Gaming Performance: 720p And Lower

The reason we test games in CPU reviews at lower resolutions such as 720p and below is simple; titles are more likely to be CPU bound than they are GPU bound at lower resolutions. This means there are more frames for the processor to process as opposed to the graphics card doing the majority of the heavy lifting.

There are some variances where some games will still use graphical power, but not as much CPU grunt at these smaller resolutions, and this is where we can show where CPU limitations lie in terms of gaming.

We are using DDR5 memory on the Core i9-14900K, Core i7-14700K, Core i5-14600K, and Intel's 13th Gen at the relative JEDEC settings. The same methodology is also used for the AMD Ryzen 7000 series and Intel's 12th Gen (Alder Lake) processors. Below are the settings we have used for each platform:

  • DDR5-5600B CL46 - Intel 14th & 13th Gen
  • DDR5-5200 CL44 - Ryzen 7000
  • DDR5-4800 (B) CL40 - Intel 12th Gen

Civilization VI

(a-1) Civilization VI - 480p Min - Average FPS

(a-2) Civilization VI - 480p Min - 95th Percentile

World of Tanks

(b-1) World of Tanks - 768p Min - Average FPS

(b-2) World of Tanks - 768p Min - 95th Percentile

Borderlands 3

(c-1) Borderlands 3 - 360p VLow - Average FPS

(c-2) Borderlands 3 - 360p VLow - 95th Percentile

Grand Theft Auto V

(e-1) Grand Theft Auto V - 720p Low - Average FPS

(e-2) Grand Theft Auto V - 720p Low - 95th Percentile

Red Dead Redemption 2

(f-1) Red Dead 2 - 384p Min - Average FPS

(f-2) Red Dead 2 - 384p Min - 95th Percentile

F1 2022

(g-1) F1 2022 - 720p Low - Average FPS

(g-2) F1 2022 - 720p Low - 95th Percentile

Hitman 3

(h-1) Hitman 3 - 720p Low - Average FPS

(h-2) Hitman 3 - 720p Low - 95th Percentile

Total War: Warhammer 3

(i-1) Total War Warhammer 3 - 720p Low - Average FPS

Looking at CPU performance without GPU bottlenecks at 720p and lower resolutions, we can see that the Core i9-14900K performs very similarly to the Core i9-13900K and Core i9-13900KS. In scenarios where games can use more L3 cache, the AMD Ryzen 7000 with 3D V-Cache (X3D) chips are the victors. In Civ V, we can see that the game prefers AMD cores as opposed to Intel's, but overall, none of the new Intel 14th Gen Core series chips perform badly.

The interesting CPU is the Core i9-14700K, which is closer to the Core i9-14900K than we've seen from going from an i7 to an i9 or an i5 to an i7 within previous generations. The gap between the Core i9-14900K and Core i7-14700K is as close as we were expecting, given it only has four fewer E-cores than the Core i9 and with slightly slower core clock speeds.

CPU Benchmark Performance: AI and Inferencing Gaming Performance: 1080p
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  • Gastec - Friday, October 20, 2023 - link

    Maybe they do it through a proxy app, part of the overall package of Windows' Telemetry?
  • pookguy88 - Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - link

    you didn't have a 13700k to test against?
  • shabby - Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - link

    Yup pity, that would show us what those 4 e-cores can actually do.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - link

    I mean they still dont have a GPU test bed going on 3 years post fire. I wouldnt expect much.
  • nandnandnand - Wednesday, October 18, 2023 - link

    I recommend everyone go to Tom's Hardware if they are missing something here. They'll have the reviews, decent ones IMO, and are owned by the same company as AnandKek.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, October 19, 2023 - link

    Tom's Hardware was caught shilling for Nvidia eons ago. They're another dinosaur of the tech space.

    Techspot, Techpowerup, and reviewers like gamers nexus are the new hotness.
  • wrosecrans - Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - link

    Some motherboards will let you just set a power limit. I'd like to see a benchmark where the power limit is set to only the advertising number (125 W) and see what it can do with that constraint. 400+ watts just seems insane. My laptop is currently suffering terrible battery life because the CPU throttles up and gets hot and cooks the laptop because of exactly this Power Be Damned philosophy. I want a quiet desktop that isn't going to cook me if I'm sitting next to it, and isn't going to just cook the motherboard components and fail after a few years.

    I was expecting the new chip to be slightly more power efficient with a year of design tweaks and improvements. (And you'll note Intel wants you to think this because they kept the 125W marketing power usage on the box.) I am kinda baffled how Intel is executing so poorly. Nobody had a gun to their head forcing them to release this product. There's some deeply broken structural inertia in the organization to just keep pumping out products and not disrupting the flow of new model numbers. Somebody in Intel should have been screaming and said the plan wasn't working, rather than just keeping their head down to deliver a new model number for no reason.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - link

    If you want low power, get a ryzen. The 7800x3d tops out at just 50 watt.

    Performance loss, if anything like raptor lake (which this is) will be 15%+ down at 125 watt, more if they make heavy use of P cores.
  • schujj07 - Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - link

    Andandtech did this with the 13900k vs 7950X at different TDP/PPT. Basically the Ryzen at 65W TDP or 88W PPT was faster than Intel at 125W TDP. Once the Ryzen was set to 105W TDP or 142W PPT the Intel needed 253W TDP to be faster. In fact the scaling on the Ryzem dropped off quite quickly over 105W TDP.
  • mode_13h - Wednesday, October 18, 2023 - link

    This: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17641/lighter-touch...

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