Intel Core i5-14600K in detail
In the Raptor Lake Refresh generation, Intel has gone a bit harder and increased the clock speeds in the Core i5 class. This has led to higher application and gaming performance, but by pushing the manufacturing process to its limits, power draw has naturally increased, and with it comes poorer efficiency. The latter may not be that important for someone and the main thing is that the processor can be comfortably operated even with a “normal” cooler.
Conclusion
The Core i5-14600K processor vehemently tries to catch up to the 16-core Ryzen 7 5950X in Cinebench multithreaded tests (the latter has a lead of only 5%). But it comes at the cost of 46% higher power draw, so the efficiency of the Intel processor is significantly lower. By pushing for higher clock speeds on the same chip, efficiency also dropped between generations, by about 11 %. But the absolute performance is higher, and the Core i5-14600K with its power draw still belongs among CPUs that can be cooled by a mid-range cooler at an average noise level. The temperature will then be between 80–90 °C. If the CPU core temperatures are in this range, the maximum clock speeds hold steady, which means 5.3GHz on all cores even under very high load.
Single-threaded performance is also top-notch, especially for this class. Compared to Ci5-13600K, the increase is 4–5%. But again, this comes at the cost of higher power draw, which rises faster and makes the Ci5-14600K a less efficient processor, But at a power draw of around 40W it’s not that big of a deal. Unlike AMD processors, this high ST performance can be achieved even with a cheaper cooler with lower thermal performance. While the temperature of a Ryzen 7000 with comparable ST performance (R7 7700X) is, even with a more powerful cooler, just shy of 70 °C, from which SC boost clock speeds drop, the Ci5-14600K is safely below 60 °C.
You will benefit from the high single-threaded performance especially when working in a web environment or simple office tasks, where this processor is very agile, as indicated by the leading rankings in Octane 2.0 subtests (processing of typical web environment tasks) or PCMark (representation of office applications). The 14600K is also faster than equivalent AMD processors for video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve (Studio). In Adobe After Effets or in Photoshop, the CPUs that usually do better are the Ryzen 5 (7600X) and 7 (7700X). Intel is also pulling the short end of the stick in Topaz Labs’ AI photo restoration apps. There, Ryzen 7000s benefit from VNNI instruction support.
When it comes to photo editing, the Core i5-14600K takes the initiative only in Adobe Lightroom (export and preview of uncompressed photos). In tested physics simulations, Intel often has the edge, and in mathematical calculations, the rival AMD processor is usually in the lead. (De)compression and (de)encryption are fairly even in terms of comparing the Ci5-14600K to the R7 7700X. The Ryzen (5 7600X) with significantly fewer cores is weaker.
The gaming performance of the Core i5-14600K is also elite. For example, in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, only the Ryzen 7 7800X3D is measurably better of the processors tested so far and this Intel processor is also close behind the more powerful Ryzen 7000 models in Borderlands 3, v DOOM Eternal, v F1 2020, v Metro Exodus or v Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The Core i5-14600K is on the heels of the R7 7800X3D also in MS Flight Simulator, in which, admittedly, we don’t have a great comparison, but even from that, we can see that the leap away from the Ryzen 7 5900X is huge here. And Raptor Lake Refresh has a significant edge here even at higher and high resolutions (in UHD/2160p it’s still +22%).
And don’t forget what we wrote at the beginning of this article – APO. Intel Application Optimization will also push these processors a bit in selected cases as part of tuning for best performance. Sure, the lower to relatively low power efficiency of the Core i5-14600K is a thorn in the side, but you can get a more attractive price/performance ratio than choosing an AMD platform for many situations. Especially since Raptor Lake Refresh still supports cheaper DDR4 memory, which you won’t lose much performance with (compared to faster and more expensive DDR5). Thus, the Core i5-14600K is in many ways a different enough processor than the Ryzen 5 7600X or Ryzen 7 7700X for its pluses to outweigh it for customers. But they also, of course, don’t have to.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
| Intel Core i5-14600K |
| + As many as 14 cores and 20 threads |
| + Significantly higher multi-threaded performance compared to the R5 7600X |
| + Top-notch gaming performance |
| + ... and also top-notch single-threaded performance |
| + Compared to the Ci5-13600K, higher single-threaded performance already at around Ryzen 5 7600X level |
| + Very high performance per clock (IPC) |
| + APO support, which only applies to Raptor Lake Refresh processors |
| + Efficient heat dissipation compared to the competition, even a cheaper cooler is enough for quiet operation |
| + Modern 7nm manufacturing node |
| - Weaker efficiency compared to Raptor Lake (Ci5-13600K) |
| - Weaker price/performance ratio for a mid-range product |
| Approximate retail price: 319 EUR |
We are grateful to Datacomp e-shop for cooperation in providing the tested hardware
Special thanks also to Blackmagic Design (for DaVinci Resolve Studio license), Topaz Labs (for DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI licenses) and Zoner (for Photo Studio X license)
- Contents
- Intel Core i5-14600K in detail
- Methodology: performance tests
- Methodology: how we measure power draw
- Methodology: temperature and clock speed tests
- Test setup
- 3DMark
- Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
- Borderlands 3
- Counter-Strike: GO
- Cyberpunk 2077
- DOOM Eternal
- F1 2020
- Metro Exodus
- Microsoft Flight Simulator
- Shadow of the Tomb Raider
- Total War Saga: Troy
- Overall gaming performance
- Gaming performance per euro
- PCMark and Geekbench
- Web performance
- 3D rendering: Cinebench, Blender, ...
