Intel’s 14th Generation Core processors are called Raptor Lake Refresh, but they might not be a great deal cheaper than their predecessors if the latest price rumor is true. The company’s website is showing a 15% price increase for the new processors, and the reason may surprise you.
Intel has already started selling the first laptop chips from its 14th Gen Raptor Lake range, but desktop CPUs have yet to be made available. That could change in October, when the new processors are reportedly due to hit store shelves.
The new Raptor Lake chips are expected to offer up to four more cores than the current 13th Gen CPUs, but they won’t necessarily be any faster overall. A leaked Cinebench benchmark comparing the Core i7-14700K to the older Core i7-13700K shows only a three percent multi-threaded uplift for the older chip, and that’s even after factoring in the extra cores.
That’s not to say the new chips won’t be good, but they may not be able to do enough to compete with AMD’s Ryzen 7 series. A leaked Intel document also points out that the 14th Gen chips will have the same L3 cache size of 64MB and will still have the same memory controller as before, so they won’t enjoy a significant IPC uplift over the current chips.
As for the price increases, it appears they will affect all models from the Core i3-13600KF to the top dog Core i9-14900K. The cheapest models will see the least hike, with the Core i3-13600KF seeing a $40 rise to $540, and the pricier chips getting an extra $95 to reach $695.
Of course, this is all just speculation at this stage, and the price hikes might be reversed when the processors are officially released. But it does point to the possibility of an upcoming price war between AMD and Intel as the launch of Zen 5 draws closer.
Zen 5 is expected to bring IPC uplifts of up to 30% over the current generation and will be based on the same 10nm process as its predecessor, and that’s sure to give AMD some breathing room when it comes to desktop pricing.
The good news for enthusiasts is that the upcoming CPUs will be backward compatible with existing motherboard sockets, so if you have a 600 or 700-series motherboard with compatible coolers, you’ll still be able to upgrade your PC to the newer CPUs. Likewise, you’ll be able to transplant your cheap DDR4 or DDR5 RAM kits, and Intel’s LGA 1700 motherboards will continue to support both.