Intel Core i7-14700K Review: An AMD-Beating Allrounder?

While Intel’s 14th Gen desktop processors have mainly been incremental upgrades with small frequency hikes, the Core i7-14700K stands alone in receiving something much more – a count increase. It has four more cores than the Core i7-13700K, and while these are less powerful Efficient or E-cores, this should still provide a noticeable improvement to some workloads, especially multi-threaded ones. The question is, does its pricing around 12 weeks after its launch make it a decent purchase?

It also represents a sizable upgrade from some 12th Gen processors. For example, the Core i7-12700K has eight fewer cores and a sizable 600MHz lower peak boost frequency. Intel’s recent Core i7 CPUs have offered excellent multi-threaded performance too for a lower price than the flagship Core i9, but offering much more multi-threaded grunt than the Core i5 – in this case the Core i5-13600K.

Still, Intel’s 14th Gen CPUs have been criticized for being little more than frequency-bumped 13th Gen models so the question is, now pricing has settled, is the Core i7-14700K the best of the bunch – a great CPU for gaming and multi-threaded tasks – or is the Core i7-13700K a better buy? Should you stick with your Core i7-12700K or Core i9-12900K?

Below we’ll also be looking at performance comparisons of AMD’s processors, although given Intel’s 14th Gen CPUs are the end of the road with no future upgrades, we can be confident in saying that if you’re building a new PC, you’d be well advised to opt for AMD’s Socket AM5 platform or to wait for Intel’s new platform due for release in 2024.

Test setup

My test system included an Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero motherboard, liquid cooling system, 32GB of DDR5 6000MHz memory, a Solidigm P41 Plus PCIe 4.0 SSD and an Nvidia RTX 4090 graphics card. The test system was up to date with the latest Windows 11 updates and drivers.

Game Benchmarks

Starting with games and while there’s a noticeable increase in frame rates in most tests moving from the Core i7-13700K to the i7-14700K, it should also be noted that the RTX 4090 used here is going to be more powerful than what the vast majority of people own and results will be slimmer with something like an RTX 4080 or RTX 4070 or at higher resolutions. At 1440p, there’s still a gap but it’s probably not worth the extra $40 for the Core i7-14700K.

What is definitely the case, though, is that both the Core i7-13700K and Core i7-14700K have a big lead over the Core i7-12700K in every test making them a great upgrade if you have a relatively powerful graphics card to pair them with. This makes a strong case for holding on to your current system and dropping in a new CPU rather than go all-out and opt for AMD’s Socket AM5 platform, at least for now.

Content creation benchmarks

This is where the extra cores of the Core i7-14700K should kick in and sure enough we see a big gap open up in Cinebench R23, with the Intel CPU actually beating AMD’s more expensive Ryzen 9 7900X and outscoring the Core i7-13700K at 35,711 to 29,413 in the multi-threaded test. It was a little faster in the Lightroom and Photoshop test and in the Puget Systems Premiere Pro test, but again, the gains were slim and the big increases were over the Core i7-12700K.

Sadly, both 13th and 14th Gen CPUs also draw significantly more power and unfortunately for the Core i7-14700K, it adds nearly 100W to the already eyebrow-raising consumption of the Core i7-13700K with the system drawing nearly 500W in the Cinebench multi-threaded test.

Conclusion

The only reason you should be considering the Core i7-14700K is if you already own a 12th Gen CPU – it doesn’t make any sense to buy one for a new system given this platform has no future upgrade path. Thankfully it’s pretty clear that both the Core i7-13700K and Core i7-14700K offer decent upgrades in games and content creation over not just the Core i7-12700K but also the Core i9-12900K too. That’s good news since owners of 12th Gen CPUs can drop in one of these CPUs without having upgrade any other components.

Whether the Core i7-14700K is your best option, though, largely comes down to its price. It’s significantly cheaper than the Core i9-13900K and 14900K, but while the gap between it and the Core i7-13700K is narrower now at just $40, it’s still a lot to pay for marginally better performance in all but raw multi-threaded workloads.

Intel is slowly rolling out its Application Performance Optimizer (APO) that can boost gaming frame rates in supported games, which is currently very few, and is only supported on 14th Gen CPUs. Were it my own cash, though, I’d be opting for the Core i7-13700K if I needed a powerful multi-purpose Intel CPU for $350-400 as that extra $50 would be better spent on a larger SSD or better cooling.