March 14th Update: Intel has officially launched the top-tier limited edition variant of its 14th Gen Core family, the Core i9-14900KS, priced at 6299 CNY in the Chinese market.
For the first time in history, it achieves an astounding 6.2GHz boost clock for a PC processor, surpassing its predecessor, the limited edition i9-13900KS, by another 200MHz.
The i9-14900KS can be seen as a specially selected acceleration version of the i9-14900K. Both feature 8P+16E cores with 24 cores and 32 threads, 32MB L2 cache, 36MB L3 cache, and UHD 770 integrated graphics. Memory support includes DDR4-3200 and DDR5-5600, with a maximum capacity of 192GB, and expansion support for 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes, compatible with Z690 and Z790 motherboards.
The changes lie in the frequency and power consumption.
The base frequency of the P cores remains at 3.2GHz, with a maximum Turbo Boost 2.0 frequency of 5.6GHz, Turbo Boost Max 3.0 frequency increased from 5.8GHz to 5.9GHz, and TVB adaptive Turbo Boost reaching up to 6.2GHz.
E core base frequency remains at 2.4GHz, with the maximum Turbo Boost increased from 4.4GHz to 4.5GHz.
The base power consumption has increased from 125W to 150W, but the maximum Turbo Boost power consumption remains nominally at 253W, although actual measurements can exceed this, reaching up to 432W.
With the official release of the i9-14900KS, Intel has once again updated the status of its APO (Adaptive Performance Optimization) gaming optimizer technology.
So far, Intel APO supports 14 games, with 12 of them being newly verified recently. Official tests have shown that it can deliver up to an 11% performance boost for free (with some tests even reaching 31%).
Intel had previously confirmed that APO technology would be rolled out to the 12th and 13th generation Core processors, but it has not been implemented yet.
Intel has released performance comparison data for the i9-14900KS, including comparisons with the previous generation i9-13900KS, as well as competitors such as the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, Ryzen 9 7950X, and Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
I won't delve into specifics on this for now. We'll be conducting hands-on testing of the i9-14900KS ourselves in the near future, so stay tuned for that.
