Leak Shows i7-14700HX for Laptops Is Almost as Fast as Desktop Counterpart

The Acer Nitro 17 gaming laptop.
(Image credit: Acer)

A leaked Geekbench 6 benchmark reveals that Intel's as-of-yet-unannounced Core i7-14700HX will make its way to Acer's Nitro 17 laptop lineup, and that it has the same core count as the Core i7-14700K. We've already seen the 14700HX leak in a different benchmark, but this one is different as it appears to show realistic performance — and it's almost as good as the 14700K.

The 14700K and 14700HX are notable for being the only CPUs in the Raptor Lake Refresh to offer new core count configurations. Compared to last generation's Core i7-13700K, the 14700K and 14700HX include four more E-cores, and in our review those four extra cores made a significant difference in multi-threaded performance.

In the leaked benchmark, the 14700HX achieved a multi-threaded score of 17,475 and a single-threaded score of 2,921; meanwhile, our 14700K review sample scored 19,633 points in the multi-threaded test and 2,986 in the single-threaded test. The performance the 14700HX puts on display seems to be the real deal and what we can likely expect from the Acer Nitro 17 when this updated model hits the shelves.

That the 14700HX is so close to the 14700K in multi-threaded performance is somewhat surprising given that the 14700K consumes quite a bit of power, much more than the 13700K. Laptop CPUs operate at a lower power consumption in order to accommodate weaker coolers and power delivery hardware, but if the 14700HX is doing just find in a midrange laptop like the Acer Nitro 17, that definitely bodes well.

As for other specs of this unreleased Acer gaming laptop, not much is clear. The name Geekbench recorded was the Acer Nitro AN17-72, which is very similar to the current-generation Acer Nitro AN17-71-75VK, which sports 16GB of DDR5 and an RTX 4050. It's likely this leaked laptop features similar hardware — except perhaps for the RAM, which Geekbench notes was 32GB rather than 16GB.

Matthew Connatser

Matthew Connatser is a freelancing writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes articles about CPUs, GPUs, SSDs, and computers in general.

  • The Historical Fidelity
    That’s what binning silicon gets you. You cherry pick the low leakage golden sample chips for laptop, and high leakage (sometimes imperfect) chips for desktop where the energy waste & extra energy needed to stabilize imperfect structures is not a deal breaker.
    Another contributor could also be that the ~+300 MHz multi-core of the desktop variant is beyond the efficient range of its voltage/frequency curve, whereas the laptop variant backs down the curve to a point where minimal performance is lost but energy efficiency increases dramatically.
    Reply
  • Roland Of Gilead
    Well, whilst this is impressive performance for a mobile CPU, like nearly all budget/mid level gaming laptops, they are nerfed by either the GPU or bad Mem/Storage configurations. (I'm assuming it's a gaming laptop given the pic)

    Still, it's a great CPU by the looks of things.
    Reply
  • HaninTH
    The Historical Fidelity said:
    That’s what binning silicon gets you. You cherry pick the low leakage golden sample chips for laptop, and high leakage (sometimes imperfect) chips for desktop where the energy waste & extra energy needed to stabilize imperfect structures is not a deal breaker.
    Another contributor could also be that the ~+300 MHz multi-core of the desktop variant is beyond the efficient range of its voltage/frequency curve, whereas the laptop variant backs down the curve to a point where minimal performance is lost but energy efficiency increases dramatically.
    but... but... if they can get that level of performance from the laptop variant at a lower power threshold...

    and... if this really just comes down to yield curves...

    Then why haven't we seen any of this power efficiency and performance anywhere else?

    I don't believe the performance of the laptop variant is actually anywhere near a desktop variant in real world usage or else we'd see desktops running similar schemes. Not everyone can afford unlimited/huge amounts of electricity, so desktop CPUs that can run at the power and levels of laptops while delivering near desktop performance would be huge for those that can't afford high electricity bills.

    But then again, as an American, it's hard to imagine US corporate entities caring about anyone else but the wealthy and well-to-do. Who cares if you can't afford the electricity to power this season's latest CPU, you probably couldn't afford it anyway? /cynically exhausted
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    I want the 14700 cpu... on the h670 board :)
    Reply
  • The Historical Fidelity
    HaninTH said:
    but... but... if they can get that level of performance from the laptop variant at a lower power threshold...

    and... if this really just comes down to yield curves...

    Then why haven't we seen any of this power efficiency and performance anywhere else?

    I don't believe the performance of the laptop variant is actually anywhere near a desktop variant in real world usage or else we'd see desktops running similar schemes. Not everyone can afford unlimited/huge amounts of electricity, so desktop CPUs that can run at the power and levels of laptops while delivering near desktop performance would be huge for those that can't afford high electricity bills.

    But then again, as an American, it's hard to imagine US corporate entities caring about anyone else but the wealthy and well-to-do. Who cares if you can't afford the electricity to power this season's latest CPU, you probably couldn't afford it anyway? /cynically exhausted
    Well like I said, only low leakage golden samples can work in a laptop setting with power/temperature limitations and battery life are concerned. That leaves the leaky chips for desktop, so even if they do set the desktop parts to laptop frequencies, it will require more voltage and wattage to achieve due to leak losses (Intel could easily rob the laptop segment of low leakage chips, but why would they when they charge more for laptop variants). Next you have Intel’s pride pushing frequencies beyond optimal so they can get a win against AMD.

    But to your point, yes, I’m sure the laptop parts can reach similar levels to desktop for short periods before the heatsink becomes saturated in heat, then it must limit frequency to maintain heat exchange equilibrium.
    Reply