Intel has leaked some of its own marketing bumph pertaining to incoming next-gen desktop processors, Raptor Lake Refresh, giving us details on specs for some key models.
The material comes from Intel Japan, as discovered by VideoCardz, and these would represent the official specs (assuming, naturally, that the tech site hasn’t been duped somehow and these are fakes – though that seems unlikely, and they’d be elaborate ones, for sure).
Intel’s spilled slides show a trio of 14th-gen CPUs without naming them, but it’s obvious enough which processors they correspond with – and they align fully with previously leaked specs on the rumor mill.
The models are simply referred to as Core i9, Core i7 and Core i5. The Core-i9 is shown with 24 cores (8 performance, 16 efficiency) and a boost of up to 6GHz, and this is the flagship 14900K, of course.
The Core i7 is the 14700K, shown with 20 cores (8 performance, 12 efficiency) and a top boost speed of 5.6GHz. Finally, the Core i5 corresponds to the 14600K with 14 cores (6 performance, 8 efficiency) and a 5.3GHz boost.
Analysis: All the leaks are coming together now
We’ve seen a lot of leakage around the Core i5-14600K of late, and the 5.3GHz boost speed was rumored in those reports – it’s a solid 200MHz step up from the 13600K, of course. Performance rumors around the 14600K make this chip look like one to watch, as we discussed earlier this week.
The other Raptor Lake Refresh CPU making waves as a potentially tempting upgrade is a second processor mentioned here, namely the 14700K. This is the only one to up the core count from its Raptor Lake predecessor, according to very persistent rumors, and indeed the spec from the Intel slide confirms (caveats around possible fabrication aside) the purported 20-core loadout, with an extra four efficiency cores.
While those are the chips that have generated much of the excitement thus far – along with Raptor Lake Refresh’s overclocking potential, which looks robust – the 14900K also has more pep in its step thanks to that 6GHz boost speed. It’s the first time that model has reached this level (the 13900K featured a boost up to 5.8GHz, so again, the Raptor Lake Refresh successor is 200MHz faster, and that’ll be the uplift across most of these processors, rumor has it).
The other point to bear in mind here is that presentation materials like this tend to leak out when a launch is imminent, plus we’ve seen spillage of retail boxes recently too, all of which backs up the strong rumor that Intel is about to release Raptor Lake Refresh. The theory is an October 16 reveal followed by the 14th-gen desktop processors going on sale the next day.
Pricing will of course be a major factor as to how well these key models perform in challenging for a place on our list of the best processors. We remain cautiously hopeful on that front.
