Rumors and leaked reports have been coming out for months on Intel’s preparation of its new line of Core i9 series of processors, called the Raptor Lake refresh. The flagship model’s newly leaked Geekbench score in particular proves how promising its performance might be.
The flagship model, the Core i9-14900K processor, managed to score a Geekbench score of over 3.1K for the single-core test. This puts it at a 6% increase over the previous model, the 13900K. Also, keep in mind that there are several variables involved in testing, including a more limited data set, the motherboard not being fully optimized, and the processor being paired with DDR5-4800 memory which could impact performance as well.
Its key specifications are eight P-cores and 16 E-cores and, according to VideoCardZ, it is only the second Intel processor to exceed a clock speed of 6 GHz thanks to its Thermal Velocity Boost technology. Testing was done using the Biostar Z790 SILVER motherboard, which has the added benefit of proving compatibility with other similar, soon-to-be-released motherboards.
Intel could be on to something, as long as the price is right
Plenty of rumors concerning the Core i9-14900K have been making their way through the tech grapevine, including other benchmarks and pricing.
There was a previously leaked CrossMark result for Intel’s Core i9-14900K and the Core i7-14700K. The Core i9-14900K recorded an overall score of 2,265, with the Core i7-14700K hitting 1,980. Thus it can be concluded that the 14900K is around 14% faster than the 14700K, at least going by this single result. Judging by these scores, we can see the potential of how well the flagship and even the i7 processor can perform.
However, according to a leak from well-known leaker @momomo_us, the pricing of the Intel Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K, and Core i5-14600K are all set to increase by about 15%. This would raise the price of the 14900K flagship to $695 in the US which, considering the smaller boost in performance compared to the previous models, would hardly be worth the price of entry. Then again, considering all the caveats that come with the currently leaked benchmarks, we could be seeing even better performance results once the processor officially launches.
As for that launch date, previous leaks point to an October 2023 release while VideoCardZ states that the flagship will be coming out this September.
