Reviews

i9-14900K vs i9-13900K

Since the 14th gen is a “refresh” there were no significant changes from previous generation. The i9-14900K uses the same CPU socket as the one used in the 13th gen so you don’t need to buy a new motherboard if you already have a 13th gen CPU. It also has the same: architecture, number of CPU cores, amount of cache, integrated graphics processor and memory controller.

The most notable difference is the increase of the base clock speed from 3GHz to 3.2GHz and the boost clock speed from 5.8GHz to 6GHz. I was hoping to see an improvement in power consumption and heat generation but that didn’t happen. According to the reviewers I checked (links down below), the i9-14900K is still as power-hungry as the i9-13900K, if not more, and it isn’t that efficient either. As for heat generation, Intel recommends a 360mm water cooler to get the most out of this CPU, so that definitely has to be considered.

These numbers suggest, that the i9-14900K and the i9-13900K are both identical in terms of performance which is correct and proved by the numbers that we will discuss later in this post.

How Did The i9-14900K Perform in Gaming Benchmarks?

Boosting L3 cache does come with its benefits in gaming which is why we saw great performance from AMD X3D CPUs compared to Intel’s 14th gen or AMD’s non-X3D CPUs.

At 1080p, according to tom’s hardware, in Watch Dogs Legion the Ryzen 9 7900X3D outperformed the i9-14900K by 9%. That number even increased to 20% when comparing the i9-14900K with the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. That isn’t the only interesting thing in this chart, we can also see that the i9-14900K outperforms its predecessor the i9-13900K by only 0.12%. Additionally, the i7-14700K is only 3% slower in this game than the i9-14900K while costing $174 less at the time of writing which is something that should be taken into consideration.

At 1080p, tom’s hardware benchmark shows that Intel got competitive with AMD in F1 2023. However, I think that the numbers are too close which might indicate a bottleneck on tom’s hardware end. Especially since gamer nexus was able to get more spread-out numbers when he was testing for the same game.

And after looking at a lot of charts it’s safe to say that AMD’s X3D lineup is dominating in most games. However, not all games benefit from the extra L3 cache provided by AMD’s X3D in the same way, so there are games where Intel performs in a similar or even better way than AMD.

If you are planning to get a gaming setup, you might want to consider an X3D chip as they are excellent in gaming. But, if you plan on doing some productivity stuff like video editing then you have to stay away from X3D as there are better alternatives. A good all-rounder, is Intel’s i9-13900K since it’s cheaper (and more likely to be on sale) than its new 14th gen variant. Also it’s worth considering the i7-14700K as it provides good performance while being $174 less than the i9-14900K.

How Did The i9-14900K Perform in Productivity Benchmarks?

When we talk about “productivity” we mean a lot of things, productivity can be video editing, compressing, decompressing, rendering, etc. As a result of having a lot of factors that decide performance, we see the i9-14900K trading blows with the Ryzen 9 7950X. In general, Intel seems to be better when it comes to single-threaded work while AMD is better with multi-threaded work.

Now one may ask why did we mention the Ryzen 9 7950X here instead of the Ryzen 7800X3D for example? While X3D Ryzen CPUs are amazing in gaming, they aren’t that good in productivity workloads compared to Ryzen non-X3D CPUs.

Conclusion

• 14th gen is the same as 13th gen.
• When it comes to gaming, Ryzen 7800X3D is simply the best and it showed consistancy in many benchmarks.
• Also it’s worth mentioning that a GPU upgrade is way important than a CPU upgrade for gaming.
• When it comes to productivity workload, there are a lot of good options. I would recommend picking something that is on sale.
• Overall, Intel CPUs are pretty good for both gaming and productivity. A good option would be the i9-13900K when it goes on sale. An interesting option is the i7-14700K which performs close to the i9-13900K (and i9-14900K) while costing $174 less.

In my research I used many sources which are linked below:
Tom’s Hardware
Gamers Nexus
Hardware Unboxed
PCMag