AMD beats Intel in mobile gaming despite new and refreshed CPUs — Ryzen 9 7945HX3D prevails over the Core i9-14900HX in new review

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Intel's new Raptor Lake Refresh chip barely qualifies as a refreshed CPU

Ryzen 9 7945HX3D
Ryzen 9 7945HX3D (Image credit: AMD)

Notebookcheck reviewed Intel's new Core i9-14900HX (Raptor Lake Refresh) mobile CPU and found its performance underwhelming in synthetic and gaming benchmarks. The chip performs decently in single-core applications, but the 14900HX showed lackluster gains in gaming workloads. The laptop review outlet found that Intel's previous generation parts are just as good for gaming. AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX3D counterpart was far superior in the same area — sporting slightly higher FPS while consuming far less power.

For testing, the publication used a Schenker XMG Neo 17 2024 engineering sample gaming laptop, powered by a 24-core (8+16) Intel Core i9-14900HX featuring a max turbo clock of 5.8 GHz, RTX 4090 laptop GPU, and 32GB of DDR5-5600 memory.

In Cinebench R23, the 24-core Core i9-14900HX scored 2,232 points in the single-core test and 23,336 points in the multi-core test. In the single-core test, the Core i9-14900HX was able to dominate the rest of the field, easily beating chips like the Ryzen 9 7945HX and its X3D sibling by up to 13% and slightly outperforming its 13th Gen predecessors like the Core i9-13980HX and Core i9-13950HX by up to 6%.

But that's where the fun ends for the Core i9-14900HX. Several notebooks outperformed the Core i9-14900HX's multi-core R23 result. The Ryzen 9 7945HX, Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, Core i9-13980HX, and Core i9-13950HX all outperformed the new Raptor Lake Refresh chip by up to 7%, even though the Core i9-14900HX has more cores than the Ryzen 9 parts.

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Witcher 3 Benchmark Comparison
CPU + GPULaptop ChassisFrame Rate
Core i9-13980HX + RTX 4090Alienware M18 R1213.9
Ryzen 9 7945HX3D + RTX 4090Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733PYV-LL053X207
Core i9-13900HX + RTX 4090SCHENKER Key 17 Pro (Early 23)206
Ryzen 9 7945HX + RTX 4090Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 G733PY-XS96203.8
Core i9-13950HX + RTX 4090MSI Titan GT77 HX 13VI198.9
Core i9-14900HX + RTX 4090XMG Neo 17 2024 Engineering Sample195.8
AMD Ryzen 7 7745HX + RTX 4070Lenovo Legion Pro 5 16ARX8119.8

As previously stated, the Core i9-14900HX failed to (outright) beat its predecessors in gaming notebooks and AMD's latest Zen 4-based Ryzen 9 CPUs. In the CPU test for 3DMark TimeSpy, the Core i9-14900HX was defeated by the Core i9-13980HX by a couple of percentage points. But on the flip side, it did outperform AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX and Intel's less powerful 13th Gen i9 SKUs.

However, in real games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D returned on top, beating the Core i9 14900HX by a healthy 13%. Surprisingly, the Core i9-13900HX, Core i9-13950HX, and Ryzen 97945HX also won the Core i9-14900HX, anywhere between 5% and 8%. Notebookcheck also tested The Witcher 3, which showed even less favor towards Intel's new Raptor Lake Refresh flagship mobile CPU.

The news outlet also benchmarked power efficiency, and it found that the Core i9-14900HX delivered underwhelming power efficiency in Cinebench R23's multi-core benchmark, worse than even Intel's previous generation Core i9-13980HX. The Core i9-14900HX scored 145 points per watt, while the last-gen Core i9-13980HX scored 160.9 points. AMD's Ryzen 9 7945HX took second place in Notebookcheck's list, scoring 207 points per watt. At the top was Apple's M3 Max 16 core chip, which beat every other chip by a landslide, featuring a score of 306 points per watt.

