Wednesday, February 14th 2024

Intel Core i9-14900KS Draws as much as 409W at Stock Speeds with Power Limits Unlocked

Intel's upcoming limited edition desktop processor for overclockers and enthusiasts, the Core i9-14900KS, comes with a gargantuan 409 W maximum package power draw at stock speeds with its PL2 power limit unlocked, reports HKEPC, based on an OCCT database result. This was measured under OCCT stress, with all CPU cores saturated, and the PL2 (maximum turbo power) limited set to unlimited/4096 W in the BIOS. The chip allows 56 seconds of maximum turbo power at a stretch, which was measured at 409 W.

The i9-14900KS is a speed-bump over its predecessor, the i9-13900KS. It comes with a maximum P-core boost frequency of 6.20 GHz, which is 200 MHz higher; and a maximum E-core boost frequency of 4.50 GHz, which is a 100 MHz increase over both the i9-13900KS and the mass market i9-14900K. The i9-14900KS comes with a base power value of 150 W, which is the guaranteed minimum amount of power the processor can draw under load (the idle power is much lower). There's no word on when Intel plans to make the i9-14900KS available, it was earlier expected to go on sale in January, along the sidelines of CES.
Source: HKEPC
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228 Comments on Intel Core i9-14900KS Draws as much as 409W at Stock Speeds with Power Limits Unlocked

#152
marios15
AnotherReaderYou are conflating parametric yield loss and catastrophic yield loss (link to PDF). However, Intel also sells an enormous 770 mm^2 die: the monolithic variant of Sapphire Rapids. Given that this is sold for servers, they wouldn't need very high yields for it to make sense. Still, defect density can't be too bad or they would hardly get any functional dies out. A defect density of 0.4 per cm^2 would result in just 9.6% of the Sapphire Rapids-MCC dies being fully functional.
Not really, I am talking about the old-school metric of yields, that Intel does not disclose, I would expect defect rate to be 0.1 - 0.15 max

Their foundries might be behind TSMC, but you don't start high volume production if yields are 40%, you need 60% at least and they've been going on this node for years, it's at least 75% now even with 260mm2 dies.
If yields were very low and they had to cut-down 40-50% of their chips to make market, they would release much lower stock clocks and you would see high OC margins.

12900K was 5.2 then 13900K was 5.8 and 14900K/S are 6/6.2, meaning yields are high and you get the highest bins, unless you consider 14xxx a new design from 13xxx

Their worst 24core binned chip has 5.2 turbo
Posted on Reply
#153
londiste
wNotyarDIt also says "speeds". Unlocking power while keeping speeds at stock isn't impossible, you know?
It is impossible in this case. Speeds are directly related to power.
Posted on Reply
#154
wNotyarD
londisteIt is impossible in this case. Speeds are directly related to power.
Look from another angle. With power unlocked, these Intels can go full throttle with their advertised speeds. Power limited? Yeah they can reach them, but only sparsely. In both cases clocks are at stock.
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#155
InVasMani
Carlyle2020hsThe 14900´s VID is trash. Same goes for the trash bin called "14700k".

And you have to deal with the VIDs beeing not the same. KS chips VIDs are aligned.

No disabling waste-cores and hypertreading would help to get that _hitty silicone to run 6 Ghz all-core.

But a 13900ks could. Without any need to tweak PLL voltages i might add.

Now imagine a 14900ks running 6 Ghz all-core without the need to turn off hyperthreading
or
wanting to use the least amount of wattage possible during gaming at 14900k speeds.

If you can, the KS is for you.

in conclusion:
The KS is for people hunting for the best p-cores possbile.
Either to overclock or to use less voltage at any given Mhz if compared to the rest of intels offerings.

And yes, if compared to the red team a 14900ks looks rather pathetic.
But that´s because intel has no imagination on how to sell it.
They easily could have disabled the waste cores completely and sell a 8x p-core only gaming beast that would loose to 60% but would win 40% by quiet a margin during gaming benchmarks.

