Intel's Core i9-14900T processor was "officially" released last month alongside an expanded population of "Raptor Lake Refresh" products—the T-class alternative to Team Blue's flagship desktop Core i9-14900 CPU is a less glamorous prospect, hence almost zero press coverage and tech reviews. Its apparent lack of visibility is not helped by non-existent availability at retail, despite inclusion in Team Blue's second wave of 14th Generation Core processors (Marketing Status = Launched). The Core i9-14900 (non-K) is readily obtainable around the globe, as a lower-power alternative to the ever greedy Core i9-14900K, but their T-class SKU sibling takes frugality to another level. TPU's resident CPU tester, W1zzard, implemented six distinct power limit settings during a i9-14900K supplemental experiment, with the lowest being 35 W—coincidentally, matching the i9-14900T's default base power.

His simulated findings were not encouraging, to say the least, but late last week BenchLeaks noticed that a lone test system had gauged the T-class part's efficiency-oriented processing prowess. Geekbench 6.2.2 results were generated by an ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4 build (with 64 GB of 5586 MT/s DDR5 SDRAM)—scoring 3019 in the overall single-core category, and 16385 in multi-core stakes. The latter score indicates a 22% performance penalty when referenced against Tom Hardware's Geekbenched i9-14900K sample. The publication reckons that these figures place Intel's Core i9-14900T CPU in good company—notably AMD's Ryzen 9 7900 processor, one of the company's trio of 65 W "non-X" SKUs. Last March, W1zzard was suitably impressed by his review sample's "fantastic energy efficiency"—the Geekbench 6 official scoreboard awards it 2823 (single-core) and 16750 (multi-core) based on aggregated data from multiple submissions.The Tom's Hardware analysis of the rival chips stated: "Though the Core i9-14900T has an overall performance advantage thanks to its single-core solid score, it would appear to have higher power consumption, uses a platform that won't receive new CPUs, and has an MSRP of $549 compared to the $400 that the Ryzen 9 7900 often goes for." The AMD processor is the better value proposition, and is widely available at retail outlets in the West—the article's conclusion notes that the Core i9-14900T SKU is not listed by any North American merchants.