Core i9-14900K vs Ryzen 9 7950X3D gaming performance battle sees Intel chip take minimal lead per official leaked chart

We are on the cusp of new Intel CPUs as Team Blue is expected to unveil the 14th-gen Raptor Lake Refresh series of desktop processors on October 17. As such, it is not surprising that official marketing material has begun leaking out early giving us a glimpse into the Raptor Lake Refresh chips before their formal release. This time, a chart showing the gaming performance comparison between the purported 14th-gen flagship, the Core i9-14900K, and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D has surfaced (via HXL).

Before we discuss the Core i9-14900K performance, it is important to mention that we are yet to get any full specifications of the processor. Reports have the Core i9-14900K rocking 24 cores (8 P-cores + 16 E-cores), 32 threads, a 3.2 GHz base, and a 6 GHz boost clock.

Over on the AMD side, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D is Team Red’s flagship X3D part with 16 cores, 32 threads, a 4.2 GHz base, and a 5.7 GHz boost frequency. The defining characteristic of the CPU is the 128 MB of L3 cache that allows the processors to scale well in gaming tasks.

Moving on to the Core i9-14900K gaming performance, the leaked slide depicts the Intel processor to be, on average, just 2% faster than the Ryzen 7950X3D across the tested games at 1080p. The biggest wins for the Core i9-14900K came in Starfield and Metro Exodus where the chip outperformed the Ryzen 9 7950X3D by 23%.

However, the Core i9-14900K did fall behind in games like Dota 2 and Fortnight where the Ryzen 9 7950X3D proved to be the faster CPU with a delta of 23% and 18% respectively. As reported by VideoCardz, in the 25 games tested, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D came out on top in 9 games while the Core i9-14900K took the lead in the remaining titles.

The Core i9-14900K outperforming the Ryzen 9 7950X3D by a practically irrelevant margin on average was to be expected, as some leaks have alleged single-digit gains for the Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs vs the 13th-gen Raptor Lake parts. Assuming the Raptor Lake Refresh parts do perform as shown by the leaked slide, Intel will have to price the CPUs aggressively and not hike the rates to favorably compete against the AMD X3D counterparts.

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