Those 40% leads beeing almost all competetive online-games mind you. So intels marketing could have brandished that as a win over amd.
All core is a utter waste of power consumption however overall and that remains true of both AMD/Intel. It's best to linearly scale performance across per core ratio's period. There is a bit a off a larger offset between ratio's of P cores and E cores, but otherwise scale the P cores higher ratio than E core ratio's and basically linearly scale them. The only real question is if you want higher MT or ST emphasis in which case slope the E core's and P core ratio's more aggressively or less aggressively with that slight offset in between where they meet in the middle.

I found disabling HT all, none, or some a utter waste in practice on my 14700K and just dragged down MT performance. Sure the ST could bit a bit opened up with OC on P cores, but disabling or dropping E core cluster ratio will do that just as well overall and w/o sacrificing MT as heavy handed in the process. Disabling all the E cores is easily dumb though disabling 4 if you don't need or want the MT can free up power a good bit and allow you to easily push for higher ST. There is actually some merit to that, but I don't do it personally since it's a bit silly and not overly practical. Still if you've got software that won't benefit from the additional MT and can save power it's fine enough to consider doing so. Hopefully software can passively better train itself and adapt over time to recognize scenario's like that as well to save power and/or eek out higher performance more readily. I'm confident future software and hardware absolutely will at the same time with better inference capabilities baked in.
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#156
AnotherReader
marios15Not really, I am talking about the old-school metric of yields, that Intel does not disclose, I would expect defect rate to be 0.1 - 0.15 max

Their foundries might be behind TSMC, but you don't start high volume production if yields are 40%, you need 60% at least and they've been going on this node for years, it's at least 75% now even with 260mm2 dies.
If yields were very low and they had to cut-down 40-50% of their chips to make market, they would release much lower stock clocks and you would see high OC margins.

12900K was 5.2 then 13900K was 5.8 and 14900K/S are 6/6.2, meaning yields are high and you get the highest bins, unless you consider 14xxx a new design from 13xxx

Their worst 24core binned chip has 5.2 turbo
Hmm we don't really know their defect rate; 0.1 per square cm would be pretty good. However, I agree that the trend of larger dies indicates that yields have improved significantly.
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#157
absoluteUnit
Nosferatu666what?
if you'd ever played an e-sports game at even a middling level of competency, you'd know about the AM-DIP.

competitive players shoot for a stable 240, 360, or even 500 FPS in the 1% and .1% lows, depending on the game.

but if you only play single player titles at 4K 60-120 FPS, and don't mind inconsistent frametimes, then AMD is fine.
Posted on Reply
#159
absoluteUnit
Nosferatu666Sure kid are you 16 at least?
i’m sending out prayers for all those who are too senile to notice frame drops
Posted on Reply
#160
AusWolf
londisteIt also says "stock".
Judging by comments in the thread this is what most people seem to have as the main takeaway.
You have a point. We really have to define what "stock" is. Intel recommended power limits enforced? Power limits disabled? What about turbo clocks? What about different voltages supplied by different motherboards? How about cooling? Intel blower or custom loop? It's confusing.
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#161
ir_cow
While it can pull 400watts. Mosy likely it will be in the 280w range due to lack of cooling. Once it hits that thermal cap, it will just downclock.
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#162
InVasMani
I wonder if it'll be similar to 13900KS to 14900K where they dropped base power TDP 25w and offset it with a more aggressive turbo boost. Basically lower power PL1, but higher turbo ratio's slightly possibly some tweaks with speedstep as well. I don't know if perhaps PL1 will be reduced alongside maybe small boost to the PL2, but less than the reduction to PL2 alongside more aggressive turbo ratio's. Can only speculate though based off some of the past differences between similar SKU's with subtle refresh bumps to performance.

