core i5-14600K’s favor. So much so it all but eliminates the majority of reasons for opting for any six-core Ryzen 5… and makes justifying the already price reduced to $300 (8-core) Ryzen 7 7700X rather difficult. Put bluntly, AMD is going to have to respond via further price cutting to their “meat and potatoes” Ryzen 5 series lest it does nothing but collect dust on retail shelves.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In summary with a moderate advantage in cooling for Intel; a moderate edge in heat output; a now decently large edge for Intel in noise (albeit neither red nor blue are optimal for silent PC builds)… and an incredibly large advantage in overall value for Intel, the 14th Generation can be considered a consolidation of Intel’s lead over AMD in the hearts and minds of the average buyers and system builders alike. Now that is how you go out on a high note and we just hope future Compute Tile-based Intel Core processors can live up to the Core-I legacy.</p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Closing Thoughts</h2>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Core i9-14900K Final Score: 88%</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Core i5-14600K Final Score: 92%</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Let us face facts. When compared to just the last generation the 14th Generation Core-I series is most accurately described as ‘meh’. Few if any 13900K owners are going to rush out and buy a 14900K. Fewer 13600K owners will be queueing up for the 14600K. In the coming weeks, we would be willing to bet that this is how pro-AMD ‘influencers’ are going to frame things. To a certain extent that would be a fair…ish hot take on things. Single-digit percentage performance from one generation to the next is nothing to write home about. In a vacuum, it is a return to the bad old days when Intel rarely went all out from one generation to the next. However, when you slice off a portion of a fact it does not stay a fact, it becomes a factoid. No one should ever make a decision based on a factoid.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The reality is this is the first time in a long, long time that Intel system users can upgrade their two-generation old system. Upgrade it with just a simple firmware flash, and a CPU swap. No need for a new motherboard. No need for an expensive RAM upgrade. No (real) need to even try your hand at overclocking to eke out a bit more performance (as it's basically all available for you ‘out of the box’). Instead, just buy one item, plug it in… and start playing with all that extra performance.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As such, things are a lot rosier for this last-of-era series… as 12th-generation owners will not only get a lot more efficiency but a lot more performance. For example, 12900K owners go from 8+8 configuration running at ‘up to’ 5.2/3.9 all the way (up) to 6.0GHz + 4.4GHz, get 8 extra e-cores… and get noticeably improved IPC performance to go along with those higher clock speeds. Budget-constrained buyers rocking a 12600K will once again double the number of e-cores they have to work with… and end up with a system that is faster than a 12900K. All for just a 3-bill(ish) investment. That is the kind of cheap upgrade a lot of buyers in this economy are looking for.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Put bluntly, the Intel 14th Generation is not groundbreaking. It was never meant to be. It is a swan song. Intel CPU design team’s ode to Core-I and their monolithic architecture (finally) being put out to pasture. At that, Intel has indeed exceeded our expectations. So, while the 14th Generation is not going to ‘bury AMD’ or any equally outlandish pro-Intel clickbait titles, it doesn’t have to. Instead, it allows their Core-I to go out on one hell of a high note. Set the stage for their 15th Gen ‘title’ based successor, and put extreme pressure on AMD in the critical budget-orientated corner of the market. That certainly is a lot to like, even if we did wish they had boosted the IMC up to DDR-6400 performance levels.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In summary, if you are in the market for a quick, easy, and relatively inexpensive way to boost your existing Intel system’s performance, or just want to re-use your DDR4 RAM for one more generation Intel is still the undisputed King. Just be aware that it is not going to blaze any new trails like the 12th generation did when it landed.</p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Core i9-14900K:</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/RHR_Excellence_Award_sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Core i5-14600K:</strong></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/RHR_Excellence_Award_sm.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" /></p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https://storage.googleapis.com/stateless-www-realhardwarerevi/rhr-storage/images/images/CPU/Intel_14_series/RHR_RealDealAward.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"288\" height=\"288\" border=\"0\" /></p>"
<https://realhardwarereviews.com/intel-core-i9-14900k-cpu-review/3/>