Intel Core i5-14600K leak stokes further hope that this could be a gem of a mid-range CPU

Impressive overclocking chops, by all accounts

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Ifyesterday’s leak for the Core i5-14600Kgot you a bit stoked about whether this is a promising CPU, a bunch of fresh spillages will only reinforce that vibe.

VideoCardzpointed out a trio of Geekbench results for the 14600K, which underline the specs leaked thus far (namely that its core configuration will be the same as the 13600K, but it’ll get a bump in boost clock to 5.3GHz, a 200MHz increase).

The most interesting Geekbench result here, though – in a PC built on a Gigabyte Z790 Aorus Master X motherboard – shows top clock speeds ranging from 5.3GHz all the way up to 5.7GHz.

The latter indicates that the tester was engaged in overclocking, and it’s a considerable leap in speeds from the default boost there, in theory (take all this with a good sprinkling of seasoning, naturally).

The Geekbench scores are pretty much in line with what we saw with yesterday’s leak we referred to at the outset, indicating the 14600K is around 5% faster for single-core and about 10% or just over for multi-core compared to its predecessor. (Although note that some past leaks have suggested the latter could be somewhat more like 15%).

With overclocking to 5.7GHz, mind, we see a further jump in performance of 8% for multi-core (and just over 1% for single-core), meaning the overclocked chip is more like 20% faster than the13600K(running at stock speeds, so of course, that isn’t a fair comparison – but it’s interesting to see the difference nonetheless).

Analysis: Clocking up

What lends this leak a bit more weight is that this isn’t the first time we’ve heard that thenext-gen Raptor Lake Refresh processorscould well offer some impressive overclocking potential.

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If you recall, the 14700K – the other CPU that we’re most keen to see with the 14th-gen, aside from the 14600K –has previously been boosted to an impressive near-6GHz overclock. Remember, that’s a Core i7 processor clocked appreciably quicker than the Core i9-13900K (at default speeds).

Now, what we don’t know is how much of a performance gain those overclocks might bring to bear – not to mention what cooling was used – but the potential uplift looks solid enough from the leakage thus far.

Even thoughIntelappears to be keepingRaptor Lake Refresh very much under the radar, with little mention of the next-gen CPUs anywhere, considering they’re launching in a fortnight (in theory), there are still bright spots of optimism that we’ll see some impressive enough chips here (among somecloudier tales of pedestrian performance gains, mind).

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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).

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