Integral Memory may not be a household name in the global storage market but it has carved a niche in the UK one where it caught my attention in 2016 by launching what was then the largest SSD ever, the SVR100 and its enormous 8TB capacity. I’ve got myself the SlimXpress, its latest external SSD. There’s no denying that there’s an air of resemblance between Integral Memory’s metal champion and the Netac Z Slim which we recently reviewed. The one we’re reviewing today however differs on three important points: It is available only in the UK, is much faster and has a shorter warranty. Other than that the solid black aluminum chassis that protects the delicate electronic components, the location of the USB port and the short cables lead me to believe that both Netac and Integral are using the same original design manufacturer (ODM).
The SlimXpress though manages to pull itself ahead of Netac when it comes to pricing and performance, positioning itself as a viable alternative to better established brands, although not by much. Not bigger than a pack of chewing gum (only 106mm x 32mm x 9mm), it offers USB 3.2 Gen 2, which is the highest mainstream speed (USB 4, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 and Thunderbolt are still very much niche technologies) and I’d wish Integral had bundled a data recovery software or a backup application of some sort.
Integral Memory SlimXpress: Pricing and availability
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How much does it cost? £55.99
When is it available?
Where can you get it? It is available in the UK only
As a potential candidate for our best portable SSD buying guide, the SlimXpress loses out on availability as it is a UK-only product. It is available in capacities ranging from 500GB to 4TB; I reviewed the 1TB model.
Integral Memory SlimXpress: Benchmark
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On the whole, Integral delivered on the advertised 1.05/1GBps speeds, coming close to 1.1GBps on CDM write and inching into 1GBps territory on write, which is admirable. The drive became warm on extensive use which was expected. I didn’t test the drive with the bundled adaptor but I’d recommend sticking to USB Type-C to enjoy the higher transfer rates.
Integral Memory SlimXpress: Specs
Should I buy the Integral Memory SlimXpress?
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Integral Memory SlimXpress alternatives
The Z Slim from Netac looks like a twin brother to the SlimXpress 1TB and is a good 15% cheaper than its rival with a much longer warranty. However, it is also much slower which reduces its appeal. Just bear in mind though that prices change all the time. As I was finishing this review, Netac introduced a 20% discount on the ZX10, a faster version of the Z Slim. The discount brought down its price in line with the Integral SlimXpress but with a much longer warranty.
The Crucial X8 is just a few pounds more expensive and matches Integral’s performance while delivering a much longer warranty. The backing of Micron, one of the world’s largest memory manufacturers, gives it the edge on the SlimXpress
The Crucial X6 is a slower, cheaper and smaller version of the X8 above. It competes with the Z Slim but is one to be considered as well due to its longer warranty and the presence of Micron as the parent brand.
How I tested the Integral Memory SlimXpress
After having formatted the Integral SlimXpress to exFAT, I test it the same way I test other storage components (external HDD, microSD cards etc). I use the latest versions of CrystalDiskMark, Atto, AS SSD and AJA benchmarks, noting the best scores achieved in each. They are all free and can be downloaded by anyone. I then transfer a folder of files, roughly 10GB in size, to get a rough idea of real life performance.
The Intel Core i9-14900K is a hard chip to justify, which is a weird thing to say about a processor that is arguably the best Intel has ever put out.
With very little fanfare to herald its arrival following the announcement of Intel Meteor Lake at Intel Innovation in September 2023 (and confirmation that Intel Meteor Lake is coming to desktop in 2024), Intel's 14th-generation flagship processor cannot help but draw parallels to the 11th-gen Rocket Lake chips that immediately preceded Intel Alder Lake.
The Core i9-11900K was something of a placeholder in the market until Intel could launch Alder Lake at the end of 2021. Those processors featured a new hybrid architecture and a more advanced 10nm process that helped propel Intel back to the top of our best processor list, despite strong competition from AMD.
With Intel Raptor Lake Refresh, we're back in placeholder territory, unfortunately. The performance gains here are all but non-existent, so we are essentially waiting on Meteor Lake while the i9-14900K absolutely guzzles electricity and runs hot enough to boil water under just about any serious workload with very little extra performance over the Intel Core i9-13900K to justify the upgrade.
The problem for the Core i9-14900K is that you can still get the i9-13900K.
It's not that the Core i9-14900K isn't a great processor; again, it's unquestionably the best Intel processor for the consumer market in terms of performance. It beats every other chip I tested in most categories with the exception of some multitasking workflows and average gaming performance, both of which it comes in as a very close runner-up. On top of that, at $589, it's the same price as the current Intel flagship, the Intel Core i9-13900K (assuming the i9-14900K matches the i9-13900K's £699 / AU$929 sale price in the UK and Australia).
The problem for the Core i9-14900K is two-fold: you can still get the i9-13900K and will be able to for a long while yet at a lower price, and the Intel Core i7-14700K offers performance so close to the 14th-gen flagship at a much lower price that the 14900K looks largely unnecessary by comparison. Essentially, If you've got an i7-13700K or i9-13900K, there's is simply nothing for you here.
If you're on an 11th-gen chip or older, or you've got an AMD Ryzen processor and you're looking to switch, this chip will be the last one to use the LGA 1700 socket, so when Meteor Lake-S comes out in 2024 (or even Lunar Lake-S, due out at the end of 2024 or early 2025), you won't be able to upgrade to that processor with an LGA 1700 motherboard. In other words, upgrading to an LGA 1700 for this chip is strictly a one-shot deal.
The only people who might find this chip worth upgrading to are those currently using a 12th-gen processor who skipped the 13th-gen entirely, or someone using a 13th-gen core i5 who wants that extra bit of performance and doesn't mind dropping $589 on a chip they might be upgrading from again in a year's time, which isn't going to be a whole lot of people.
Unfortunately, at this price, it'll be better to save your money and wait for Meteor Lake or even Lunar Lake to drop next year and put the $589 you'd spend on this chip towards the new motherboard and CPU cooler you'll need once those chips are launched.
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Intel Core i9-14900K: Price & availability
How much does it cost? US MSRP $589 (about £470/AU$855)
When is it out? October 17, 2023
Where can you get it? You can get it in the US, UK, and Australia
The Intel Core i9-14900K is available as of October 17, 2023, for a US MSRP of $589 (about £470/AU$855), which is the same as the Intel Core i9-13900K it is replacing. We don't have confirmation on UK and Australia pricing yet, though I've asked Intel for clarification and will update this review if and when I hear back from the company. If the 14900K keeps the same UK and Australia pricing as the Core i9-13900K, however, it'll sell for £699/AU$929 in the UK and Australia respectively.
This does make the Core i9-14900K the better value against these chips, especially given the level of performance on offer, but it's ultimately too close to the 13900K performance-wise to make this price meaningful, as a cheaper 13900K will offer an even better value against AMD's Ryzen 9 lineup.
Price score: 3 / 5
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Intel Core i9-14900K: Specs & features
Faster clock speeds than i9-13900K
Some additional AI-related features
The Intel Core i9-14900K is the final flagship using Intel's current architecture, so it makes sense that there is very little in the way of innovation over the Intel Core i9-13900K.
Using the same 10nm Intel 7 process node as its predecessor and with the same number of processor cores (8 P-cores/16 E-cores), threads (32), and cache (32MB total L2 cache plus additional 36MB L3 cache), the only real improvement with the 14900K in terms of specs are its faster clock speeds.
All cores get a 0.2GHz increase to their base frequencies, while the P-core turbo boost clock increases to 5.6GHz and the E-core turbo clock bumps up to 4.4GHz from the 13900K's 5.4GHz P-Core turbo clock and 4.3GHz E-core turbo clock.
While those clock speeds are the official max turbo clocks for the two types of cores, the Core i9-14900K and Intel Core i7-14700K have something called Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which increases the frequency of the best-performing core in the chip and gives it even more power within the power and thermal limits. That gets the Core i9-14900K up to 5.8GHz turbo clock on specific P-cores while active.
Additionally, an exclusive feature of the Core i9 is an additional Ludicrous-Speed-style boost called Intel Thermal Velocity Boost. This activates if there is still power and thermal headroom on a P-core that is already being boosted by the Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, and this can push the core as high as 6.0GHz, though these aren't typical operating conditions.
