Intel Unveils 14th-gen 'Raptor Lake Refresh' CPUs With Speeds Up To 6GHz (pcworld.com) 36
Intel's latest 14th-gen Core desktop processors, "Raptor Lake Refresh," do away with the AI NPU and complex tiling system inside the recent 14th-gen "Meteor Lake" mobile chips. But AI is being used here, specifically to assist what gamers care about: improving game performance and CPU clock speeds. From a report: As expected, Intel's "refreshed" Raptor Lake chips offer modest performance improvements over their predecessors, while ushering in eventual platform upgrades like Thunderbolt 5. But there are boosts, such as a tweaked Intel 7 process that pushes turbo clock speeds up to 6GHz with the new Core i9-14900K and a new "Application Performance Optimization (APO)" feature that appears to optimize the CPU for a particular game.
But -- and this is important, given inflation -- Intel is holding pricing (almost) steady. Prices in Intel's 14th-gen Core desktop S-series line will range from $589 for the 24-core, 32-thread Core i9-14900K down to the $294 14-core, 20-thread Core i5-1400KF, for a total of six new processors. This is the third straight generation in which Intel has left its processor prices virtually unchanged, including the 13th-gen Raptor Lake and the 12th-gen Alder Lake chip, whose slowest chip was priced at $264. Perhaps not surprisingly, Intel's not offering many direct generation-over-generation comparisons with its own processors, though it selected a few content-creation benchmarks to highlight with its Core i7-14700K. There, performance improvements range from 3 percent (Adobe Lightroom) to 18 percent (Autodesk). According to Roger Chandler, vice president and general manager of Intel's enthusiast PC and workstation business, the Core i7 features the best multithreaded performance on a Core i7 ever. Intel executives said the chipmaker had about 130 partners and customers for the 13th-gen launch, and expect the same for the debut of the 14th-gen Raptor Lake Refresh chips.
But -- and this is important, given inflation -- Intel is holding pricing (almost) steady. Prices in Intel's 14th-gen Core desktop S-series line will range from $589 for the 24-core, 32-thread Core i9-14900K down to the $294 14-core, 20-thread Core i5-1400KF, for a total of six new processors. This is the third straight generation in which Intel has left its processor prices virtually unchanged, including the 13th-gen Raptor Lake and the 12th-gen Alder Lake chip, whose slowest chip was priced at $264. Perhaps not surprisingly, Intel's not offering many direct generation-over-generation comparisons with its own processors, though it selected a few content-creation benchmarks to highlight with its Core i7-14700K. There, performance improvements range from 3 percent (Adobe Lightroom) to 18 percent (Autodesk). According to Roger Chandler, vice president and general manager of Intel's enthusiast PC and workstation business, the Core i7 features the best multithreaded performance on a Core i7 ever. Intel executives said the chipmaker had about 130 partners and customers for the 13th-gen launch, and expect the same for the debut of the 14th-gen Raptor Lake Refresh chips.
Wonder what the power numbers will be like.. (Score:4, Informative)
While they have been ahead of AMD in possible performance, it has come at a huge cost in terms of power consumption.
It doesn't help that the article only mentions 'base power' metric which tells you nothing. It just says the processor "can use up to 125W of power or more!". I did a little searching but didn't find anything specifying the "real" power numbers.
A 125W 13th gen intel cpu could easily use 250W, and generally that's the figure when thinking about their marketing benchmarks.
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Probably pretty bad, just like 13th gen. Simply because it's going to be just a refresh of it.
AMD on the other hand is going to have all the compatibility fun of having biglittle architecture for a chip for the first time. Remember all the scheduler related work that Intel had to do over the course of trying to get 12th gen to work even half way properly for first few months after release? AMD has a much worse track record than Intel when it comes to the software side of CPU business. It's the hardware side
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The scheduling problems were in Windows. Microsoft made Windows recognize the "weak" cores. It's likely automatic to sense the AMD versions that will come out. If not, I expect the update will be out before/at the CPU release.
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Just like you'd expect it to be at Intel's release. Except it wasn't. And it wasn't just Microsoft but all operating systems. Linux had all the same shit. It's just that Linux on desktop doesn't really exist, so you never heard about it.
