As a general rule, in each new generation of Intel processors the Core i5 XX600K is almost always the top seller and the most used in gaming PC configurations, since in terms of performance / price it is usually the one that gives the best results. Today, a Chinese media already has one of the new Core i5-14600K in his possession, and has leaked some benchmarks that will help us get an idea of its performance at the moment of truth.
There is just one week left until the official debut of the new generation of Intel processors, known as Core 14 or 14th generation Intel Core, also called Raptor Lake Refresh. As we already told you in previous days, Intel will initially launch six different models, and one of the most interesting will be precisely the Core i5-14600K for being the most affordable unlocked model and with the best performance/price ratio. Let’s see how it behaves.
The Core i5-14600K in Cinebench 2024 and CPU-Z
According to ECSM, the Chinese media that has leaked the performance data, this processor has a total of 14 physical cores and 20 process threads, divided into 6 P performance cores and 8 E efficiency cores (as you know, only the P have HyperThreading technology, so you actually have 12 + 8 process threads). If you look closely, this core count is identical to that of the current generation Core i5-13600K, although it has a slight difference in terms of operating speed, which is 200 MHz higher (it reaches 5.3 GHz).
One detail must be taken into account before showing you the performance data, and that is that the processor they have analyzed is an engineering sample (ES) that may differ from the commercial model… not usually, but it could happen. We must also remember that for this test they have used Cinebench 2024, and that as we indicated when we broke the news of its launch, the results are not comparable with other previous versions of Cinebench (and precisely this Chinese media has compared it with what was obtained in the version R23, which they shouldn’t have done).
Having these results in two different versions of Cinebench and in CPU-Z, we can compare with what we obtain using a current generation Core i5-13600K in the same benchmarks:
- Cinebench R23: The Core i5-14600K scores 2,027 points in single thread and 25,270 points in the multi-thread test, compared to 2,021 and 24,528 points for the 13600K respectively. This represents a negligible increase in the single-thread test and just 3% in the multi-thread test.
- Cinebench 2024: The new processor scored 124 points in a single thread and 1,430 points in the multi-thread test, compared to 115 and 1,255 points respectively for its predecessor. This means that it has improved by 8% and 14% respectively.
- CPU-Z: The new 14600K has scored 868 points in the single-core test and 10,250 points in the multi-thread test, compared to 819 and 9,847 points respectively for the 13600K. This represents a performance increase of 6% and 4% respectively.
As you can see, the performance improvement is practically negligible, since we can practically assume that the difference in performance can be found in the margin assigned to, for example, the choice of motherboard and RAM, or the state of the software. (We always say that you can use exactly the same system, do a benchmark and obtain a score, repeat the same benchmark and get a different score… they will almost never be the same).
With this data in hand, let everyone draw their own conclusions. Our conclusion is that if you already have a current generation (or even 12th generation) Intel Core processor, it is certainly not worth upgrading at all.