Intel Core i9-14900K: What Real Users Actually Think

It's just a 13900k that doesn't deserve a new model number.

oh wow 1% faster in some scenarios for just 149$ extra. thx but no thanks.

all that power used, all this expense expended, to still not beat out a 7800x3d...

We have a lot of these in heavy use in always on machines at my workplace and we had to replace many of them in the past. It's a lot better now so the fixes did at least something.

I'll stick with my 14700k for awhile.

I decreased my temps from high 80's to low 60's while gaming, and got a CineBench R23 score of 39,000 - 40,000. My Vcore never exceeds 1.2V under load, with the undervolt applied.

Even if your CPU is working OK with no power limit in place, running it that way WILL degrade your CPU over time, eventually causing issues down the road. If you are looking to use your i7 and i9 for many years, enforce Intel's power limits.

It really depends on what resolution you're targeting, but if it's 1440p/4k the difference between the 14900k and even the 9800x3d is generally not going to be something you'd even notice and the BIOS updates for Intel eliminated that issue.

The 14900k still disintegrates on a regular basis. Do you want to take that risk? I'd go with the 285K because of that. The 285k is also better for productivity, just slightly weaker in gaming.

I have the 14900k, 0 issues, use it for work, and gaming. Just make sure to get a good cooler.

Have mine since release, the latest microcode is 0x12F. Had some instabilities prior this code in April this year but it seems it was caused by a Windows 11 update - no issues since 12F.

My PC still crashes to this day but it's less frequent after the patches, I own 13900K and I can't get a refund/replacement in my country, which makes me pissed.

14900k has better gaming performance and 285k better productivity performance, upgradability and power efficiency. Tbh if u don't care about power usage and upgradability then get the 14900k.

Never understood the appeal of i9s. For a lot more money and heat you get a little more performance. Yaaay.

If it's for gaming just go AMD, even for productivity you should probably just go for AMD. The new intel core ultras don't have any issues we know of yet but they kind of just suck.

14700k here since release no issues I would say the long term stability has been answered.

Productivity focused = Get the 14900k. Gaming focused = Get the 7800x3d. The 14900k is a great chip and issues have been resolved.

Ive been running my 14900k since launch with zero issues, but I have been undervolted the entire time. 14900k is fine.

Since I built it, something was funky. Overall I could game with great performance but sometimes I'd crash on starting up games, sometimes I'd go 15 hours without an issue before crashing. But I was getting all sorts of memory, VRAM, etc. error codes. Skip to 4 months, 25+ hours of research later... I FINALLY FOUND THE ISSUE! By default, most motherboards are way overclocking and frying your 13th/14th gen CPU.

Yeah, by default my 13700K was overclocked and overvolted to the point where it would thermal throttle immediately after starting Cinebench. I disabled the automatic overclocking and did it by hand. I was able to increase performance and reduce temps. The motherboard manufacturers are nuts and should be sued.

No, it's awesome. The 14700k is probably the best value. 5 year warranty, go for it.

I've had my i9-14900k for a year now, never installed their 'microcode' Bios as they are unstable. No hiccups issues. Temps are stable at 60c to 67c on continuous full load.

If you already have the Core 7 265K I wouldn't change it. It's a good CPU. The Core i9-14900K is 10% faster in games for much more power consumption. Core 9 285K is best case 15% faster in productivity workloads, often less.

I bought the i9 14900k after the fix was put out by Intel because it was cheap $220.00. It's a great processor and hasn't been a problem to cool at all with a 360 AIO. Temps stay around 38-40c during desk work and only get as high as 78c during gaming. It does everything well.

I work at marketing industry and we have something like 40 pcs with a i9 14900k, We use it to do heavy rendering and graphic design mostly, and we have yet to see any instability.

I've been running my tuned i9-14900KS at 5.9-6GHz all core since 0x12B came out and it's rock solid on everything I've thrown at it, and it's been a pretty diverse workload of sustained and transient loads.

Like why can't I just buy one of the newest and best CPU's without having to do all this extra stuff just to get it to not nuke itself?

14900k is better with fixes. Issue is the bad reputation it got for a bit.

