Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
i7 12700k to i7 14700k or i9 14900k (Intel)
- Thread starter max2
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't see a reason to upgrade, the current processor you have is still a very powerful chip, throw a bit of an overclock at it and you'll get it pretty close to those chips in performance. Is there something its struggling in currently?
There are incremental improvements, but it's all being done by basically juicing up the existing architecture to as far as it can be taken - the 14th gen CPU's have some impressively high power consumption compared to 12th gen but not the performance increase to track that, and is the very embodiment of the "This is fine" meme.
For any major generational changes I think we may be looking at 2027 in-market.
For any major generational changes I think we may be looking at 2027 in-market.
So far meteor lake is looking to have a slight drop in IPC from raptor lake.
Intel went from advanced 10nm to 7nm. The die shrink should increase IPC and give better efficiency and performance. However, with Intel and it's first generation on a new architecture or process node often times there is a bit of a regress. Then in the subsequent generations we get improved performance.
When Intel went from 14nm to 10nm the first generation was not very impressive and in some cases the 14nm was still faster. Once Tiger Lake was released which was the third iteration of 10nm we started to see bigger improvements.
So I imagine the same is true now. If you have a 12/13 gen Intel I would just hold onto it until the next Intel 4, 7nm node chip is released probably later this year.
The only exception is if you use integrated graphics and want better performance than XE graphics in the 12/13th gen models the 14th gen integrated ARC graphics are supposed to be close to Nvidia GTX 1650 or similar. Still not great but it is something. However I doubt that is what you are interested in.
Long story short, you have a fast processor that won't need to be replaced at least another year. If you want to and have the money, go for it but it may not be the boost you expect.
Intel went from advanced 10nm to 7nm. The die shrink should increase IPC and give better efficiency and performance. However, with Intel and it's first generation on a new architecture or process node often times there is a bit of a regress. Then in the subsequent generations we get improved performance.
When Intel went from 14nm to 10nm the first generation was not very impressive and in some cases the 14nm was still faster. Once Tiger Lake was released which was the third iteration of 10nm we started to see bigger improvements.
So I imagine the same is true now. If you have a 12/13 gen Intel I would just hold onto it until the next Intel 4, 7nm node chip is released probably later this year.
The only exception is if you use integrated graphics and want better performance than XE graphics in the 12/13th gen models the 14th gen integrated ARC graphics are supposed to be close to Nvidia GTX 1650 or similar. Still not great but it is something. However I doubt that is what you are interested in.
Long story short, you have a fast processor that won't need to be replaced at least another year. If you want to and have the money, go for it but it may not be the boost you expect.
While I agree with much of what you wrote about Meteor Lake, Meteor Lake is only used for Intel's mobile chips (and only the non-HX models.) 14th gen desktop (14700K, 14900K, etc) is just a refresh of Raptor Lake. A slight frequency boost is all you're going to get, so performance is basically equivalent to 13th gen.
We won't be seeing anything new for desktop until Arrow Lake, which will maybe launch at the end of this year? And it'll be on Intel 20A, not Intel 4. And not only will 20A be a new node, it'll be using a new type of transistor and a new power delivery mechanism - so yeah, lots of opportunities for things to go wrong. I'd probably skip that one if it were me.
To answer OPs question, it's going to depend on what you use it for. A lot of 13th/14th gen chips have way more e-cores than their 12th gen counterparts, and so can perform much better in highly-threaded workloads. If what you do doesn't scale well with e-cores, you're not going to see much difference. Top-end 13th/14th gen chips also put out a ton of heat, and with the 13900K/14900K in particular you're going to need a very powerful cooler to get the most out of it. I like to stay on air cooling which is why I went with a 7950X for my build.