Intel's 14th Gen desktop CPUs are a last hurrah for Raptor Lake

After months of leaks and rumors, Intel's 14th Gen CPUs are finally here. If you've been paying close attention though, then you'll know these aren't the company's all-new Meteor Lake platform... no, these CPUs are a refresh of last year's Raptor Lake. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, especially as Intel retains some pretty good pricing, particularly for the lower-tier SKUs.

Starting at $294 for the i5-14600KF and shipping from October 17th, these CPUs look set to be a great upgrade for anyone already coming from an LGA 1700 motherboard who may be using a 12th Gen Intel CPU. Just like last year's CPUs, all of these are unlocked with P-cores, E-cores, and graphics overclockable right out of the box. You can pick up a KF CPU if you want to save a little bit of money, as these don't have any integrated graphics.

The biggest upgrades that you'll find when comparing these CPUs to last year are in the i7-14700K. Intel has bumped the 14700K up to an 8+12 core configuration for a total of 28 threads, where last year's 13700K came with an 8+8 configuration for a total of 24 threads. Intel's addition of four more E cores is minor, but it's the most tangible improvement you'll find in all of these CPUs. Other than that, there are some minor clock speed increases across the board.

These CPUs are still built on Intel's 10nm fabrication process, Intel 7, but seem to achieve slightly better power efficiency. This is indicated by the maintained TDP despite the increase in clock speeds. Aside from the extra E cores for the 14700K, there aren't any fundamental changes in any of these CPUs. These basically double down on Raptor Lake from last year and will serve nicely for anyone who is still on a Z690 or Z790 motherboard looking to upgrade.

An interesting new feature that Intel has introduced for i9-14900K/14900KF processors is a feature dubbed "AI Assist" in Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility. It makes use of an AI model trained by Intel to find a baseline overclocking profile that suits your machine, meaning that it's easier than ever for someone to step into overclocking if they want to give it a try. On that note, Intel also believes that new overclocking world records are incoming thanks to an improvement in overclocked frequencies, higher DDR5 XMP speeds, and a new per-core thermal throttling.

In terms of performance improvements, Intel's focus was primarily on how these CPUs compare to the Ryzen 9 7950X, and not the company's own 13th Gen CPUs from last year. Intel touts up to 23% better gaming performance versus the 7950X and up to 54% faster creator workflow, which are fairly impressive numbers to maintain.

If you're looking to pick up a new CPU, these will be available for purchase from October 17th in selected retailers.