Nope works great. Had one for over a year zero issues. Ran mine overclocked at 5.7ghz all core on the performance cores, sometimes higher 5.9ghz. It also depends what you want to do on your PC. 14900k is faster for productivity tasks, the 9800x3d is better for gaming, but not that much.

I've had an i9-14900k since shortly after release. Anecdotally, I've not had any stability issues that weren't motherboard shenanigans. Out of the box the motherboard by default had things like MCE enabled, unlimited power limits, and a fairly hefty undervolt via the load lines. Eventually Gigabyte released BIOSes with an actual Intel default profile. This addressed the stability issues.

14900KS overclocked to 5.9 ghz all core. Four months now zero issues. Latest microcode. CPU is an absolute dream chip. Incinerates any workload under the sun and asks for more. Zero vmin shift since I installed it four months ago.

If you play games, watch videos, create documents and some videos or photo editing the 7800X3D is fine. If you do all of the above with more Video and photo editing and professional workloads get the Intel 14900K. There were issues BUT the fixes have been released. If you buy everything NEW and install them properly you will not have issues.

14900K is very good and trouble free if you're willing to put in work. I'm talking about days of tuning and validating stability. It's on par with 9800x3D in most games. 1% and .1% lows also on par if not beats it by a small margin.

The 14th gen problems are supposedly fixed, however at the cost of undervolting which lowers performance. There's not much of a reason to go with Intel right now considering the state of the company. I was a lifelong Intel user from 1997 to 2022 when I switched to the 7800x3d. Couldn't be happier with the switch.

I RMA'd my first 14900k. I upgraded to the latest BIOS when it came out, and still had my new chip go bad on the new BIOS. I am waiting for 9950x3d before RMA'ing (and hopefully refunding) the 2nd 14900k.

I lost my 13700k to this just a month ago. I had updated the mobo but maybe too late as I got zero information about it and especially not from Intel. I've bought their CPUs for 20 years and that stopped right there and then. Never again.

It's hard to say. Some people say that the microcode didn't fix it; but from my understanding, if you've ever had your chip on the older microcode, it's already damaged. It seems like a lot of people are under the impression that their chip should be fully cured after updating to the latest bios, even if they've been running their 13900K or whatever on older microcodes since release.

I came back from 7800x3d to 14900k and yes I did that because I was having stutters which I couldn't resolve. I personally believe that while 14900k takes a bit more work to tune it well, it ends up being quite a good processor in the end.

As an 14900k user I would avoid it at all costs. While statistically it's the best CPU I've owned… it has just been riddled with issues. Bios updates, underclocking, voltage matching… this thing freaking sucks.

I used my first 14900K completely stock, never tinkered with anything and the chip destroyed itself. I was able to get a free RMA chip mailed to me but I no longer trust Intel so I will stick with my undervolt and make sure I don't hit dangerous voltage and prematurely kill my 2nd chip.

I ended up changing to an 285k ultra even if it's a bit worse in gaming. Temps and power usage it's a lot better than the black hole of the 14900K, this CPU its just way too hot, it requires 100% custom water cooling, an AIO doesn't work with this thing unless you do the most possible undervolt you could before running unstable. Tried 3 different high brand AIOs, all of them CPU +80c under load with spikes to 90, I gave up.

Currently running a 14900K with -0.150v undervolt, 180W TDP limit. It works amazing for content creation, unity, compiling and occasional gaming. It has been running fine for two weeks now.

I wish I saw this earlier. Mine already blew up and I had to get a Core 7 Ultra.

Intel is GARBAGE. Brand new i9 14900ks and I watched it go from mediocre (because of intels base settings I had to force on it since I didn't want it to fail) now it wont even boot into windows. BSOD and I have tested this chip on multiple working platforms to the same issues.

You're not going to use that as advertised 6ghz. If you go into bios and limit it to 5.6 all core, then it can last you forever. Only problem with 14900k was the single core boost to 6.0 ghz, requesting 1.6volt from the motherboard. Anyone who's been in the PC overclocking world knows 1.6volt is a death voltage, but somehow Intel did it.