Intel Expands 14th-Gen Core Lineup With New Laptop, Desktop CPUs

The chipmaker also reveals the Intel Core U Series 1 processors for mainstream ultrathin laptops at CES 2024. The CPUs are part of a brand shakeup that debuted in December with the Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” chips for AI-enabled laptops.

Intel announced more than two dozen desktop and laptop CPUs on Monday at CES 2024 as part of an expanded 14^th-generation Core lineup and a new chip family for ultrathin laptops.

The new chip families consist of the Intel Core 14^th Gen HX-series for high-performance laptops aimed at gamers, content creators and professionals; an expanded Intel Core 14^th Gen lineup of desktop CPUs with more options for mainstream, business and power users; and the Intel Core U Processor Series 1 for mainstream thin-and-light laptops.

[Related: AMD Brings AI Engine To Desktop PCs With Ryzen 8000G CPUs]

“Enthusiasts on-the-go can now enjoy the best mobile experience available today with our HX-series processors. And mainstream desktop users can now experience the efficient performance and robust platform features available in our latest-gen 65-watt and 35-watt desktop processors,” said Roger Chandler, vice president and general manager of enthusiast PCs and workstations in Intel’s Client Computing Group, in a statement.

These chips reflect Intel’s ongoing client CPU rebranding efforts, with Core U Processor Series 1 representing a new naming convention that started with December’s launch of the Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” chips and the Core 14^th Gen processors reflecting the company’s old ways.

Intel Core 14^th Gen HX-Series Specs and Features

The Intel Core 14^th Gen HX-series processors feature up to a 5.8GHz turbo frequency and as many as 24 cores and 32 threads. They also support up to 192GB in DDR5 memory capacity with 5600 megatransfers per second in addition, Thunderbolt 5 connectivity with 80 Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth, Intel Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 as well as Bluetooth 5.4 and 5.3.

The company said the new HX-series processors will be made available this year in more than 60 laptop designs from HP Inc., Lenovo, Asus, Dell, Acer and other OEMs.

All five chips, which range from the Core i9-14900HX to the Core i5-14450HX, have a base power of 55W and a max turbo power of 157W.

For Intel, one of the standout features for the lineup is its support for the new Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, which enables up to 120 Gbps in bandwidth for connecting as many as three displays for the “best display experience.” This is three times faster bandwidth than Thunderbolt 4 and 50 percent higher than what DisplayPort (DP) 2.1 can provide.

When using Thunderbolt 5 for networking purposes, it’s two times faster than Thunderbolt 4, and the connectivity standard can provide up to 240W in power to a laptop via USB-C.

Intel said the lineup’s flagship CPU, the Core i9-14900HX, can provide comparable or, in many more cases, better gaming performance than AMD’s high-end Ryzen 9 7945HX, which launched a year ago, according to internal tests it ran. Games that run faster include League of Legends, which gets a 10 percent boost, and Far Cry 6, which gets a 37 percent boost.

Intel said the Core i9 processor even performs better in some instances than AMD’s Ryzen 9 7945HX3D, which comes with more cache for faster gaming experiences. Those instances include Rainbow Six Siege, which gets a 3 percent boost, and Total War: Pharoah, which gets a 17 boost. With Horizon Zero Dawn and Red Dead Redemption 2, Intel’s chip achieved 85 percent and 96 percent of the performance of AMD’s cache-rich CPU, respectively.

But even then, Intel said a new policy called Intel Application Optimization within its Intel Dynamic Tuning Technology framework can give a performance boost to select titles.

When it comes to benchmarks measuring overall performance, productivity performance and content creation performance, Intel said the Core i9-14900HX is faster in varying degrees than AMD’s Ryzen 9 7945HX. Intel’s chip ran 3 percent faster for UL Procyon’s office productivity benchmark, 7 percent faster for SYSmark 30, 10 percent faster for CrossMark, 30 percent faster for Vegas Pro 21 4K HDR video stabilization and 51 percent faster for a content creation workflow that includes Unreal Engine 5 and RealityCapture.