So it wasn't "microsoft" fixing it. It was Intel fixing it, and then letting Microsoft know that they need to push this kind of patch into their OS. At which point Microsoft had to push the patch, and then optimize it for their specific OS. At which point each software vendo
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Has there been anything to suggest AMD is doing big.little?
The upcoming AMD APU chips have a smaller cache on some cores, but that's the only difference. That shouldn't be that different than the already existing 3D cache chips that only use the 3D cache on half the cores. Their executives have been pretty vocal that they think having different architectures on different cores is a bad idea.
I can see the value of a big.little design when you've got low core counts and you're on something like a phone. I can
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Yes. AMD has revealed relevant patents back in 2020 and 2021 and it's been all but confirmed that this is happening in the next gen of AMD processors with massive amount of leaks.
The question isn't "is it just cache", it's "how much slower they'll be in total" as they'll probably be at least running on lower clocks compared to full power cores if not be actually smaller and less capable as was Intel's approach. Details aren't yet out, as they haven't been officially announced yet. That is expected in 2024.
Re:Wonder what the power numbers will be like.. (Score:5, Interesting)
13900K, watercooled, with bending corrector (that aluminium gizmo that replaces the default clip), eats up 292W in benchmarks. All P-Corest stable at 5.6 GHz. Of course, two cores sit at 5.8 GHz while idling (WTF for???).
MSI Z790 Max has a UEFI update which implements "CPU Fast Throttle Threshold" - set to... 115 degrees Celsius (only applicable to 14th gen CPUs).
(https://videocardz.com/newz/msi-z790-max-bios-feature-increases-intel-cpu-throttling-temperature-to-115c)
Whoopsie.
The higher the temperatures, the greater the power consumption - I wouldn't be surprised to see 350W power consumption in benchmarks.
At any rate, this release falls nicely with my plans, I am in the process of completely upgrading my current PC, which bluescreens a couple times a day. It served me well since 2016, but it's now time for it to be repurposed. As such, I am buying parts one by one, spending no more than $1K per month. October brought me the motherboard (GIGABYTE Z790 AORUS MASTER), the PSU (Corsair RMx Shift Series RM1000x) and the case (Fractal Design Define 7 Compact). November will probably add the CPU (14900K) and maybe RAM.
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It certainly is falls within my plan to replace my furnace with a Beowulf cluster of CPUs.
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Of course, two cores sit at 5.8 GHz while idling (WTF for???)
It's not while idling, but while the threaded workload is limited to 1-2 cores. Games have been the workload that traditionally benefits from the higher clock speeds at single/double core. It used to mean more, but modern software design is to leverage multiple threads. Games that don't, likely also don't need to leverage the extra 200mhz. Now, it's just "big number bigger" for marketing.
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It's alsowhile idling, checked with HWInfo64.
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Cue up the slashdot bitching (Score:1)
Why does anyone need 24 cores in a desktop?
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Solidworks and other CPU-hungry modeling and simulation software.
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Cuz they aren't real coarz.
Re:Cue up the slashdot bitching (Score:5, Funny)
Why does anyone need 24 cores in a desktop?
I can't be the only one running more than 4 Chrome tabs with javascript enabled.
Re: Cue up the slashdot bitching (Score:1)
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Why does anyone need 24 cores in a desktop?
It's really 8 cores. The rest are slower less capable imitations.
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Ever try compiling a large code base? Compile times scale nearly linearly with core count, so I'll gladly take more cores.
Re: Cue up the slashdot bitching (Score:1)
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IME? (Score:2)
Is Intel Management Engine still mandatory in their chipset?
Pricing isn't too bad but IME is a hard out.
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You going with AMD instead? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
6 GHz?! (Score:3, Funny)
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6 GHz is about 2 light-inches. That is, light travels about 2 inches in one clock cycle.
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"Up to"... (Score:2)
Re: "Up to"... (Score:1)
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And can maintain the clock at 6GHz for 5 seconds before trottling down to 3GHz or lower.
What I've noticed on a recent 200 watt CPU with intel defaults if you only keep a core or two busy there is enough current available to maintain the clock boost forever. It will just keep switching between cores. When you load up more cores you can kiss your multi-GHz boost goodbye due to enforced current limits even if thermals were a non-issue.
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They've finally done it! (Score:4, Insightful)