Published: October 17, 2023 | Source: Intel | Author: Tom Logan

Intel 14th Gen Processors Review

Test Setup and Clock Speeds

Intel 14th Gen Test Setup

Intel Core i5-14600K
Intel Core i7-14700K
Intel Core i9-14900K
ASUS ROG Strix Z790-E
G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000 32GB
Nvidia RTX 4090
Sabrent Rocket 2TB
Corsair 5000T
Corsair RM1000i
Corsair H170i 420
Windows 11

Clock Speeds and Voltages

Out of the box it’s fair to say that all of the Intel 14th Gen processors are a little over-volted. The Core i5-14600K is easily the best of the bunch, not being too toasty or having a high VCore out of the box, although you can still tune the volts below 1.2 with good loadline calibration and gain plenty of temperature headroom. We peaked at 5.7 GHz for our Pcore overclock at just 1.25v

The Core i7-14700K is comfortably the biggest upgrade from the model that came before, boasting more L3 cache and 4 extra Efficient Cores. It was also the worst at ‘stock’ voltage, with a massive 1.4v through the VCore leading to 97Â°C temperatures. It also happily runs at 1.2v, dropping the temperatures by 27 degrees C and giving us some flexibility to push a small overclock. The boost is normally 5.5ghz with all cores running at 100% and two core occasionally going to 5.6ghz at lighter loads, at 1.25v we managed to get all Pcores running at 5.6ghz

The Core i9-14900K, however, is a toasty boy. We’re running a 3x140mmÂ fan AIO with the fans on 100% and still saw massive peak temperatures, having to undervolt it merely to stop it hitting 100c. If you’re planning on getting one of these and pushing for an overclock then you’ll need a serious custom waterloop to make it work but more than likely a full delid and direct die set up. It’s hot. Fast, but hot. At stock the boards were still putting 1.4v through the CPU but with the loadline calibration set up properly (at stock its almost pointless) we were able to get stock setting running at 1.3v with full stability and over a 20c drop in temps.