INTEL’S 14TH GENERATION CPU launch has been, from a purely performancejumping perspective, a bit of a boring one. Whether that’s the lack of any actual hardware changes on the core of its lineup, or an underwhelming debut of its APO tech, it’s a launch that’s got a lot of us tech journalists really questioning why the company decided to launch the refresh when it did, particularly given the already potent CPUs it had in its arsenal.
That got us thinking.
Last issue, we built a gorgeous toptier gaming PC inside of the prestigious NZXT H9 Flow chassis, complete with all the best components we could find. The Core i9-14900K, the RTX 4090, a 1200W PSU, 32GB of DDR5, and a staggering $700 motherboard. It was, without a doubt, a bit of a monster. In 4K gaming it demolished everything we could throw at it, and when it came to benchmarking and real-world performance, there were simply no better alternatives out there at the time from AMD or Intel. If you wanted a versatile PC that could do everything from gaming to rendering, streaming and more, this was the machine.