Next generation Core i7 will get 12 E-Cores
There are currently news about AMD releasing the Ryzen 5 7500F CP as a cheaper alternative to the 7600 hexacore, but there’d also big news in the Intel camp – the first processor from Raptor Lake Refresh generation, which is expected to come in Fall. Info about the Core i7-14700K has now leaked. This tier of CPUs was already attractive in the previous generations, and now it’s getting bigger with more cores added.
The 14th generation Core CPUs for desktop (which seems to still be using the old branding and is not yet affected by the announced new scheme) is a refresh of the Raptor Lake generation. This means the CPUs will use the same Intel 7 process chips that made up the 12th and 13th generations. This Raptor Lake Refresh is a bridge product that was not originally planned. But due to Intel’s next-generation Meteor Lake being delayed (or more accurately, its desktop version seems to have been cancelled), Intel needed to fill-in the gap. This is what the Raptor Lake generation refresh will provide.
Of course, the LGA 1700 platform will be retained, so current boards with 600 and 700 generation chipsets will get a third (though realistically more like 2.5th) generation of CPUs to upgrade with.
Because the same chips are still used, the top SKU (Core i9-14900K) will not be able to bring higher core counts or similar changes requiring new silicon. But the lower models in the lineup will get better specs, which is the case with the Core i7-14700K. Core i7 models started at 12 cores in the 12th generation, to be upgraded to 16 in the 13th generation, but Raptor Lake Refresh is expected to take them to 20 cores. So the i7 models will be a lot closer to the top-of-the-stack Core i9s as those will stay at the 8+16 core configuration.
Core i7-14700K
According to leaks on the internet, the Core i7-14700K has 8 P-Cores and 12 E-Cores for a total of 20 cores / 28 threads, with corresponding 33MBs of L3 cache. Counting threads is probably more meaningful than counting cores for Intel’s hybrid CPUs, as two E-Cores can roughly be said to have the performance of one P-Core with HT (two threads). So this processor can be roughly considered equivalent to a hypothetical non-hybrid CPU with 14 big cores.
The base clock speed of the Core i7-14700K should probably be 3.4 GHz. The maximum boost is not yet certain. CPU-Z shows a boost clock speed of 5.5 GHz, but this may not be the very aximum, as this application usually does not detect higher clock speeds of preferred cores (via Turbo Boost Max 3.0). The actual single-threaded boost could possibly be 5.6 GHz, which might be consistent with the first performance leak.
https://t.co/5vwvuo8997 pic.twitter.com/oHSMfKhsg0
— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) July 10, 2023
The leaker going by the wnxod nickname on Twitter showed a screenshot of benchmarks of this processor on Twitter. In Cinebench R23, it scored 2192 in the single-threaded test and 36,296 in the multi-threaded test. In CPU-Z, it scored 905 points in the single-threaded test and 14,965 points in the multi-threaded test. Based on these numbers, it appears that multi-threaded performance could increase by as much as 17–18% over the Core i7-13700K processor thanks to the four extra E-Cores. Single-threaded performance currently comes out better by circa 4%, which should more or less match single-threaded boost being bumped from 5.4 to 5.6 GHz.
14700k pic.twitter.com/WNZGT5IrNj
— Алексей (@wxnod) July 10, 2023
However, we should remember that these are preliminary results, and performance may also depend on the memory used and software environment. So take these increases with a grain of salt for now.
Release in October
Currently, it looks like Intel will release Raptor Lake Refresh processors sometime in October. From Chinese sources (according to ECSM_Official), it has recently emerged that the release should be in the 42nd work week of this year, which would be between October 17 and October 23.
Sources: Bilibili, VideoCardz (1, 2), wnxod, Harukaze5719
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
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