Notebookcheck's review reveals that Intel's new Core i9-14900HX is an underwhelming chip, providing lackluster performance. Performance is boosted by higher power limits, keeping its efficiency poor. Performance could be rectified in other laptop chassis with superior cooling and power delivery systems, but generally, the 14900HX barely qualifies as a refreshed product.

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

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30 Comments Comment from the forums
  • usertests
    This is where desktop X3D shines, efficiency.

    Meteor Lake iGPU vs. Phoenix/Hawk iGPU is the real fight.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Notebookcheck's review reveals that Intel's new Core i9-14900HX is an underwhelming chip, providing lackluster performance.

    I think you meant to say "Lackuster performance improvement over the 13900HX" because it doesn't have lackuster performance.

    But it doesn't take a review to see it doesn't have much different than the 13900HX, a glance at the specs from Intel show the only difference is a 200mhz higher E core boost speed and 300mhz higher P core boost speed vs the 13900HX.

    The real question is what will 14900HX laptops cost vs their identically spec'd 13900HX models.
    Reply
  • Sleepy_Hollowed
    Sounds about right.

    Intel was asleep on the iGPU for the longest time, serves them well, especially after laying off not just from sales and other positions, but they just did not care about R&D for the longest time.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    Beat on what? It's a nightmare to find a powered device with amd. You can find intel notebooks at car shops. The last amd notebook I see need to be imported from united states... Scarce product make amd fell so premium. Premium to the wallet...
    Reply
  • MXM0
    Not sure how I should feel about an Intel 7 chip being only 6% less performance than a TSMC N4 (or is it N3?) chip, when Intel 3 and 20A are right around the corner. If there wasn't a huge power difference, then AMD would have a really, really bad problem.
    Reply
  • Moobear
    MXM0 said:
    Not sure how I should feel about an Intel 7 chip being only 6% less performance than a TSMC N4 (or is it N3?) chip, when Intel 3 and 20A are right around the corner. If there wasn't a huge power difference, then AMD would have a really, really bad problem.
    Not going out much? The X3D are older hardware compared to the 14 series this year the new amd cpu s come out and guess how they are going to look in benchmarks.
    Reply
  • George³
    MXM0 said:
    feel about an Intel 7
    Put away your humiliated feelings now. Intel is losing, the facts are. ;)
    Reply
  • fret
    MXM0 said:
    Not sure how I should feel about an Intel 7 chip being only 6% less performance than a TSMC N4 (or is it N3?) chip, when Intel 3 and 20A are right around the corner. If there wasn't a huge power difference, then AMD would have a really, really bad problem.
    Agreed. NotebookCheck reviewed a reference device in which we don't even know what the PL1 limit is,

    The AMD is 5nm chip.
    Reply
  • fret
    So, per Notebookcheck, last years Intel 13000HX had a Cinebench Multi Core Score RANGE between: 24,270 and 32,623. That's a huge gap in performance right.

    Well, not all laptops are the same; some are thinner, some are thicker; some are meant to be cooler and quite, some hotter and louder.

    Well, per Notebookcheck, this new chip gets a score of: 23,336 in this one lone Engineer's laptop. As of right now, that is a worse score than all of last years 13th gen, 13900HX laptops that Notebookcheck have tested thus far.

    Grain of salt needs to be taken with these scores. It is a Reference / Engineers device after all.
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    What in the world is new about the 14900HX... This is old news.

    I only saw the first part of the headline and though this was going to be about Meteor lake, like actual results showing Intel losing, rather than talking about the HX parts which are more often than not paired with a dGPU any ways... The HX series is the biggest mobile SKU given Desktop power envelope to spread its wings, the iGPU is only there for media and other task so the dGPU does not kill the battery.
    fret said:
    Grain of salt needs to be taken with these scores. It is a Reference / Engineers device after all.
    Its all based how well they are designed thermally, if it can sustain higher power draw, its a desktop class performant chip.
    Reply