Intel Adds 18 CPUs To Core 14^th Gen Desktop Lineup

After debuting the 14^th-generation Core desktop CPU lineup last fall, the company expanded the processor family with 18 new models at CES, available through partners starting this week.

Designed for gaming, content creation, productivity and edge computing, the new processors range from the Core i9-14900 and its counterpart without integrated graphics to the low-end chip branded as Intel Processor 300 and its edge-optimized counterpart.

The processors come with up to 24 cores and 5.8GHz in boost frequency as well as support for up to 192GB of DDR4 or DDR5 memory, PCIe 5.0 and 4.0, discrete Wi-Fi 6 and 7 solutions as well as Thunderbolt 4 and USB 3.2 connectivity. All processors are supported by motherboards based on the Intel 600 and Intel 600 series chipsets.

The lineup includes select processors that support Intel’s vPro remote management and security platform for businesses.

Most of the processors have a base power of 65W and a max turbo power of up to 219W. The edge-optimized chips have a base power of 35W and a max turbo power of up to 106W.

Unlike the 14^th-gen Core desktop CPUs launched last fall, these chips can’t be easily overclocked as indicated by the lack of a K suffix at the end of each model number.

Intel said the new top chip, the Core i9-14900, provides a modest bump in general performance compared to Core i9-13900 based on internal tests, ranging from a 2 percent boost for CrossMark to a 7 percent boost for UL Procyon’s office productivity benchmark.

When it comes to how the new 14^th-gen Core desktop chips fare against AMD’s latest Ryzen chips, Intel said both the Core i9-14900 and the Core i7-14700 can ace the Ryzen 9 7900 to varying degrees across multiple productivity and content creation benchmarks.

According to Intel’s testing, the Core i9 and Core i7 CPUs are 10 percent and 6 percent faster for SYSmark 30, 11 percent and 2 percent faster for WebXPRT 4, 15 percent and 9 percent faster for CrossMark’s overall test, 10 percent and 7 percent faster for PugetBench’s Photoshop test, 12 percent faster for SYSmark 30’s advanced content score, 14 percent and 6 percent faster for Cinebench’s single-core test, 15 percent and 10 percent faster for CrossMark’s creativity test, 27 percent and 22 percent faster for PugetBench’s After Effects test, and 32 percent and 30 percent faster for PugetBench’s Premiere Pro test.

Out of Intel’s handpicked tests, it was only UL Procyon’s office productivity benchmark where the Core i7 achieved 4 percent lower performance while the Core i9 was 6 percent faster.

Intel Core U Processors Focus On Mainstream Ultrathin Laptops

On top of the new 14^th-gen Core processors, Intel revealed a new set of chips for mainstream ultrathin laptops that use the company’s new branding for client chips.

Called the Intel Core U Processor Series 1, the family of three chips is designed to bring “the efficient, balanced performance mainstream mobile PC users desire in thin-and-light devices,” according to the company.

These processors represent the other half of Intel’s new client branding efforts, which started with last month’s launch of the Core Ultra “Meteor Lake” chips for AI-enabled PCs.

Intel has previously said that the Core Ultra name represents the company’s “most advanced client processors” while the Core name is used for “mainstream” offerings.

What makes the Core Ultra processors advanced are a few key aspects: They’re Intel’s first client CPUs to use the Intel 4 manufacturing node, a chiplet design enabled by its Foveros 3-D chip packaging technology and a neural processing unit (NPU).

The Intel Core U chips, on the other hand, sticks to the basics, offering up to 10 cores, 12 threads, 12MB of Intel Smart Cache, 5.4GHz of maximum P-core turbo frequency, 4.0GHz of maximum E-core turbo frequency, 1.8GHz of base P-core frequency, 1.2GHz of base E-core frequency, standard Intel Graphics and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory formats.

All three chips, ranging from the Intel Core 7 processor 150U to the Intel Core 3 processor 100U, have a base power of 15W and a max turbo power of 55W.

They can support up to 96GB of memory, Thunderbolt 4, PCIe 4.0 and 3.0, Bluetooth 5.4 and 5.3 and Intel Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7.

The chips are expected to arrive in systems in the first quarter of 2024.