Intel Core i5 14600K & Intel Core i9 14900K Linux Benchmarks

Earlier this month Intel introduced the 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors led by the flagship Core i9 14900K. Unfortunately my review samples had arrived late but in any event today are the first Linux benchmarks of the new Core i5 14600K and Core i9 14900K processors compared to prior 13th Gen Core processors as well as the AMD Ryzen 7000 series competition. All of these Intel and AMD processors were freshly re-tested on the newly-launched Ubuntu 23.10 with the Linux 6.5 kernel.

The new flagship Core i9 14900K remains a 24 core / 32 thread processor like the Core i9 13900K but now having a 6GHz Turbo Boost frequency. The Core i9 14900K sees a 200MHz bump to take the maximum turbo frequency (Thermal Velocity Boost) to 6.0GHz, the P core maximum turbo frequency from 5.4 to 5.6GHz, and the maximum E core turbo frequency goes from 4.3 to 4.4GHz. The base frequencies on both the P and E cores are also 200MHz higher. The rest of the Core i9 14900K specs are similar to its predecessor with a 36MB Smart Cache, 125 Watt base power with 253 Watt maximum turbo power, and 8 P cores with 16 E cores. Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 770 remain available with Raptor Lake Refresh. Pricing on the Core i9 14900K comes in at $599 USD.

Meanwhile at the mid-range ~$319 space there is the Core i5 14600K that like the prior generation Core i5 13600K is 14 cores / 20 threads with a combination of 6 P cores and 8 E cores. With the Core i5 14600K over the i5 13600K the maximum turbo frequency is 200MHz higher, going from 5.1 to 5.3GHz. The E core maximum turbo frequency is 100MHz higher, now at 4.0GHz. The base frequencies are the same between the Core i5 13600K and Core i5 14600K. The Intel UHD Graphics 770 are clocked slightly higher at 1.55GHz compared to 1.5GHz with the prior generation. The Core i5 14600K remains a 125 Watt base power part with a maximum turbo power of 181 Watts.

Given Intel's open-source track record and that the 14th Gen Core desktop CPUs are a refresh of Raptor Lake processors, the Linux support is all in-order for release. The Core i5 14600K and Core i9 14900K were running great on Ubuntu 23.10, Ubuntu 22.40.3 LTS, Fedora 39, and other modern desktop Linux distributions. No hassles with Linux and all the support was ready to go for a seamless out-of-the-box Linux experience.

With Raptor Lake Refresh it's simply a matter of first updating your motherboard BIOS if using an existing LGA-1700 motherboard. All of my Raptor Lake based tests was done with the ASUS PRIME Z790-P WIFI motherboard. All of the benchmarks of the processors under test were on Ubuntu 23.10 with the default Linux 6.5 kernel.

The assortment of processors tested for this Linux comparison based on the CPUs I had available included:

- Intel Core i5 13600K
- Intel Core i9 13900K
- Intel Core i5 14600K
- Intel Core i9 14900K
- AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
- AMD Ryzen 7 7700
- AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- AMD Ryzen 9 7900
- AMD Ryzen 9 7900X
- AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D

A number of Linux gaming tests were conducted followed by an assortment of 173 other system/CPU benchmarks. Let's move on to look at the Core i5 14600K and Core i9 14900K performance under Linux.