Although Intel's 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh, some of the best CPUs, hit the desktop first, it's making its way to laptops shortly, as indicated by a leaked benchmark of the Core i9-14900HX (via Benchleaks). This Geekbench 6 test was run on what appears to be an unreleased model of the Predator Helios 16, and although the performance is good, it's not that much better than what you could get with the same laptop using a Core i9-13900HX.
Geekbench 6 gave the Core i9-14900HX a single-core score of 2,998 and a multi-core score of 17,937, and it also confirms it has an 8+16 P/E-core configuration and a 5.6 GHz boost clock. The Core i9-14900HX couldn't keep up with our sample of the desktop 14900K, which scored 3,186 in single-core and 20,961 in multi-core. This contrasts a leaked benchmark of the Core i7-14700HX, which showed the same performance as the Core i7-14700K.
Core i9-14900HX Specifications*
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Core i9-14900HX | Core i9-13900HX | Core i9-14900K | Core i7-14700HX |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cores (P+E) | 8+16 | 8+16 | 8+16 | 8+12 |
| Boost Frequency | 5.6 GHz | 5.4 GHz | 6 GHz | 5.3 GHz |
| Cache (L3+L2) | 36MB+32MB | 36MB+32MB | 36MB+32MB | 33MB+28MB |
| Max TDP | 157W | 157W | 253W | 157W |
| Geekbench 6 Single-Core Score | 2,998 | 2,900 | 3,186 | 2,921 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi-Core Score | 17,937 | 17,616 | 20,961 | 17,475 |
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
There are also seemingly few performance gains over the Core i9-13900HX, which has been tested extensively on Geekbench 6. Using the search function, we sifted through all the Acer's Predator Helios 16 results with the Core i9-13900HX, and the fastest single-core score we could find was 2,900, and the fastest multi-core score was 17,616. Although this single Core i9-14900HX result is better overall and beats both Core i9-13900HX samples, it's not a very large difference.
Undoubtedly, the problem is power and heat. The Core i9-14900K can hit a peak power of nearly 350 watts under load thanks to its 24 cores and 6 GHz boost clock. The Core i9-14900HX has the same amount of cores, and although it seemingly has a lower frequency, it still requires lots of power. Of course, there's not enough room for a desktop-grade cooler in a laptop, so power and heat must be capped.
Since the Core i9-14900HX uses the same silicon as the Core i9-13900HX, any gains in performance or efficiency will just be down to better binning, which only offers limited improvement. Intel's Meteor Lake CPUs will undoubtedly provide better efficiency than 14th Gen chips, though not as good peak performance considering that Raptor Lake has eight more E-cores.
