Introduction

Intel 14th Gen Core desktop processors are here! You'll have to wait just a little longer for our comprehensive review of the top three parts, but for now, we are allowed to show you the processors from our media kit, in the flesh, and talk a little bit about what's under the hood. The 14th Gen Core processors are codenamed "Raptor Lake Refresh", which is exactly the way it sounds—these are based on the same silicon and microarchitecture as the 13th Gen Core from last year, but with slightly higher clock-speeds for each processor model over the 13th Gen part it's succeeding, a few additional features, and a CPU core-count uplift for the Core i7 part. We are also allowed to show the slides with the key features and their MSRP pricing, so read on.

Intel 14th Gen Core desktop processors gain significance as they are the final series of "Core i" processors in the nomenclature the company has been using since 2008's Core "Nehalem." With future generations of desktop processors, Intel is expected to switch to a new processor naming scheme that sees the introduction of the "Core" and "Core Ultra" brands, the doing away of Generation prefix, and making processor generations more implicit in the model numbers. This won't be a major departure from what we have now, but still marks the end of an era in PC hardware. These could also be the very last desktop processors by Intel based on a monolithic silicon. We made this comment back with the 13th Gen, when we saw Meteor Lake on the horizon, and were unaware that Intel was going to refresh Raptor Lake.



Above is what Intel's media kit for the 14th Gen Core Raptor Lake Refresh series looks like. We got a glossy cuboid box in Intel's favorite shade of blue, and portions of the Raptor Lake Refresh die printed. The acrylic memento with a credit card sized paper with a print-out of the Raptor Lake die was part of the 13th Gen Raptor Lake press kit—I've reused it—there's no changes to the physical die layout.

We have three processors from the lineup laid out on top—the Core i9-14900K flagship part, the Core i7-14700K high-end part, and the Core i5-14600K performance-segment part. It's important to note here, that only the i9-14900K and i5-14600K came included with Intel's media kit. We arranged an i7-14700K sample separately, and this is very much a retail part (not a pre-release ES). We will go into a substantial architecture deep-dive of Raptor Lake Refresh in our main reviews, which go live very soon.

Unboxing the Intel Media Kit

The Intel 14th Gen Core media kit, as we mentioned comes in a fancy box made of high quality paperboard, with glossy, reflective surfaces. This is not a retail package—you won't find it in the market. Intel's retail packaging for the 14th Gen Core, from what we've seen, is largely similar to that of the current 13th Gen Core, but with clear markings that these are from the 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh series.


The box lid is held in place by magnetic seals which open to reveal two smaller paperboard boxes, one with the Core i9-14900K, and the other with the i5-14600K. Under these is a giant hardboard picture of the Raptor Lake Refresh die, which creators can use as background props. As we mentioned in the previous page, we arranged our retail Core i7-14700K sample separately.


Inside these smaller paperboard boxes, the processors are found in their company-regulation jewel-case that protects the sensitive underside of the processor.


Intel 14th Gen Core Raptor Lake Refresh processors come in the existing LGA1700 package, and are fully compatible with Intel 600-series and 700-series chipset motherboards, albeit with UEFI firmware updates needed for some of the older motherboard models in the market. Nearly every motherboard manufacturer is releasing new Intel 700-series chipset motherboard models that come with drop-in support for 14th Gen Core processors, and a handful new features, such as Wi-Fi 7 (5 Gig).

ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero

ASUS kindly provided us an ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero, an enthusiast-segment Socket LGA1700 motherboard that comes with out of the box support for 14th Gen Core desktop processors (besides 13th Gen and 12th Gen); and a plethora of new features, including some designed to take advantage of certain new features being introduced with these processors, which we'll talk about in our main reviews of these processors.


The ROG Maximus Z790 Dark Hero comes with a refreshed CPU VRM that uses 20+1+2 phase power stages, with a dual 8-pin power input. This VRM is designed to maximize the overclocking headroom of even the top Core i9-14900K part, which ASUS has extensively tested and validated the board with.

The Socket LGA1700 is wired to four DDR5 DIMM slots, supporting a maximum of 192 GB of memory, with generational improvements in memory speeds (which you'll learn more about in our main reviews); one CPU-attached M.2-22110 NVMe slot with PCI-Express 5.0 x4 wiring, four M.2-2280 slots with Gen 4 wiring, two PCI-Express 5.0 x16 slots (x16/NC, or x8/x8, or x8/NC if the Gen 5 M.2 slot is used).