It'll be tougher to cool, but a 360 AIO in push/pull ought to do the trick pretty well I would hope or a 420 AIO push/pull at worst.
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#163
londiste
AusWolfYou have a point. We really have to define what "stock" is. Intel recommended power limits enforced? Power limits disabled? What about turbo clocks? What about different voltages supplied by different motherboards? How about cooling? Intel blower or custom loop? It's confusing.
It is confusing. On one hand due to the dynamic nature of clock speeds today "stock" is everything you listed and more. Clocks, turbo clocks, power limits, voltages, temperatures. This applies in the same way to Intel, AMD and other manufacturers of CPUs, SoCs and GPUs. Once you remove some limit the behaviour and result will be different.

And then there are all the shenanigans about how things are defined in spec and/or marketed.
InVasManiI wonder if it'll be similar to 13900KS to 14900K where they dropped base power TDP 25w and offset it with a more aggressive turbo boost. Basically lower power PL1, but higher turbo ratio's slightly possibly some tweaks with speedstep as well. I don't know if perhaps PL1 will be reduced alongside maybe small boost to the PL2, but less than the reduction to PL2 alongside more aggressive turbo ratio's. Can only speculate though based off some of the past differences between similar SKU's with subtle refresh bumps to performance.
Read up on this trying to understand this news bit, this is what it looks like:
- 13900K has official PL1 125W and PL2 253W. Then it also has the extreme power profile of 253W/253W.
- 13900KS has official PL1 150W and PL2 253W. The power profile really is 253W/253W. Then it also has the extreme power profile of 320W/320W.
14900K/KS are likely going to follow the exact same pattern. And guess which one motherboards tend to default to.
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#164
iameatingjam
5.9ghz all pcore is crazy! I honestly didn't think intel would release a 14900ks, just because of how far the 14900k and 13900ks have pushed the boundaries of the architecture already, but I guess some people want those top of the line bins and hey no judgement there.

I am starting to get a little irritated with all the constant complaining about power draw when power limits are removed ( not necessarily anyone here). I mean until intel gets arrow lake out or whatever it ends up being, Raptor lake is what we got and we all know it uses a crazy amount of power when clocks are to the moon and power limits are off. No shit a 14900ks at full steam is going to use a lot of power. How could it have been any other way?

If intel figured out a way to make the 14900ks be just as powerful while not using much power - it wouldn't be the 14900ks, it would be a whole new generation of processor.

So this is right in line with expectations, is it not?
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#165
Chrispy_
iameatingjam5.9ghz all pcore is crazy! I honestly didn't think intel would release a 14900ks, just because of how far the 14900k and 13900ks have pushed the boundaries of the architecture already, but I guess some people want those top of the line bins and hey no judgement there.

I am starting to get a little irritated with all the constant complaining about power draw when power limits are removed ( not necessarily anyone here). I mean until intel gets arrow lake out or whatever it ends up being, Raptor lake is what we got and we all know it uses a crazy amount of power when clocks are to the moon and power limits are off. No shit a 14900ks at full steam is going to use a lot of power. How could it have been any other way?

If intel figured out a way to make the 14900ks be just as powerful while not using much power - it wouldn't be the 14900ks, it would be a whole new generation of processor.

So this is right in line with expectations, is it not?
What Intel is doing with 14th gen reminds me very much of the darkest days of AMD with the end of the old Bulldozer-series architecture that couldn't compete with Intel; The AMD FX-9590, a 5GHz Bulldozer (Vishera) CPU with an almost-uncoolable 220W back in the day. If you can't compete on architecture, just overclock the absolute living shit out of it and don't worry if no motherboards exist yet that can deliver 220W to the socket, Asus and Asrock will make special models for your turd of a CPU because there's always a market for fanboys who buy the company flagship no matter how bad it is!

At least competition is closer this time around; 14th gen isn't as bad as Bulldozer ever was, and if you ignore the flagship willy-waving contest, there are plenty of i5s and i7s that compete well with AM5 at more sensible power levels.
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#166
AusWolf
londisteIt is confusing. On one hand due to the dynamic nature of clock speeds today "stock" is everything you listed and more. Clocks, turbo clocks, power limits, voltages, temperatures. This applies in the same way to Intel, AMD and other manufacturers of CPUs, SoCs and GPUs. Once you remove some limit the behaviour and result will be different.

