Intel is expected to launch its 14th Gen Raptor Lake-S Refresh CPUs this fall. While this upcoming series of chips follows the current 13th Gen Intel Core line, they’re effectively refreshed versions of those same CPUs.
There’s nothing official regarding the Raptor Lake-S Refresh chips but several alleged leaks give us an idea of what we could potentially expect. If these rumors and reports are true, Intel’s next processors won’t be a substantial update over the existing Raptor Lake CPUs found in the best laptops and best computers running Windows 11.
Here’s everything we’ve heard about the Intel 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh processors so far.
Intel Raptor Lake Refresh: Price and availability
The Intel Innovation event takes place in San Jose from September 19-20. As such, it wouldn’t surprise us to see Intel announce the Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs at that time. Intel's 13th Gen Core processors hit the market starting on October 20th of last year, and the same is expected of the upcoming 14th Gen series. Of course, that’s speculation on our part.
Regarding the price of Raptor Lake Refresh chips, leaker momomo_us (via Tom’s Hardware) tweeted that the CPU lineup might cost up to 16% more than existing Raptor Lake chips if rounded up. As our sister site notes, the price comparison the leaker posted is only for Intel's K-series SKUs, such as the Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K, and Core i5-14600K.
pic.twitter.com/Rw6ueS0G1VAugust 27, 2023
As shown in the tweet above, the Core i5-14600K will reportedly cost $380 compared to its last-gen equivalent i5-13600K, which costs $330. The Core i9-14900K and Core i9-14900KF are reportedly 15.8% and 13.8% more expensive than the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-13900KF, respectively. In short, Raptor Lake Refresh chips will cost more than last-gen.
Intel Raptor Lake Refresh: Specs
Similar to pricing, there’s no official word yet on Raptor Lake Refresh specs. However, a particularly notable leak by none other than MSI reportedly spills the beans on the CPU lineup’s specs.
VideoCardz (via The Verge) spotted a training video on MSI’s YouTube channel showing the company’s latest Intel 700 motherboard series and PC cases. Most of the slides in the presentation pertained to the motherboard. However, one slide revealed information about the Raptor Lake Refresh line.
According to MSI’s slide, the unannounced processors won’t see any major core count upgrades — save for the Core i7-14700K, which is getting 12 Efficiency cores over the 8 E-cores of the Core i7-13700K. The Core i9-14900K will have the same 8P+16E configuration as its last-gen counterpart, as will the Core i5-14600K with its 6P+8E configuration
MSI says that, on average, Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs will be 3% faster than 13th Gen but that the Core i7 will be 17% faster with multithreaded workloads since it has extra cores.
As MSI’s slide reveals, Raptor Lake Refresh chips utilize the same Intel 7 10nm process as the current 13th Gen processors. However, they’ll support higher DDR5 frequencies and improvements to L3 cache.
The specifications seen in MSI’s training video correspond to what website Benchlife (via Wccftech) posted back on July 18. This same leak claims existing LGA 1700 socketed motherboards in the 600 and 700-series lineup will support Raptor Lake-S Refresh desktop CPUs.
*Price and specifications obtained from alleged leaks not official.
Intel Raptor Lake Refresh: Outlook
Intel Raptor Lake-S Refresh chips haven’t been announced yet, so don’t take anything written in this post as gospel. That said, the alleged leaks and reports indicate that this refreshed CPU line is aptly named since the upgrades we’re supposedly getting aren’t substantial.
As Tom’s Hardware notes, Raptor Lake Refresh offers between 1% and 3% higher performance over the current Raptor Lake line — as seen in alleged Intel internal CPU performance projections. MSI’s leak also shows a 3% overall boost, though we did see a possible 17% higher multi-threaded performance on the unannounced Core i7-14700K.
We’ll need to put 14th Gen Intel Core chips through our lab tests to see what they truly have to offer. But if leaks are anywhere near accurate, you might be better off skipping Raptor Lake-S Refresh chips and waiting for the rumored 15th Gen Arrow Lake processor, which will reportedly be 21% faster than Raptor Lake.
If Intel plans to debut Raptor Lake-S Refresh chips during its Intel Innovation event in late September and launch the processors in October, then it won’t be long before we see what they’re all about. Keep an eye on this page for more updates as we get them.
