Intel’s "Raptor Lake Refresh" line of 14th Gen processors has so far been an indifferent lot, but the upswing is here. The new Intel Core i9-14900K and the Intel Core i5-14600K don’t introduce much meaningful improvement over their 13th Gen counterparts, making them arguably worse products to buy since they may require BIOS updates on older motherboards to get working. With the new Core i7-14700K, however, we get something different: honest-to-goodness improvements! Better yet, the upgrades come at the same $409 price as its predecessor, making the Intel Core i7-14700K the gem of Intel’s Raptor Lake Refresh lineup.Design: The 14700K’s Core Advantage As a Raptor Lake Refresh processor, the Core i7-14700K is not so different from its direct predecessor, the Intel Core i7-13700K. Both of these chips utilize the same processor core and share many of the same specs, but you'll find one primary difference between the two. The Core i7-14700K ships with a total of 20 CPU cores enabled wit...

The Core i7-14700K is the best value of Intel's refreshed "Raptor Lake" CPUs, bringing marked improvements at no extra cost. It's an attractive upgrade for older LGA 1700 systems.