And then there are all the shenanigans about how things are defined in spec and/or marketed.
That's a real problem if you think about reviews. How do you review a CPU? You could say that it's super efficient and super cool because you run it in X motherboard, then I'll buy it, put it into Y motherboard, and conclude that it's a steaming garbage pile only because that board overvolts it like crazy, or has power limits disabled by default (which is something that reviews claim, but I've never seen it happen).
Chrispy_What Intel is doing with 14th gen reminds me very much of the darkest days of AMD with the end of the old Bulldozer-series architecture that couldn't compete with Intel; The AMD FX-9590, a 5GHz Bulldozer (Vishera) CPU with an almost-uncoolable 220W back in the day. If you can't compete on architecture, just overclock the absolute living shit out of it and don't worry if no motherboards exist yet that can deliver 220W to the socket, Asus and Asrock will make special models for your turd of a CPU because there's always a market for fanboys who buy the company flagship no matter how bad it is!

At least competition is closer this time around; 14th gen isn't as bad as Bulldozer ever was, and if you ignore the flagship willy-waving contest, there are plenty of i5s and i7s that compete well with AM5 at more sensible power levels.
Well said, sir! :toast:

I'm sick of all this flagship mania, honestly. Why doesn't everybody just buy the part they actually need instead of overspending on marketing crap?
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#167
Chrispy_
AusWolfThat's a real problem if you think about reviews. How do you review a CPU? You could say that it's super efficient and super cool because you run it in X motherboard, then I'll buy it, put it into Y motherboard, and conclude that it's a steaming garbage pile only because that board overvolts it like crazy, or has power limits disabled by default (which is something that reviews claim, but I've never seen it happen).


Well said, sir! :toast:

I'm sick of all this flagship mania, honestly. Why doesn't everybody just buy the part they actually need instead of overspending on marketing crap?
Flagship mania is a problem because manufacturers know they can sell them for absolutely bonkers profit magins, and push their flagship agenda to the press by supplying a disproportionate amount of flagship review samples.

The midrange stuff that 95% of the market will end up purchasing is barely covered, and half of the channels have to buy their own samples because they don't get given them to review. I enjoy watching Formula1 but I don't want to buy an F1 car for my commute, so as much as enjoy reading/watching some articles on the F1 cars and their development, what I really care about for myself is reviews of sensible cars that I can drive on normal roads in normal traffic.
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#168
chrcoluk
Pretty much this, flagships exist for two reasons, the rep of the products kind of moves down the stack, and those who want the best will pay the extreme prices.

For reviews, I think the whole package needs to be considered.

So if e.g. a CPU throttles on a review, because mainstream coolers cant cool it, then the reviewer should be posting the throttled results as the performance of the CPU, not doing things like raising tjmax out of spec to get a better bench score. I had a disagreement with w1zzard on this when he posted his 14900k review.

I also think bios's that ship with out of spec defaults should either be omitted from a review as a form of punishment for shenanigans or reviewed with manual settings that comply with intel/amd's spec sheet. But this requires potentially wrecking a PR relationship with the vendor which a reviewer might not want to do.

The problem with assisted (out of spec) reviews, it only further encourages the vendor to keep shipping these type of products and its misleading.
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#169
Chrispy_
chrcolukSo if e.g. a CPU throttles on a review, because mainstream coolers cant cool it, then the reviewer should be posting the throttled results as the performance of the CPU, not doing things like raising tjmax out of spec to get a better bench score. I had a disagreement with w1zzard on this when he posted his 14900k review.
On this point I think I side with W1zzard. You'd just buy an H-series board and i9-14900 if you intend to operate at the stock power limits - why spend extra on the high-end z-series board, and the K-series SKU tax if you're not going to overclock? They're overclocking-focused parts by design so not overclocking them is a failure to review them properly.

It's just an opinion and there's no right or wrong answer, but that's what I'd do.
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#170
BoggledBeagle
I am not sure if you guys are not overthinking it, if Intel can make say 300 14900KS CPUs a month due to the very high silicon quality needed, they will price it so that they are not getting a lot of people frustrated because they would like to buy the product but they cannot find it. They price it so that the demand and supply roughly matches.