- Video 1/2: Adobe Premiere Pro
- Video 2/2: DaVinci Resolve Studio
- Graphics effects: Adobe After Effects
- Video encoding
- Audio encoding
- Broadcasting (OBS and Xsplit)
- Photos 1/2: Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom
- Photos 2/2: Affinity Photo, Topaz Labs AI Apps, ZPS X, ...
- (De)compression
- (De)encryption
- Numerical computing
- Simulations
- Memory and cache tests
- Processor power draw curve
- Average processor power draw
- Performance per watt
- Achieved CPU clock speed
- CPU temperature
- Conclusion
What’s up with the power draw curves (page 35)? 14600k is nowhere to be seen there… But it is interesting that both i5-x400 draw pretty much exactly the same power, despite 13600 having 4 e-cores.
The line graphs in chapter 35 are correct for the Core i5-14600K. Thanks for the heads up! Originally we forgot to rewrite the path, but they are always there in the editorial system. They can be found at processor-name-g342 to g346. The whole link looks like this: https://www.hwcooling.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/intel-core-i5-14600k-g342.png Of course we will try to get the charts to display correctly in the article, but if you see different ones there, you know about this system. 🙂
When testing the modern powerful CPUs, we run into the problem that it basically pulls all the power it can. So testing is also quite a bit about how much power are we willing to deliver, and how much heat are we able to remove.
Looking at the Cinebench 23MT figure: 14600k lags r7900x by ~10% there. Hence its performance is comparable to 7900 (non-x), or equivalently, 7900x capped at 90W. You do not show 7900 on this graph, but there are other test sites that report its performance being 5-10% below that of the 7900x. But importantly, Ryzen 7900 only pulls half of the power of 14600k.
I would like to understand if intel is actually less power efficient than ryzen. Would it be possible to test 14600k capped to 90W as well? I’d guess it is actually rather similar to ryzen in such a setup, with multi-threaded performance falling somewhere between 7700 and 7900, but I have never seen a test.
The efficiency of equivalent processors when tuned for comparable power draw is very similar. Note in our motherboard tests the comparison of the Core i9-13900K with the R9 7950X with power limits (with Intel’s PL2 at 125 W/”IPL” and AMD’s TDP at 105 W/”AMD Eco”) in a 10-minute pass of Cinebench R23. Sure, it’s not a completely equivalent situation if only because of the short Tau time interval used for Intel from the start with PL2 at 253 W and AMD’s 105-watt TPD means a PPT constant of 142 W, but in the end, the calculated performance per watt is very similar when you divide the CB R23 score by the average power draw of the entire test. Naturally, depending on the board (and its aggressiveness of power supply) it can always be a bit different and the results will also differ depending on the processor used, but after manual tuning all current AMD and Intel processors have the potential to achieve comparable efficiency. Of course, if we take into account the default settings, Intel achieves significantly lower efficiency than competitive AMD processors, but those do it with higher power draw, which isn’t emphasized that much with Ryzens. During gaming load, where all processors have marginal power draw (compared to the power draw at maximum performance), the efficiency across equivalent processors is also fairly even.
And the answer to the question if it would be possible to test the Ci5-14600K at 90 W. Some more extensive tests are certainly beyond our current time possibilities, but if only the result of one or two selected tests would be useful for you, then of course I can measure it. So if you let me know what would be of interest, by Wednesday of next week the latest. Then I will have to test Raptor Lake Refresh and switch to other topics again.