Both of these technologies are present in the 13900K as well, but the 14900K bumps up the maximum clock speeds of these modes slightly, and according to Intel, that 6.0GHz clock speed makes this the world's fastest processor. While that might technically be true, that 6.0GHz is very narrowly used so in practical terms, the P-Core boost clock is what you're going to see almost exclusively under load.
The Core i9-14900K has the same 125W TDP as the 13900K and the same 253W maximum turbo power as well, though power draw in bursts of less than 10ms can go far higher.
If this reads like a Redditor posting about their successful overclocking setup, then you pretty much get what this chip is about. If you're looking for something innovative about this chip, I'll say it again, you're going to have to wait for Meteor Lake.
The Core i9-14900K also has support for discrete Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, as does the rest of the 14th-gen lineup, as well as support for discrete Thunderbolt 5, both of which are still a long way down the road.
The only other thing to note is that there have been some AI-related inclusions that are going to be very specific to AI workloads that almost no one outside of industry and academia is going to be running. If you're hoping for AI-driven innovations for everyday consumers, let's say it once more, with feeling: You're going to have to wait for—
Chipset & features score: 3.5 / 5
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Intel Core i9-14900K: Performance
Best-in-class performance, but only by a hair
Gets beat by AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D and i7-14700K in gaming performance
Runs even hotter than the i9-13900K
If you took any elite athlete who's used to setting records in their sport, sometimes they break their previous record by a lot, and sometimes it's by milliseconds or fractions of an inch. It's less sexy, but it still counts, and that's really what we get here with the Intel i9-14900K.
On pretty much every test I ran on it, the Core i9-14900K edged out its predecessor by single digits, percentage-wise, which is a small enough difference that a background application can fart and cause just enough of a dip in performance that the 14900K ends up losing to the 13900K.
I ran these tests more times than I can count because I had to be sure that something wasn't secretly messing up my results, and they are what they are. The Core i9-14900K does indeed come out on top, but it really is a game of inches at this point.
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Across all synthetic performance and productivity benchmarks, the Core i9-14900K comes out on top, with the notable exception of Geekbench 6.1's multi-core performance test, where the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores substantially higher, and the Passmark Performance Test's overall CPU score, which puts the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 7950X3D significantly higher. Given that all 16 cores of the 7950X and 7950X3D are full-throttle performance cores, this result isn't surprising.
Other than that though, it's the 14900K all the way, with a 5.6% higher geometric average on single-core performance than the 13900K. For multi-core performance, the 14900K scores a 3.1% better geometric average, and in productivity workloads, it scores a 5.3% better geometric average than its predecessor.
Against the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, the Core i9-14900K scores about 13% higher in single-core performance, about 1% lower in multi-core performance, and 5% better in productivity performance.
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Creative benchmarks reveal something of a mixed bag for the Core i9-14900K. In all cases, it beats its predecessor by between 2.6% to as much as 10.9%. Against the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and 7950X3D, the Core i9-14900K consistently loses out when it comes to rendering workloads like Blender and V-Ray 5, but beats the two best AMD processors by just as much in photo and video editing. And since 3D rendering is almost leaning heavily on a GPU rather than the CPU, AMD's advantage here is somewhat muted in practice.
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Gaming is another area where Intel had traditionally done well thanks to its strong single-core performance over AMD, but all that flipped with the introduction of AMD's 3D V-Cache.
While the Intel Core i9-14900K barely moves the needle from its predecessor's performance, it really doesn't matter, since the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D manages to ultimately score an overall victory and it's not very close. The Core i9-14900K actually manages a tie for fourth place with the Intel Core i7-13700K, with the Core i7-14700K edging it out by about 4 fps on average.
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Of course, all this performance requires power, and lots of it. The Core i9-14900K pretty much matched the maximum recorded power draw of the Core i9-13900K, with less of a watt's difference between the two, 351.097W to 351.933, respectively.
The Core i9-14900K still managed to find a way to run hotter than its predecessor, however; something I didn't really think was possible. But there it is, the 14900K maxing out at 105ºC, three degrees hotter than the 13900K's max. It's the hottest I've ever seen a CPU run, and I'm genuinely shocked it was allowed to run so far past its official thermal limit without any overclocking on my part.
Performance: 3.5 / 5
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Intel Core i9-14900K: Verdict
The best chip for dedicated performance like video editing and productivity
There are better gaming processors out there for cheaper
The Intel Core i7-14700K offers a far better value
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In the final assessment then, the Core i9-14900K does manage to win the day, topping the leaderboard by enough of a margin to be a clear winner, but close enough that it isn't the cleanest of wins.
Overall, its single-core and productivity performance are its best categories, slightly faltering in creative workloads, and coming up short enough on gaming that it's not the chip I would recommend as a gaming CPU.
Like all Core i9s before it, the 14900K is the worst value of Intel's 14th-gen launch lineup, but it's better than its predecessor for the time being (though that advantage won't last very long at all), and it does manage to be a better value proposition than the Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 7950X3D, while matching the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, so all in all, not too bad for an enthusiast chip.
Still, the Intel Core i7-14700K is right there, and its superior balance of price and performance makes the Intel Core i9-14900K a harder chip to recommend than it should be.
Should you buy the Intel Core i9-14900K?
Buy the Intel Core i9-14900K if...
Don't buy it if...
Also Consider
If my Intel Core i9-14900K review has you considering other options, here are two processors to consider...
How I tested the Intel Core i9-14900K
I spent nearly two weeks testing the Intel Core i9-14900K
I ran comparable benchmarks between this chip and rival flagship processors
I gamed with this chip extensively
Test System Specs
These are the specs for the test system used for this review:
I spent about two weeks testing the Intel Core i9-14900K and its competition, using it mostly for productivity and content creation, with some gaming thrown in as well.
I used the standard battery of synthetic benchmarks I use for processor testing, and ran the same tests on rival chips from AMD as well as the other 14th-gen chips in the Raptor Lake Refresh launch lineup and 13th-generation Raptor Lake processors. For Intel chips, I used the same motherboard, RAM, SSD, and graphics card to ensure I was isolating just the CPU's performance across every chip. For AMD chips, I used a comparable AM5 motherboard so differences in the motherboard configuration and circuitry are mitigated to the largest extent possible.
I've been testing and reviewing computer hardware for years now, and with an extensive background in computer science, I know processors in and out, and I use that knowledge to ensure every chip is thoroughly tested.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
The Intel Core i7-14700K is the workhorse CPU in the Intel's 14th generation launch line-up, and like any good workhorse, it's going to be the one to do the heavy lifting for this generation of processors. Fortunately for Intel, the Core i7-14700K succeeds in keeping Raptor Lake Refresh from being completely forgettable.
Of all the chips launched on October 17, 2023, the Core i7-14700K is the only one to get a substantive spec upgrade over its predecessor as well as a slight cut in price to just $409 (about £325/AU$595), which is $10 less than the Intel Core i7-13700K it replaces.
So what do you get for $10 less? Gen-on-gen, you don't get a whole lot of improvement (about 6% better performance overall compared to the 13700K), but that figure can be deceiving, since the Core i7-13700K was at the top of our best processor list for a reason.
With the 13700K's performance being within striking distance of the Intel Core i9-13900K, that 6% improvement for the 14700K effectively closes the gap, putting the 14700K within just 3% of the 13900K overall, and even allowing it to pull ahead in average gaming performance, losing out to only the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
Fortunately for Intel, the Core i7-14700K succeeds in keeping Raptor Lake Refresh from being completely forgetable.
Given its excellent mix of performance and price, the Intel Core i7-14700K could very well be the last Intel chip of the LGA 1700 epoch that anyone should consider buying, especially if you're coming from a 12th-gen chip.
With the Core i9-13900K outperforming the Intel Core i9-12900K by as much as 25% in some workloads, someone coming off an i9-12900K or lower will find it hard to believe that an i7 could perform this well, but that's where we're at. And with the i7-14700K coming in about 30% cheaper than the Intel Core i9-14900K, while still managing to come remarkably close in terms of its performance, the Intel Core i7-14700K is the Raptor Lake Refresh chip to buy if you're going to buy one at all.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Intel Core i7-14700K: Price & availability
How much does it cost? US MSRP $409 (about £325/AU$595)
When is it out? October 17, 2023
Where can you get it? You can get it in the US, UK, and Australia
The Intel Core i7-14700K is available on October 17, 2023, with a US MSRP of $409 (about £325/AU$595), which is a slight decrease from its predecessor's MSRP of $419 (about £335/AU$610), and about 31% lower than the Intel Core i9-14900K and 32% percent lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
It's also cheaper than the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, and just $10 more expensive than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, putting it very competitively priced against processors in its class.