This product is not just a branding thing, it needs to have REAL PHYSICAL PARAMETERS to qualify to be able to be sold.
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#171
Unregistered
absoluteUniti’m sending out prayers for all those who are too senile to notice frame drops
you are an idiot and a child.
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#172
chrcoluk
Chrispy_On this point I think I side with W1zzard. You'd just buy an H-series board and i9-14900 if you intend to operate at the stock power limits - why spend extra on the high-end z-series board, and the K-series SKU tax if you're not going to overclock? They're overclocking-focused parts by design so not overclocking them is a failure to review them properly.

It's just an opinion and there's no right or wrong answer, but that's what I'd do.
Ok I am not saying there should be no overclocking

But if you consider undervolting is its own article, then the review would probably be three things.

1 - The core product sold as is, this runs at spec, and if things dont quite work at spec, then tough luck intel, thats reflected in the review results such as e.g. if the CPU cant be kept under tjmax and is throttling. (you might only buy this chip to o/c but it doesnt mean everyone else will, everyone I know who used to overclock never does now as an example but they still buy overclocking SKUs).
2 - Overclocked. Spec out of the window.
3 - Undervolting. Spec out of the window.

So yeah keep all the content including overclocking there, its just that the core part of reviews could be tweaked. tjmax also is not just a spec'd performance or efficiency parameter, its a safety parameter.
Posted on Reply
#173
lexluthermiester
AusWolfWe really have to define what "stock" is.
Simple. Defaults. Default Clocks/Boosts, default power limits, default everything.
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#174
AusWolf
chrcoluktjmax also is not just a spec'd performance or efficiency parameter, its a safety parameter.
Exactly! I remember this argument during the Zen 4 launch when AMD said that running it at 95 °C is fine, which some people misinterpreted as "the CPU boosts to 95 °C by design". No, it does freaking not. It only does if your cooling is inadequate to handle its power limit or voltage-frequency curve... said by someone who owns a 7800X3D that never goes above 82 °C under full load with PBO enabled.
lexluthermiesterSimple. Defaults. Default Clocks/Boosts, default power limits, default everything.
Default by Intel, or default by the motherboard?
Posted on Reply
#175
marios15
Not sure if it's a troll or a kid(absoluteUnit), but I doubt anyone interested will be running this at stock settings, unless he has no idea how to tweak a system
Sounds like the kind of person that buys the most expensive MB/CPU/RAM, loads the XMP profile and then going into forums to show how "good" he is, unaware of what it actually looks like.

In a serious note, this is a product that exists for 2 reasons:
  1. performance crown
  2. overclockers
You can easily run the 14900KS at whatever power you want. It might actually be a high-leakage chip that's better suited for high clocks/high voltages and having worse power efficiency at low power.
We are flooded with BIOS options you can adjust to your use-case, be it high 1T boosts, 24/7 efficiency or anything else you want to target

So if you are getting frame drops on modern Intel or AMD platforms in games that reach >200fps, you clearly have a lack of knowledge and should read some guides or buy a locked CPU, it will save you money.

The kid/troll does have a point though, AMD's turbo implementation requires a few extra steps to make it "compatible" for older game engines

It's too depressing that every youtuber that calls themselves "experts" these days is just enabling a setting in the BIOS and nobody bothers to ask some pro overclockers for help with tweaking of settings (not talking about RAM timings) like power-savings/c-states/Windows tweaking even BCLK overclocks which would be even more interesting to see.
Some settings can give you serious responsiveness improvements in games

At least popular youtubers should put some effort, since motherboard vendors would definitely sponsor for showcasing their expensive external clock generator motherboards.

LTT and GN specifically could run a parallel project where they do this, they have the money, time and personnel to spare.
What's the point of showing us the i3 or ryzen 3 on a 500$ motherboard. At least der8auer and buildzoid release interesting findings to a degree, even for older platforms.
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