This Gamers Nexus video reviews Intel's i7-14700K CPU, examining its performance, power consumption, and overall value proposition in comparison to competing AMD processors, particularly focusing on whether it represents a significant generational leap. The reviewers analyze benchmarks from various games and production workloads, evaluating the CPU's performance gains compared to its predecessor and competitors.
Incremental Improvement, Not Generational Leap: The 14700K shows modest improvements over the 13700K, but doesn't represent a significant generational upgrade as the name suggests. Many benchmark results are within the margin of error of the previous generation.
High Power Consumption: The 14700K maintains a high power consumption profile, similar to its predecessor, significantly higher than competing AMD CPUs like the 7800X3D.
Competitive Gaming Performance: In several gaming benchmarks, the 14700K performs competitively with, or slightly ahead of, the previous generation, but is often outperformed by AMD's X3D chips, especially in terms of power efficiency.
Production Workload Improvements: In production benchmarks such as Blender and 7-Zip, the 14700K shows more noticeable double-digit percentage improvements over the 13700K.
Pricing Concerns: The 14700K's MSRP is similar to the 13700K's, but actual market prices make it less competitive against AMD's offerings and even Intel's previous generation, making its value questionable for many consumers.
The benchmark tests included Rainbow Six Siege, F1 2023, Baldur's Gate 3, Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty, Final Fantasy XIV, Stellaris, and Starfield. In Rainbow Six Siege, the R7 7800X3D significantly outperformed all other CPUs. In F1 2023, the 7800X3D again led, with the 14700K showing a small but not significant improvement over the 13700K. Baldur's Gate 3 showed the 14700K slightly behind the 13900K, with X3D CPUs again leading. Cyberpunk: Phantom Liberty showed AMD CPUs significantly ahead of the 14700K. Final Fantasy XIV showed the 13900K leading, with the 14700K near the 7700X. Stellaris results showed minimal differences between high-end CPUs due to hitting a performance wall. In Starfield, the 14700K showed a notable 7.6% improvement over the 13700K at 1080p low settings.
In the all-core Blender workload, the i7-14700K consumed 284 watts at the EPS 12-volt rails. This is slightly higher than the 13700K (around 280 watts) and significantly higher than CPUs like the AMD 7800X3D (86 watts) and the AMD 5800X3D (108 watts). The 12700K consumed approximately 158 watts in the same test.
The i7-14700K has an 8 P-core, 12 E-core, and 28-thread configuration, compared to the i7-13700K's 8 P-core, 8 E-core, and 24-thread configuration. The 14700K also has increased clock speeds; Intel claims a max turbo frequency of 5.6 GHz, up from 5.4 GHz on the 13700K.
In the Blender benchmark, the i7-14700K finished the render in 8 minutes, representing a 12% reduction in time compared to the 13700K. However, the 13900K was still 9% faster than the 14700K. The AMD 7950X led the pack with a 20% reduction in render time compared to the 14700K. The AMD 7900X also showed a 7% lead over the 14700K.
