A purported Intel presentation slide marked as under embargo until October 16 has leaked. The slide appears to show the relative gaming performance of the Intel Core i9-14900K Raptor Lake Refresh desktop processor. This particular slide, shared by HXL on Twitter/X, compares what is expected to be the new Intel flagship CPU against AMD’s mighty Ryzen 9 7950X3D, which is one of the best CPUs consumers can currently buy. As ever with leaks, take the news with a pinch of salt until independent testing can take place.
If the figures shown in the Chinese language slide are correct Intel has a winner on its hands with the Core i9-14900K, stealing away the gaming performance CPU crown from the red team. The margin is pretty slim, though, for an Intel-picked selection of 25 PC games. We added all the percentages together and divided by 25, and it turns out that Intel’s new hope is only an average 3% faster than the potent AMD 3D V-Cache enhanced chip you can get today.
Those interested in the outliers in the purported official 1080p High performance comparison chart will take note that the following games are notably better on AMD: Dota2, Fortnite, Cyberpunk 2077. On the other side of the table, Intel’s Core i9-14900K seems to have a double-digit percentage lead in: CS:GO, Ashes of the Singularity, Total War: WARHAMMER, Starfield, and Metro Exodus. Again, remember that if these results are genuine, they are cherry-picked by Intel to show its new processor in a good light.
As for the other 17 games in the list, it hardly matters whether you play them on the 14900K or 7950X3D, according to this leaked data. With single-digit percentage differences, it would probably be difficult to perceive a gaming performance difference, even if you had the two systems running next to each other. This no man’s land includes well-known titles like Red Dead Redemption, Forza Horizon 5, AC Valhalla, Far Cry 6, CoD: MW2, GTA V, and Hitman 3.
We have to assume the Intel slide is supposed to represent performance on a level playing field with both systems using the same components, as far as possible. Parts like RAM type/quota, SSD, and GPU (and software like OS and drivers) should be exactly the same for a meaningful comparison. Other things we’d like to know for comparison's sake are the 14900K’s price and power consumption figures.
We are just a week away from the official launch of the first Intel 14th Gen Core Raptor Lake Refresh processors according to current information. Leaks are coming quickly now, with several benchmarks already spilled, retail packaging revealed, and retail prices leaked in recent days.
