Intel announced three overclockable 14th Generation Core ‘Raptor Lake Refresh’ processors geared at enthusiasts this week. Many users, however, will wait months for the cheaper, locked, mainstream 14th Generation Core parts. Fortunately, well-known leaker ECSM_Official has posted pre-production Intel Core i3-14100 and Core i5-14600 benchmark results to the Geekbench 6 database (via @Benchleaks), revealing their specifications and performance.
According to the specifications, Intel’s Core i3-14100 and Core i5-14600 are Raptor Lake CPUs that did not improve significantly over their straight 13th-generation counterparts. The Core i3-14100 retains four high-performance Raptor Cove cores, although they now run at 3.50 – 4.70 GHz (up from 3.40 – 4.50 GHz), which is a minor improvement. The problem is worse with the Core i5-14600, which retains its 6P + 8E core design but runs at 2.70 GHz – 5.20 GHz, which is slower than the Core i5-13600, which runs at 2.70 GHz – 5.30 GHz, at least on paper. The Refreshed part can certainly outperform its predecessor by running at higher clock speeds for longer periods of time, although such times are strongly dependent on cooling systems and are thus never guaranteed.
Of course, we’re working with pre-production hardware, and the specifications of both sections are subject to change. However, if the specifications are final, it makes little sense to wait for the revised parts if you expect significantly greater performance.
Surprisingly, despite the lower maximum clocks, the new Core i5-14600 performs marginally quicker than its predecessor in both single-thread and multi-thread workloads, probably because it operates at higher frequencies for longer periods of time. Meanwhile, the difference between Intel’s Core i3-14100 and Core i3-13100 appears to be insignificant.
While Intel’s Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K, and Core i5-14600K processors with unlocked multipliers are among the best CPUs for gaming, they are only marginally faster than their predecessors, and their lower-end counterparts will not provide any significant performance gains.
Of course, we’re working with pre-production hardware, and the specifications of both sections are subject to change. Furthermore, we have only seen the performance data of two CPUs, thus we cannot make any firm conclusions for the time being. However, if the specifications are final, it makes little sense to wait for the revised parts if you expect significantly greater performance. Nonetheless, 14th Generation Core can be slightly faster than their direct predecessors.