The comparisons against the Core i9 and Ryzen 9 are far more relevant, however, since these are the chips that the Core i7-14700K are competing against in terms of performance, and in that regard, the Intel Core i7-14700K is arguably the best value among consumer processors currently on the market.
Price score: 4 / 5
Intel Core i7-14700K: Specs & features
Four additional E-Cores
Slightly faster clock speeds
Increased Cache
Discrete Wi-Fi 7 and Thunderbolt 5 support
The Intel Core i7-14700K is the only processor from Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh launch line-up to get a meaningful spec upgrade.
Rather than the eight performance and eight efficiency cores like the i7-13700K, the i7-14700K comes with eight performance cores and 12 efficiency cores, all running with a slightly higher turbo boost clock for extra performance. The i7-14700K also has something called Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, which is a mouthful but also gives the best performing P-core an extra bump up to 5.6GHz so long as the processor is within power and thermal limits.
The increased core count also adds 7MB of additional L2 cache for the efficiency cores to use, further improving their performance over the 13700K's, as well as four additional processing threads for improved multitasking.
It has the same TDP of 125W and same Max Turbo Power rating of 253W as the 13700K, with the latter being the upper power limit of sustained (greater than one second) power draw for the processor. This ceiling can be breached, however, and processing cores can draw much more power in bursts as long as 10ms when necessary.
There is also support for discrete Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity, as well as discrete Thunderbolt 5 wired connections, so there is a decent bit of future proofing in its specs.
Chipset & features score: 4 / 5
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Intel Core i7-14700K: Performance
Outstanding performance on par with the i9-13900K
Best gaming performance of any Intel processor
More power hungry than predecessor, so also runs hotter
The Intel Core i7-14700K is arguably the best performing midrange processor on the market, coming within striking distance of the Core i9-13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X across most workloads, including very strong multi core performance thanks to the addition of four extra efficiency cores.
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The strongest synthetic benchmarks for the 14700K are single core workloads, which puts it effectively level with the Core i9-13900K and often beating the Ryzen 9 7950X and 7950X3D chips handily.
This translates into better dedicated performance, rather than multitasking, but even there the Core i7-14700K does an admirable just keeping pace with chips with much higher core counts.
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In creative workloads, the 14700K also performs exceptionally well, beating out the 13900K on everything except 3D model rendering, which is something that is rarely given to a CPU to do any when even the best cheap graphics cards can process Blender or V-Ray 5 workloads many times faster than even the best CPU can.
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In gaming performance, the Core i7-14700K scores a bit of an upset over its launch sibling, the i9-14900K, besting it in gaming performance overall, though it has to be said that it got some help from a ridiculously-high average fps in Total War: Warhammer III's battle benchmark. In most cases, the i7-14700K came up short of the 13900K and 14900K, but not by much.
And while it might be tempting to write off Total War: Warhammer III as an outlier, one of the biggest issues with the Core i9's post-Alder Lake is that they are energy hogs and throttle under load quickly, pretty much by design.
In games like Total War: Warhammer III where there are a lot of tiny moving parts to keep track of, higher clock speeds don't necessarily help. When turbo clocks kick into high gear and cause throttling, the back-and-forth between throttled and not-throttled can be worse over the course of the benchmark than the cooler but consistent Core i7s, which don't have to constantly ramp up and ramp down.
So the 14700K isn't as much of an outlier as it looks, especially since the 13700K also excels at Total War: Warhammer III, and it too beats the two Core i9s. Total War: Warhammer III isn't the only game like this, and so there are going to be many instances where the cooler-headed 14700K steadily gets the work done while the hot-headed i9-13900K and 14900K sprint repeatedly, only to effectively tire themselves out for a bit before kicking back up to high gear.
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The additional efficiency cores might not draw as much power as the performance cores, but the additional power is still noticeable. The 14700K pulls down nearly 30W more watts than the 13700K, though it is still a far cry from the Core i9-13900K's power usage.
This additional power also means that the Core i7-14700K runs much hotter than its predecessor, maxing out at 100ºC, triggering the CPU to throttle on occasion. This is something that the i7-13700K didn't experience during my testing at all, so you'll need to make sure your cooling solution is up to the task here.
Performance: 4.5 / 5
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Intel Core i7-14700K: Verdict
Fantastic single-core performance
Intel's best gaming processor, and second overall behind the Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Best value of any midrange processor
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Ultimately, the Intel Core i7-14700K is the best processor in the Raptor Lake Refresh line-up, offering very competitive performance for a better price than its predecessor and far better one than comparable chips one tier higher in the stack.
It's not without fault, though. It's not that much better than the i7-13700K, so everything I'm saying about the i7-14700K might reasonably apply to its predecessor as well. And honestly, the i7-14700K doesn't have too high a bar to clear to standout from its launch siblings, so it's performance might only look as good in comparison to the i9 and i5 standing behind it.
But, the numbers don't lie, and the Intel Core i7-14700K displays flashes of brilliance that set it apart from its predecessor and vault it into competition with the top-tier of CPUs, and that's quite an achievement independent of how the rest of Raptor Lake Refresh fares.
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Should you buy the Intel Core i7-14700K?
Buy the Intel Core i7-14700K if...
Don't buy it if...
Also Consider
If my Intel Core i7-14700K review has you considering other options, here are two processors to consider...
How I tested the Intel Core i7-14700K
I spent nearly two weeks testing the Intel Core i7-14700K
I ran comparable benchmarks between this chip and rival midrange processors
I gamed with this chip extensively
Test System Specs
These are the specs for the test system used for this review:
I spent about two weeks testing the Intel Core i7-14700K and its competition, primarily for productivity work, gaming, and content creation.
I used a standard battery of synthetic benchmarks that tested out the chip's single core, multi core, creative, and productivity performance, as well as built-in gaming benchmarks to measure its gaming chops.
I then ran the same tests on rival chips from AMD as well as the other 14th-gen chips in the Raptor Lake Refresh launch line-up and 13th-generation Raptor Lake processors. For Intel chips, I used the same motherboard, RAM, SSD, and graphics card to ensure I was isolating just the CPU's performance across every chip. For AMD chips, I used a comparable AM5 motherboard so differences in the motherboard configuration and circuitry are mitigated to the largest extent possible.
I've been testing and reviewing computer hardware for years now, and with an extensive background in computer science, I know processors in and out, and I use that knowledge to ensure every chip is thoroughly tested.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
The Intel Core i5-14600K is not the kind of processor you're really going to want to upgrade to, despite technically offering the best value of any processor I've tested.
First, the good. This is one of the best processor values you're going to find on the market, no matter what happens with the price of its predecessor. Currently, it has the best performance for its $319 price tag (about £255/AU$465), and AMD's competing Ryzen 5 7600X isn't all that close. If you're looking to get the most bang for your buck today, then the Intel Core i5-14600K is it.
In terms of performance, this isn't a bad chip at all; I'd even say it's a great one if you take its predecessor out of the running, which will inevitably happen as its last remaining stock gets bought up. It doesn't have the performance of the Intel Core i7-14700K, but that's a workhorse chip, not the kind that's meant to power the best computers for the home or the best budget gaming PCs as these chips start making their way into prebuilt systems in the next couple of months.
For a family computer or one that's just meant for general, every day use, then this chip is more than capable of handling whatever y'll need it for. It can even handle gaming fairly well thanks to its strong single core performance. So, on paper at least, the Core i5-14600K is the best Intel processor for the mainstream user as far as performance goes.
The real problem with the i5-14600K is that its performance is tragically close to the Core i5-13600K's. And even though the MSRP of the Intel Core i5-13600K is technically higher than that of the Core i5-14600K, it's not going to remain that way for very long at all.
The real problem with the i5-14600K, and one that effectively sinks any reason to buy it, is that its performance is tragically close to the Core i5-13600K's.
