Raptor Lake Refresh Core i9-14900KF Underwhelms in Early PassMark Test
The 14900KF is slow in PassMark's multi-core benchmark
Intel's upcoming Core i9-14900KF flagship has made an appearance in PassMark, enabling us to see what the chip can do in benchmarks other than Cinebench or Geekbench. Sadly though, the 14900KF's performance in PassMark is not great, with the chip being beaten by both the i9-13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X in the multi-threaded benchmark test.
In the single-core test, the i9-14900KF came out on top of everything, dominating both the 13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X with a score of 4939 points. With this score, the 14900K was 5.5% quicker than the 13900K and 12.6% faster than the 7950X. Then against the older Core i9-12900K, it was 15% quicker.
But, that's where the i9-14900KF's dominance comes to an end — at least in this benchmark run specifically. The 14900KF doesn't make up any ground against its predecessor or against the 7950X. Against the i9-13900K, the 14900KF was nearly evenly matched, outputting a score that was 0.6% slower than the Raptor Lake counterpart. But against the Ryzen 9 7950X, the 14900KF took a more noteworthy loss, being 6.7% slower than its AMD rival. The only serious win the 14900KF was able to achieve was against its older 12900K predecessor which was 30% slower than the Raptor Lake Refresh flagship.
| CPUs | Single Core | Multi Core | Percentage Difference - Single Core | Percentage Difference - Multi Core |
| Core i9-14900KF | 4,939 | 59,384 | 0.00% Baseline | 0.00% Baseline |
| Core i9-13900K | 4,666 | 59,760 | 5.5% Slower | 0.6% Faster |
| Ryzen 9 7950X | 4,316 | 63,383 | 12.6% Slower | 6.7% Faster |
| Core i9-12900K | 4,196 | 41,474 | 15% Slower | 30% Slower |
The i9-14900KF's loss in the multi-threaded benchmark is something that we haven't seen in other benchmarks. In Geekbench 6 the 14900KF was able to outperform its predecessors and the 7950X3D by 8% - 17.2% in both single and multi-core benchmark runs. But PassMark isn't exactly known to be a super accurate CPU benchmarking tool, and the 14900KF listing actually includes a "High" margin of error rating, so definitely take this new benchmarking data with a pinch of salt.
The Core i9-14900KF is part of Intel's upcoming Raptor Lake Refresh CPU lineup rumored to arrive next month on October 17th. As the name suggests, the new chips are merely a refresh over Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPU architecture, featuring slightly faster core clocks and more E-cores on one of the i7 models. Prices on Raptor Lake Refresh chips are also reported to be 15% more expensive than their Raptor Lake counterparts.
It'll be interesting to see how these new Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs fair in our reviews that will come out when Raptor Lake Refresh officially launches. Hopefully, we'll be seeing performance figures closer to what Geekbench 6 reports and not what PassMark is suggesting.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.
-
eye4bear Looks like I can put my wallet back away... for awhile at least. Plus, seems like Intel has grown a larger pair if they are going to charge 15% more for these.Reply -
ingtar33 they got 5-15% more performance out of the same chip by overclocking it an extra 5-15%. amazing. i wonder how much power these things will guzzle. the last one they released was sucking down like 250-300w...Reply -
Greg7579 I'm waiting a month to build for this thing. Why not? Probably not necessary, but so what. At least I can claim 14th Gen! LOL. The smart thing would be to wait 10 months for the generational change in Arrow Lake, bit I don't want to wait ten months to build a top-end rig. But I know I'm building on the tail-end of a major generation.Reply -
jaquith Did anybody bother the check to make certain this is not an ES sample?? More than likely it is an ES sample. Most ES samples are down-clocked, buggy, unoptimized and often 'nerfed' with functions disabled. When you have a retail sample in hand let me know...Reply -
geofelt The report title refers to the multithreaded passmark test.Reply
That is relevant to batch apps and multithreaded work.
For the single thread test which most gamers will find relevant, the report states that the 14900K came out on top of everything.
Take your pick. -
mwm2010 Im just gonna say this now- the box for the 14900K looks so cool. Other than that, it isn't worth it.Reply -
plusev Reply
It's worth it for those rocking anything from 10th gen and older. Lots of people are in that boat, including myself. If you're "upgrading" platforms every 1-2 years, you're doing it wrong anyway.mwm2010 said:Im just gonna say this now- the box for the 14900K looks so cool. Other than that, it isn't worth it. -
artk2219 Reply
Correct, it means you should have been using AM4 or AM5 and upgrading your platform every 5 to 7 years.plusev said:It's worth it for those rocking anything from 10th gen and older. Lots of people are in that boat, including myself. If you're "upgrading" platforms every 1-2 years, you're doing it wrong anyway. -
plusev Reply
AMD's platforms are pretty much plug-and-play, with virtually no overclocking potential. For somebody who likes to tinker, that's no bueno. Then there's system stability issues, so once again, a major issue. Not gonna hate, just stating facts...artk2219 said:Correct, it means you should have been using AM4 or AM5 and upgrading your platform every 5 to 7 years.