As long as the i5-13600K is on sale, it will be the better value, and you really won't even notice a difference between the two chips in terms of day-to day-performance.
That's because there's no difference between the specs of the 14600K vs 13600K, other than a slightly faster turbo clock speed for the 14600K's six performance cores.
While this does translate into some increased performance, it comes at the cost of higher power draw and temperature. During testing, this chip hit a maximum temperature of 101ºC, which is frankly astounding for an i5. And I was using one of the best CPU coolers around, the MSI MAG Coreliquid E360 AIO, which should be more than enough to keep the temperature in check to prevent throttling.
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Looking at the chip's actual performance, the Core i5-14600K beats the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and the Intel Core i5-13600K in single core performance, multi core performance, and with productivity workloads, on average. Other than its roughly 44% better average multi core performance against the Ryzen 5 7600X, the Core i5-14600K is within 3% to 4% of its competing chips.
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In creative workloads, the Core i5-14600K again manages to outperform the Ryzen 5 7600X by about 31% on average, but it's just 2.4% better than its predecessor, and none of these chips are especially great at creative content work. If you're messing around with family albums or cutting up TikTok videos, any one of these chips could do that fairly easily. For heavier-duty workloads like video encoding and 3D rendering, the Intel chips hold up better than the mainstream Ryzen 5, but these chips really aren't practical for that purpose.
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On the gaming front, it's more of the same, though now at least the Ryzen 5 7600X is back in the mix. Overall, the Core i5-14600K beats its 13th-gen predecessor and AMD's rival chip by about 2.1% and 3.2% respectively.
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All of this comes at the cost of higher power draw and hotter CPU temperatures, though, which isn't good especially for getting so little in return. What you really have here is an overclocked i5-13600K, and you can do that yourself and save some money by buying the 13600K when it goes on sale, which is will.
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Intel Core i5-14600K: Price & availability
How much does it cost? US MSRP $319 (about £255/AU$465)
When is it out? October 17, 2023
Where can you get it? You can get it in the US, UK, and Australia
The Intel Core i5-14600K is available in the US, UK, and Australia as of October 17, 2023, for an MSRP of $319 (about £255/AU$465).
This is a slight $10 price drop from its predecessor, which is always good thing, and comes in about $20 (about £15/AU$30) more than the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, so fairly middle of the pack price-wise.
In terms of actual value, as it goes to market, this chip has the highest performance for its price of any chip in any product tier, but only by a thin margin, and one that is sure to fall very quickly once the price on the 13600K drops by even a modest amount.
Intel Core i5-14600K: Specs
Intel Core i5-14600K: Verdict
Best performance for the price of any chip tested...
...but any price drop in the Core i5-13600K will put the 14600K in second place
Not really worth upgrading to with the Core i7-14700K costing just $90 more
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Ultimately, the market served by this chip specifically is incredibly narrow, and like the rest of the Raptor Lake Refresh line-up, this is the last hurrah for the Intel LGA 1700 socket.
That means if you go out and buy a motherboard and CPU cooler just for the 14th-gen, it's a one time thing, since another generation on this platform isn't coming. It doesn't make sense to do that, so, if you're upgrading from anything earlier than the 12th-gen, it just makes so much more sense to wait for Meteor Lake to land in several months time and possibly get something really innovative.
If you're on a 12th-gen chip and you can't wait for Meteor Lake next year, the smartest move is to buy the i7-14700K instead, which at least gives you i9-13900K-levels of performance for just $90 more than the i5-14600K.
Ultimately, this chip is best reserved for prebuilt systems like the best all-in-one computers at retailers like Best Buy, where you will use the computer for a reasonable amount of time, and then when it becomes obsolete, you'll go out and buy another computer rather than attempt to upgrade the one you've got.
In that case, buying a prebuilt PC with an Intel Core i5-14600K makes sense, and for that purpose, this will be a great processor. But if you're looking to swap out another Intel LGA 1700 chip for this one, there are much better options out there.
Should you buy the Intel Core i5-14600K?
Buy the Intel Core i5-14600K if...
Don't buy it if...
Also Consider
If my Intel Core i5-14600K review has you considering other options, here are two processors to consider...
How I tested the Intel Core i5-14600K
I spent nearly two weeks testing the Intel Core i5-14600K
I ran comparable benchmarks between this chip and rival midrange processors
I gamed with this chip extensively
Test System Specs
These are the specs for the test system used for this review:
I spent about two weeks testing the Intel Core i5-14600K and its competition, primarily for productivity work, gaming, and content creation.
I used a standard battery of synthetic benchmarks that tested out the chip's single core, multi core, creative, and productivity performance, as well as built-in gaming benchmarks to measure its gaming chops.
I then ran the same tests on rival chips from AMD as well as the other 14th-gen chips in the Raptor Lake Refresh launch lineup and 13th-generation Raptor Lake processors. For Intel chips, I used the same motherboard, RAM, SSD, and graphics card to ensure I was isolating just the CPU's performance across every chip. For AMD chips, I used a comparable AM5 motherboard so differences in the motherboard configuration and circuitry are mitigated to the largest extent possible.
I've been testing and reviewing computer hardware for years now, and with an extensive background in computer science, I know processors in and out, and I use that knowledge to ensure every chip is thoroughly tested.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
The Samsung Portable SSD T9 is the company’s first with a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. This allows the external drives to reach 2,000MB/s sequential read and write speeds, twice as fast as the previous T7 drive (that one had a Gen 2x1 interface).
To help the drive stay fast, Samsung equipped it with its “Dynamic Thermal Guard”, which helps minimize slow downs due to thermal throttling. This is only for prolonged transfers, which may be rare – the drive is so quick that you can send a 4GB file to it in just two seconds.
The Samsung T9 SSD comes in four capacities: 1TB, 2TB and 4TB. They...
To say I've been looking forward to the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT for over a year is an understatement, and if I were to judge this card on its merits, I have to say that this is easily one of the best graphics card releases we've gotten out of this generation. My heart, though, knows that it should have been even better, so I can't help but feel slightly disappointed.
Released right on the heels of Labor Day here in the US, getting this card properly tested was obviously going to be a heavy lift, so when my preliminary benchmark numbers showed it edging out the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 by about 2% overall (while not getting as badly crushed by Nvidia's midrange rival in ray-tracing performance as during the previous generation), I figured this card was going to be an easy one to review.
Coming in at $499.99 (about £380/AU$725) compared to the RTX 4070's MSRP of $599.99 (about £460/AU$870), that roughly 17% price difference in AMD's favor is going to make a world of difference for a lot of gamers out there looking to upgrade to a current-gen midrange card.
In addition to fantastic 1440p gaming performance and even very respectable 4K gaming performance (thanks in no small part to the 16GB VRAM and 256-bit memory bus), ray tracing performance has gotten better as AMD's ray accelerators have improved and a host of new anti-latency and upscaling features make this pretty much the best 1440p graphics card on the market, hands down.
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So why does my heart ache having done a very intense week's worth of testing on this card?
Well, the single biggest negative in this card's column is that there is very little gen-on-gen improvement in terms of its rasterization performance over the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT.
Now the RX 7800 XT does have things that the RX 6800 XT doesn't have, namely AI accelerator cores that can power more advanced AI workloads like upscaling and other generative AI processes, and the 7800 XT does feature much better ray tracing performance than its predecessor, so calling these cards essentially the same would be factually and substantively wrong.
But rasterization is AMD Radeon's bread-and-butter, and by that metric, you only really get about 12% and 5% better gaming performance at 1080p and 1440p, respectively, and there's essentially no difference at 4K. If you don't care about ray tracing or running Stable Diffusion-like AI models (which you're likely to use Nvidia hardware for anyway), then this card is going to feel much more like a refresh of the RX 6800 XT, or even the RX 6850 XT that we didn't get a year ago.
And for that, the RX 7800 XT leaves me somewhat disappointed. If you aren't upgrading from an RX 6800 XT (which you shouldn't be doing even if this card was a true gen-on-gen successor like the fantastic AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is to the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT), then none of this is really going to matter to you.
I'd still tell you to buy the RX 7800 XT over the RX 6800 XT and even the RTX 4070, without question, but there's no getting around the fact that the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT misses its shot at being truly magnificent.
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Price & availability
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How much does it cost? $499.99 (about £380/AU$725)
When is it available? Available September 6, 2023
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia
The AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is available on September 6, 2023, starting at $499.99 (about £380/AU$725), which puts it about 23% cheaper than the RX 6800 XT was when it launched in 2020, and $100 cheaper than direct competitor the Nvidia RTX 4070.
It's also just $50 more expensive than the RX 7700 XT that it launched alongside, so anyone looking at the RX 7700 XT might be better served by buying the RX 7800 XT instead since you'll get better performance and extra VRAM without spending a whole lot more money.
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Specs
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AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Design
Unlike the RX 7700 XT, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT does have a reference card, and it'll look familiar to anyone who's been looking at AMD cards this generation. Opting for a two-fan cooling solution, this dual-slot card looks a lot like the AMD Radeon RX 7600 would if you stretched the card lengthwise.
It's not a long card either, measuring 267mm, or about 10.5 inches, so you shouldn't have any issues getting this card to fit inside a mid-tower case or larger. You might even be able to squeeze it into some tighter-fitting cases as well, but that'll depend on the case itself and what version of the RX 7800 XT you end up getting (third-party versions will vary in size and will likely be longer).
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The reference model of the card features three DisplayPort 2.1 outputs along with an HDMI 2.1 port, so it'll be more than capable of powering the best 4K monitors with ease, along with the various sizes and resolutions of the best gaming monitors on the market.
What it doesn't have, however, is a USB-C output, so if you have one of the best USB-C monitors (which is common in creative industries), youi'll likely need to pick up an adapter if you plan on slotting this card into a workstation.
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You'll also only need two free 8-pin power connectors, so no 12HPWR cable like Nvidia's competing cards. The card is fairly solid with a decent amount of weight, so you'll definitely need a support bracket if you're slotting this directly into a motherboard's PCIe slot.
Overall, the appearance is the same no-fuss, no-bling aesthetic we've gotten from AMD's RDNA 3 reference cards this generation, so if you want that RGB look, you're better off with a third-party card, but otherwise it's a lovely card to look at and won't be the shame of anyone's PC case.
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AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Chipset & features
The Navi 32 GPU in the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is the full version of the chip compared to the slightly trimmed-down GPU powering the RX 7700 XT, with an additional 6 compute units over the RX 7700 XT's 54, giving the RX 7800 XT an additional 384 shaders, 6 ray accelerators, and 12 AI accelerators.
The RX 7800 XT has a fairly low base clock of 1,295 MHz, compared to the RX 7700 XT's 1,700 MHz, but the RX 7800 XT's boost clock runs as high as 2,430 MHz (compared to the RX 7700 XT's 2,544 MHz).
This means that even though the RX 7800 XT has slightly more compute units, everything is running slightly slower, which goes a long way to explaining the relatively close levels of performance between the two GPUs.
The RX 7800 XT does feature 16GB VRAM with a large 256-bit memory bus, with a memory clock of 2,425 MHz for an effective 19.4 Gbps. This is slower than the RTX 4070's 21 Gbps effective memory speed, but the wider bus and larger frame buffer offered by the additional 4GB VRAM with the RX 7800 XT really highlights where Nvidia went wrong with lower VRAM and tighter buses this generation, compared to AMD who generally got the memory question on their cards right.
Finally, the TGP on the RX 7800 XT is a rather high 263W, compared to the 200W RTX 4070, but this is still less than the RX 6800 XT's 300W TGP, so there's progress at least.
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AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Performance
And here is where the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT impresses the most, even as it breaks my heart: performance.
I'll start with the good news for AMD here, which is that it by and large scores even with the RTX 4070 in terms of synthetic tests and gameplay performance while faltering rather badly against the RTX 4070 in creative workloads, which is pretty much expected given the Nvidia CUDA instruction set's dominance in all things creative.
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On the synthetic side, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT outperforms the RTX 4070 by about 2% overall, with rasterization workloads being its breakout strength, while Nvidia's ray tracing capabilities continue to outperform AMD's. Though it's worth noting that the RX 7800 XT does a lot to close the gap here, so Nvidia's advantage is only about 15% at best during 3DMark Speedway and just 6% better in Port Royal.
Meanwhile, the RX 7800 XT manages to score 25% better in 3DMark Firestrike Ultra, showing it to be a much better 4K card than the RTX 4070 thanks to the additional VRAM, a level of performance that is replicated in our gaming tests.
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When not using any upscaling tech, on average, the RX 7800 XT performs 15% better without ray tracing than the RTX 4070 (and just 4% worse with ray tracing at max settings) at 1080p, 6% better on average at 1440p (16% worse when ray tracing on max settings), and 17% better at 4K (though about 25% worse at 4K when ray tracing).
FSR 2 can't hold a candle to DLSS 3 when ray tracing, but in non-RT gameplay, FSR 2 and the RX 7800 XT actually comes out way ahead across all resolutions when FSR 2 and DLSS 3 are set to balanced, with the RX 7800 XT getting 53%, 21%, 19% better performance at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, respectively.
Turning on ray tracing prety much reverses the case and the RTX 4070 gets as much as 47%, 16%, and 12% better performance at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions, respectively.
In short, if you're planning on gaming without ray tracing, there is no question that between the RX 7800 XT and RTX 4070, the RX 7800 XT is the card you'll want to buy.
Here, as well, the RX 7800 XT manages to perform better than the RX 6800 XT, by about 15%, which isn't awful, but gamers hoping for a much larger improvement on the RX 6800 XT (such as myself) will be disappointed. Getting 15% better FPS on average when talking about the RX 7600 is one thing.
Given the price and the class of card in question, 15% is pretty much all you're going to get, but for a nearly $500 graphics card, I'd have liked to see 25% to 33%, if I'm being honest, and that's where this card ultimately should have landed in a perfect world.
But ours is a fallen land, and we're not comparing this card against a Platonic ideal projecting onto a cave wall, we're comparing it to the cards on the shelf that you have to pick between for your next upgrade.
If you can find the RX 6800 XT for more than 15% less than the RX 7800 XT, that might make the last-gen card the better buy. If that's not an option though, and you're like most gamers looking at the RTX 4070 vs. RX 7800 XT, the vast majority are going to get a better experience from the RX 7800 XT, especially when they have an extra $100 to buy themselves something else that's nice, as a treat.
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Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT?
Buy it if...
You want to play at 4K This card has serious 4K gaming chops thanks to its 16GB VRAM and wide memory bus.
You don't want to completely sacrifice ray tracing
AMD is finally getting to the point where you can have both great rasterization and decent ray tracing performance.
Don't buy it if...
You want the best ray tracing and upscaling possible If ray tracing and upscaling are your bag, then the RTX 4070 is going to be the better buy here.
AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT: Also consider
If my AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT review has you considering other options, here are two more graphics cards to consider.
How I tested the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT
I spent about a week with the RX 7800 XT
I focused mostly on gaming, since that is what AMD Radeon graphics cards are primarily used for
I used our standard battery of benchmark tests and personal gameplay experience
Test System Specs
These are the specs for the test system used for this review:
I spent about a week extensively testing the RX 7800 XT, both in a test bench and as my personal gaming card at home.
I ran our standard battery of performance benchmarks, including 3DMark tests and various in-game gaming benchmarks, on the RX 7800 XT and various competing graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia to get a slate of comparable figures.
In addition to my extensive computer science education and years as a tech product reviewer, I've been a PC gamer my whole life, so I know what to look for and what to expect from a graphics card at this price point.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is a very solid 1440p graphics card with a lot going for it, but its price isn't one of them, and that ultimately holds it back from scoring a major upset for Team Red.
That isn't to say that the RX 7700 XT isn't a card worth buying, but it is one that comes with a pretty big caveat, namely its bigger sibling, the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT that launches alongside it on September 6, 2023. At $449.99 (about £350/AU$660), this puts it exactly $50 cheaper than the RX 7800 XT. Now, there are caveats around that as well, since the RX 7800 XT's performance is better, but not so much as to make it the best graphics card to buy between the two.
By offering better ray tracing performance, a significant performance gain over its predecessor, and doing so at a cheaper price point to boot makes the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT an easy card to recommend for anyone looking for the best 1440p graphics card without breaking the bank.
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Given the end of the summer holiday (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least), I'm still in the process of wrapping up testing on the RX 7800 XT, but it looks to be about 10% to 15% faster than the RX 7700 XT, so the price isn't that far out of pocket on either card, but that does leave you with two cards occupying a very similar niche.
In terms of the RX 7700 XT, its ostensible competition is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti, and broadly speaking it wipes the floor with the RTX 4060 Ti 8GB variant when you're not using ray tracing at 1440p and 1080p.
There are times when the RX 7700 XT even gives the Nvidia RTX 4070 some competition, even though that card is supposed to be squaring up against the RX 7800 XT, and it's against our current top pick for the best graphics card overall that really pushes the RX 7700 XT above all the caveats and make it a card worth buying.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Price & availability
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How much does it cost? $449.99 (about £350/AU$660)
When is it available? Available September 6, 2023
Where can you get it? Available in the US, UK, and Australia
The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is available on September 6, 2023 starting at $449.99 (about £350/AU$660).
This puts the RX 7700 XT about $30 cheaper than the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT it replaces (which launched at $479.99), which is great, and it puts it dead center between the two RTX 4060 Ti variants in terms of price, so we'll go ahead and call it a wash on that front.
If there's an issue here really it's that the AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT is also just $50 more ($499.99, about £385/AU$725). As mentioned before, I'm still wrapping up our AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT review, but that card looks to give you about 10% to 15% better performance for an 11% premium, it might be the better value for those who want a midrange card with marginally better performance.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Specs
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AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Design
In terms of design, there's not much to say about the AMD RX 7700 XT other than to check with the third-party manufacturers of the card you want to buy, since there is no reference card for the RX 7700 XT.
One thing to note though is that no matter which card you go with, to my knowledge no AMD RX 7700 XT card will require a 12HPWR cable to power it, so two 8-pin cables should be all you need.
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AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Chipset & features
The AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, along with the RX 7800 XT, finally brings AMD's Navi 32 GPU to the desktop market after nearly a year of waiting, and overall I can say it's been worth the wait.
The RX 7700 XT features a slightly cut-down version of the GPU than the one used in the RX 7800 XT, so there's not too much difference between the two. The biggest though will be what's not on the GPU die itself, namely the amount of VRAM.
The RX 7700 XT features 12GB, which is the bare minimum for effective 1440p gameplay, and unlike the largely disappointing RTX 4060 Ti, AMD at least made sure to include enough VRAM to be effective and gave the card a wide enough memory bus to give it the texture bandwidth necessary to play at this level without needing to rely on the assistance of upscaling tech.
Speaking of upscaling tech, along with the announcement of the RX 7800 XT and RX 7700 XT, AMD unveiled FSR 3 which should definitely help AMD level the playing field with Nvidia, but since that's a software-driven tool, rather than being tied to the driver and the RDNA 3 hardware itself, I'll save a deep dive into that for another time, but just know that you should be able to start leveraging that tech soon as well.
If there's a knock on the RX 7700 XT here, it's its power consumption. At 245W, its rated power draw is high for a 1440p card, especially when Nvidia is able to make do with 200W for the RTX 4070 and 160W for the RTX 4060 Ti.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Performance
In terms of performance, the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT is pretty much what we want to see in the gen-on-gen performance increase of a midrange card.
Starting with synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7700 XT scored about 28% better in 1080p performance than the RX 6700 XT, about 35% better in 1440p performance, and about 29% better in terms of 4K performance, or about 30% better than the RX 6700 XT overall.
Against the Nvidia RTX 4070, meanwhile, the RX 7700 XT only scored about 7.25% lower overall in synthetic performance while costing about 25% less, making it a very compelling challenger to Nvidia's best midrange offering.
The same goes for gaming performance, which is really what everyone is interested in here. The story is much as you'd expect: AMD performs as well or better in rasterization performance while falling behind when it comes to ray tracing and upscaling performance against competing RTX 4060 Ti and RTX 4070 cards.
Most interesting perhaps is the RX 7700 XT's performance vis a vis the RTX 4070, where the RX 7700 XT averaged 103 fps at 1080p, 77 fps at 1440p, and 48 fps at 4K, compared to the RTX 4070's 117 fps, 88 fps, and 52 fps, respectively. These are very close, and for many gamers this will be a practical tie depending on their rigs, so if you're looking for the best cheap graphics card for 1440p and 4K gaming, the RX 7700 XT is definitely one to consider.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT?
Buy it if...
You want a great 1440p graphics card The RX 7700 XT is a fantastic card for 1440p gaming, especially for the price.
You don't care about ray tracing
As with any AMD graphics card, if you don't really care about ray tracing, you can pretty much skip Nvidia's premium offerings.
Don't buy it if...
You have a bit more room in your budget If you've got some extra money to spend, the RTX 4070 is still likely to be the best option for 1440p gaming.
AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT: Also consider
If my AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT review has you considering other options, here are two more graphics cards to consider.
How I tested the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT
I spent about a week with the RX 7700 XT
I focused mostly on gaming, since that is what AMD Radeon graphics cards are primarily used for
I used our standard battery of benchmark tests and personal gameplay experience
Test System Specs
These are the specs for the test system used for this review:
I spent about a week with the AM Radeon RX 7700 XT running benchmark tests and playing Baldur's Gate 3 like everyone else is doing right now.
AMD Radeon cards are overwhelmingly used for gaming purposes, so I focused my efforts on determining how good of a gaming graphics card it is.
I've been a PC gamer my whole life and I've spent the past few years extensively benchmarking gaming hardware for a living, so I know how a graphics card at this level is supposed to perform given its price as well as the manufacturer's past product launches.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
So this here AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D review isn't going to be a normal processor review, since this is not a normal chip.
It's a limited edition chip exclusively sold through Micro Center in the US, so a lot of folks won't even be able to get their hands on it. That's a hell of a shame, because this chip really makes the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D pretty irrelevant for gamers, and it's easily the best cheap processor for gaming you're going to find — if you can find it.
According to Micro Center, AMD agreed to let Micro Center sell its stock of the unreleased Ryzen 5 5600X3D exclusively through its stores for $229 (about £195/AU$330) as long as stock remains, although there's no sense yet of how much stock there is.
Being a Ryzen 5, the chip comes loaded with six Zen 3 cores (with 12 threads), but those cores are a somewhat slower 3.3GHz base and 4.4GHz boost clock (as opposed to the 3.7GHz base and 4.6GHz boost clock of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X). It has the same TDP as the Ryzen 7 5800X3D (105W), which is also a lot higher than the base Ryzen 5 5600X (65W).
The 3D V-Cache on this chip also gives it a substantially larger cache pool (3MB+96MB L2+L3 cache) than the non-3D version. In total, the 5600X3D has just 1MB less than the 100MB combined cache of the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
And boy howdy, does it show.
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
In terms of performance, the Ryzen 5 5600X3D runs about 16% slower than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in terms of synthetic benchmarks, which makes sense, since it has slower clocks and two fewer cores. Its single core score is more or less the same though though.
Where this chip shines though is in its gaming performance. Thanks to its effectively identical cache pool compared to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the 5600X3D's gaming chops are so exceptional it actually manages to squeeze out some solid wins in our gaming tests, and any losses might at this point come down to what apps I had running in the background.
Test System Specs
Here is the test system setup used to review the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D:
The only outlier here is the minimum framerate on Returnal, which was about half what it is for the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. Its average FPS is still about 3-4% higher though.
These benefits will obviously diminish at higher quality settings where the frame rate will become entirely GPU-locked, and since I have an RTX 4090 on the test bench, you can expect slower GPUs to hit that limit much faster, but it's fair to say that this is the same level of gaming performance for roughly 33% less, even considering the recent 5800X3D price cut to $349.
What's more, the chip runs slightly cooler and uses about 22% less power than the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
In short, if you're looking for a budget midrange chip to power a 1080p or 1440p gaming rig and you have an AM4 board, just stop what you're doing and buy this chip - if and while you can.
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D: Price & availability
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
How much does it cost? $229 (about £195/AU$330)
When is it available? Available starting July 7, 2023
Where can you get it? Available in the US at Micro Center stores
So the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D is only available in the US through Micro Center stores, at an MSRP of $229, while supplies last. AMD only made so many of these chips, and they aren't planning on making more, so if you want to head over to your local Micro Center location and pick one up, you'll have to move somewhat fast I imagine. I don't think anyone knows how many of these chips are going to be available or for how long.
If there is a knock on this chip, it is that AMD never seemed to want to release it, which makes business sense at least. These chips are so good that they pretty much blow up any reason to buy the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, and naturally, AMD would want to sell the chip that's going to make it the most money.
There's no getting around the fact though that gamers who did buy the Ryzen 7 5800X3D could have gotten the same performance for cheaper, but didn't. I can't hold that against this chip per se, but I do wish that this was the chip offered last year rather than the 5800X3D - and that gamers outside the US could get their hands on it.
Should you buy the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D?
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Buy it if...
You're looking to upgrade your AM4 system one last time This is the last processor you should buy for an AM4 system (if you're a gamer, anyway).
You're tight on cash This chip isn't necessarily cheap, but for a gaming processor, you can't beat this level of price-to-performance value.
Don't buy it if...
You're not in the US
It's not that you shouldn't buy it, it's that you can't buy it. At least, not directly; Micro Center doesn't ship outside of the US.
You don't have an AM4 system
If you've got a next-gen Intel system or you've already moved on to AM5, don't bother with this chip - it'll just be a downgrade.
How I tested the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D
I spent about a week testing it
Primarily gaming, but also some productivity and creative work
I put this chip through our standard battery of tests, but given the limited availability and the fact that this is a last-gen chip, I only compared it to the best AM4 chip of the last-gen (and the one I'd still broadly recommend to those who can't find the Ryzen 5 5600X3D), the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D.
Primarily, this is a gaming-focused chip, so I spent the most time looking at its gaming performance. In this case, I played several games on it, as well as using my standard battery of built-in benchmark tests to get comparable numbers.
We pride ourselves on our independence and our rigorous review-testing process, offering up long-term attention to the products we review and making sure our reviews are updated and maintained - regardless of when a device was released, if you can still buy it, it's on our radar.
The Netac ZX20 is a portable solid state drive that is lightweight, fast, compact, reasonably solid and borrowed that orange carabiner hole from a popular rival: a useful feature to have for anyone who wants to secure their most precious data storage device.
Its (engineered) plastic casing makes it feel tacky but that’s preferable - in my view - to a full metal enclosure that scratches easily, is heavier and adds to the overall cost. The ZX20 comes with the strict minimum when it comes to accessories: just a couple of USB cables and a pouch and there is no bundled software. There’s no activity LED as well but that doesn’t bother me; what irks me more is the fact that it is only available in 512GB and 1TB capacities, rather small by today’s standards.
Just bear in mind that it doesn’t carry any IP or MIL-STD ratings; so don’t drop it in a glass of water to impress your coworkers, it is not a water resistant device. It still feels reasonably solid but be aware of its limitations (even if it includes a three-year warranty).
Netac claims that the drive should reach read/write speeds of up to 2GBps/1.7GBps thanks to its USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. I never managed to match that because my laptop only supports USB 3.2 Gen 2, something to bear in mind if ever you want to buy with speed in mind. The drive was still plenty fast for everyday usage.
Even then, it is difficult to recommend the ZX20 given the plethora of alternatives, especially if you don’t have a laptop or desktop PC with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. I’d recommend the Kingston XS2000 (which is cheaper, has a longer warranty and is waterproof) or the bargain basement Silicon Power PC60 if you don’t have a Gen 2x2 device. Note that I check prices on Amazon.com rather than relying on old and obsolete suggested retail prices.
Where can you get it? In the US, UK, and Australia
In a fiercely competitive category, the ZX20 faces some tough competition; with little to differentiate between the products, it’s very often down to price and at the time of writing, that’s a game that the ZX20 is losing and one that ultimately prevents it from entering our best portable SSD buying guide.
Netac ZX20: Benchmark
You need a Gen 2x2 laptop or desktop computer to experience the full performance that the ZX20 promises to deliver: that’s a theoretical maximum of 20Gbps (2.5GBps). Netac says it will reach 2GBps/1.7GBps in real life but sadly I didn’t achieve those speeds because my test laptop has a USB 3.2 Gen 2, topping at 10Gbps.
A laptop with USB 4 or Thunderbolt 4 (like the Apple MacBook Pro) will only achieve these speeds as well which clearly shows that Gen 2x2 doesn’t have a future. Neither Samsung nor Crucial, two of the bigger portable SSD vendors out there, have released USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 products.
That aside, the ZX20 achieved some great results that put it firmly in the top five external solid state drives I have tested to date. The drive didn’t warm up even under load.
Should I buy the Netac ZX20
(Image credit: Desire Athow // Future)
Buy it if...
Don't buy it if...
Netac ZX20 alternatives
The PNY Elite X Pro looks a lot like the popular Samsung T7 (and the ZX20) but is smaller, cheaper and with a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface.
The Silicon Power PC60 is bland, unassuming and average in everything except its price. It is an entry-level, affordable and capable device that is far, far cheaper than the competition.
The Kingston XS2000 portable SSD is a better alternative to the ZX20 with a cheaper price tag, a longer warranty and an IP rating.
How I tested the Netac ZX20
After having formatted the ZX20 to exFAT, I test it the same way I test other storage components (external HDD, microSD cards etc). I use the latest versions of CrystalDiskMark, Atto, AS SSD and AJA benchmarks, noting the best scores achieved in each. They are all free and can be downloaded by anyone. I then transfer a folder of files, roughly 10GB in size, to get a rough idea of real life performance.
The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is probably the best 1080p graphics card you can buy right now, and in all honesty, it should be the last of its kind.
Team Red has been a bit gun-shy of late with its graphics card offerings, with the last graphics card we saw being the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. While that was a great card, it launched almost half a year ago, and we haven't heard much from AMD since.
Meanwhile, its rival has released a steady stream of cards, and at this rate, it's almost through its main GPU stack at this point, so it's interesting that AMD chose to release a very budget-friendly midrange card rather than go down the list of higher-end offerings the way Nvidia has.
In a way, it's a very smart strategy (and one I actually recommended back in February), and with the Radeon RX 7600 going on sale on May 25, 2023, for just $269 (about £215/AU$405), AMD manages to make it to market with its all-important midrange offering at least a full month ahead of Nvidia's competing RTX 4060 while also managing to undercut its rival on price.
In terms of performance, the RX 7600 is a major improvement over the AMD Radeon RX 6600 it replaces, while also generally outperforming the competing Intel Arc A750. It does fall short of the RTX 3060 overall, but not by much, and a lot of that is relative to ray tracing performance, which isn't great on either card to begin with, so this advantage looks bigger than it really is in practice.
If there is one knock against the RX 7600, it's its power draw, which is pulling down 165W TGP, which is more than the 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 Ti and about 33W more than the RX 6600, so this is definitely the wrong direction for AMD to be going in, power wise.
AMD also has to step up its game when it comes to FSR. Nvidia's most recent launch, the RTX 4060 Ti, was a fairly disappointing card when it came to its baseline performance, but there was no denying that DLSS 3, especially with Frame Generation, is a huge value-add for Team Green. And while DLSS 3 is only available on about 50-ish games, FSR 2 is generally more available with about 120 games featuring FSR 2, but DLSS 2.0 is available in more than 200 games, so AMD has some catching up to do.
When it finally does, the RX 7600 will be an even better buy for midrange gamers, and while it's a sad state of affairs that $269 is about as "budget" as we can hope to see for a while, it's a substantially better value than just about any card on the market right now.
That might change when the RTX 4060 lands, but given that the performance of the baseline performance of the RTX 4060 is expected to be about 20% better than that of the RTX 3060, I expect that it will fall in pretty close to where the RX 7600 currently is, only with a more expensive MSRP and no Founders Edition to keep third-party partners honest in terms of price.
So unless the RTX 4060 pulls a rabbit out of a hat, I still expect the AMD Radeon RX 7600 to hold the edge over its rival on value, which at this price point is really the only thing that really matters. As it stands, it is the best cheap graphics card you can buy right now, and I expect that will remain the case for the rest of this generation.
AMD Radeon RX 7600: Price & availability
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
How much is it? MSRP listed at $269 (about £215/AU$405)
When is it out? It goes on sale May 25, 2023
Where can you get it? You can buy it in the US, UK, and Australia
The AMD Radeon RX 7600 goes on sale on May 25, 2023, with an MSRP of $269, (about £215/AU$405), making it the cheapest card of this generation to launch. Not only that, it's a substantial price drop from the Radeon RX 6600, which launched at $329 (about £265/AU$495), so you're getting a much better graphics card for almost 20% less. This is more like it!
Ostensibly, the rival to the RX 7600 is the RTX 4060, but since that card has yet to launch, we can only really compare it to the last-gen midrange offerings from Nvidia and Intel.
The Nvidia RTX 4060 when it launches will sell for $299 (about £240/AU$450), which is 9% cheaper than the RTX 3060's official MSRP of $329. The RX 7600 has a cheaper MSRP than either of those, but I expect that the RTX 3060 especially will see some heavy discounting as a result of both the RTX 4060 and the RX 7600, so the value proposition of the RX 7600 might shift depending on what SKU you're looking at.
The RX 7600 does come in slightly more expensive than the Intel Arc A750, and while you might do a double-take at the mention of Intel, the Arc A750 can give the RX 7600 a run for its money at times, so you definitely can't write it off completely.
AMD Radeon RX 7600: Features and chipset
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
More ray tracing cores and new AI cores
Higher TGP
With the move to RDNA 3, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 starts off on a 6nm TSMC process over the RX 6600's 7nm, which gives the RX 7600 a roughly 20% jump in the number of transistors it has to work with (13.3 billion to 11.1 billion). And even though the actual GPU die on the RX 7600 is about 14% smaller than that of the RX 6600, it manages to pack in four additional compute units for a total of 32 compared to the RX 6600's 28.
This is also a more mature architecture, so the 2,048 stream processors (a roughly 14% increase over the RX 6600), are more performant, and the second-generation ray accelerators are a huge improvement over the first-gen RAs in the RX 6600.
The RX 7600 also has faster clocks than the RX 6600, with a boost clock improvement of about 6%, but the big improvement comes with the memory clock speed, which is 2,250MHz for the RX 7600 and 1,750MHz for the RX 6600. This means a nearly 30% boost to memory speed, so even though the RX 7600 is still rocking the same 8GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 128-bit bus as the RX 6600, it has an 18 Gbps effective memory speed compared to 14 Gbps for the RX 6600.
There is also the addition of 64 AI accelerators for the RX 7600, which the RX 6600 simply didn't have. This means that things like Radeon Super Resolution (RSR) will run better than it did on the RX 6600, and it will enable advanced AI workloads like generative AI content creation.
All this does come at the cost of power though, as the RX 7600 has a 25% higher TGP than the RX 6600. This isn't good, and given how Nvidia's cards are typically getting better performance with less power gen-on-gen, this is definitely the wrong direction for AMD to be going in. It still keeps the card "reasonable" when it comes to your PSU, and AMD recommends a 550W PSU for the RX 7600 at a minimum, but this still manages to keep things under 600W overall.
AMD Radeon RX 7600: design
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
The AMD reference card for the Radeon RX 7600 is a compact dual-fan number that will fit in just about any case. This is a dual-slot card, but it's just over eight inches long and a little over four inches tall, so it's great for mini-tower builds, and with just a single 8-pin power connector, you won't have any issues with cable management here.
In terms of outputs, we get three DisplayPort 2.1 ports, with a single HDMI 2.1a port, though no USB-C output. Honestly, having the DisplayPort 2.1 output is nice, but really unnecessary. With just 8GB VRAM, there is no universe where this card can output 8K video that doesn't default to a slow sequence of still images, so it's a nice-to-have that you are almost guaranteed to never use. Far be it for me to be a buzzkill, though, so if you want to push this card at 8K, do let me know how that turns out.
As for the lack of USB-C, this really isn't a creative card, so this isn't something that you should worry about unless you have one of the best USB-C monitors and nothing else. Even then, I recommend looking further up the stack (like the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT), since USB-C monitors are almost universally for creative pros and this card isn't going to cut it for the kind of work you'll need to do with it.
In terms of its actual aesthetics, like the two RDNA 3 cards before it, the RX 7600 eschews any RGB and features a matte black design with some subtle accent touches like the red stripes on the fins of the heat sink which would be visible in a case. Overall, it's a cool-looking card, especially for those not looking to have excessive RGB lighting up everything in their case.
AMD Radeon RX 7600: Performance
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Best-in-class 1080p rasterization performance
Much improved ray tracing performance
Can manage some decent 1440p performance, especially without ray tracing
Given the missteps Nvidia has been making lately, AMD has a real shot of taking some market share if it can offer compelling performance for gamers. Fortunately for Team Red, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 manages to pull off quite a coup when it comes to gaming performance.
Test system specs
This is the system we used to test the AMD Radeon RX 7600:
For the most part, the RTX 4060 is the RX 7600's main competition, but with the Nvidia RTX 4060 Ti just being released, it's the natural comparison at the moment. Is this necessarily fair? No, it's not, and the RX 7600 does lose out to the RTX 4060 Ti on just about every measure, but it really doesn't lose that badly.
In rasterized workloads at 1080p, the RX 7600 is only about 12% slower than the RTX 4060 Ti, and only about 13% slower at 1440p. This changes drastically as soon as you start factoring in ray tracing and upscaling, but it's something I definitely wasn't expecting. Against the RTX 3060 Ti, the RX 7600 fares better, obviously, and generally it outperforms the RTX 3060 in rasterization workloads.
In terms of its predecessor, the RX 7600 is the kind of gen-on-gen improvement I was really expecting to see from the RTX 4060 Ti and didn't get. The RX 7600's rasterization performance is great, but its improved ray accelerators really outshine what the RX 6600 is capable of, and really makes ray tracing at this price point accessible to the midrange.
Synthetic Benchmarks
In synthetic benchmarks, the RX 7600 roundly beats its predecessor, as well as the RTX 3060. Against the card it's replacing, the RX 7600 outperforms the RX 6600 by about 19%, while the RX 7600 beats the RTX 3060 by about 18% overall.
Digging into the results a bit further though, we can see some of the biggest gains come in ray-traced workloads like Port Royal, where the RX 7600 saw a 33% improvement over the previous gen.
The only benchmark where the RX 7600 comes up a bit short is in the Speedway benchmark, which is a 1440p, ray tracing benchmark. Here, the RTX 3060 just barely edges out the RX 7600 by just 219 points, which is close enough to be a bit of a wash.
Gaming Benchmarks
As you can see, when it comes to general rasterization performance at 1080p, the RX 7600 is the hands-down winner, only falling to the RTX 3060 in Counterstrike: Global Offensive, and only then by the barest of margins. Everywhere else, you can expect roughly 15-20% better performance out of the RX 7600 overall.
Things take a bit of a turn when it comes to ray tracing performance, but the results here are a bit deceptive for a couple of reasons. First, Cyberpunk 2077 is Nvidia's major showcase game, and that game is very well optimized for Nvidia cards, so the ray tracing performance for the RTX 3060 is substantially better than for either AMD card. However, take Cyberpunk 2077 out of the mix, and the RX 7600 actually outperforms the RTX 3060 in ray tracing performance.
It's not all good for AMD though, since the minimum fps for the RX 7600 in both Returnal and Cyberpunk 2077 is in the single digits, and it's not just for a brief moment, but fairly regular dips into slideshow territory, especially around volumetric fog with applied lighting effects.
It's a similar story when you apply upscaling to either Cyberpunk 2077 or Returnal, where the RTX 3060's DLSS 2.0 is simply better optimized for the former, and the AMD RX 7600 struggles on the minimum fps on the latter, so even though the average fps on Returnal looks like it's north of 60 fps, you'll dip as low as 6 fps on the Quality FSR preset or 15 fps on the Ultra Performance preset, and trust me, it's noticeable.
Of course, turn ray tracing off and you probably won't have this issue, but that will be a series of settings compromises you will have to decide for yourself. Overall though, the AMD Radeon RX 7600 manages to perform well above where you would expect from this generation at this price point. If you're looking for an outstanding and reasonably cheap 1080p graphics card, you can't go wrong with this one.
Should you buy the AMD Radeon RX 7600?
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Also consider
(Image credit: Future / John Loeffler)
If my AMD Radeon RX 7600 review has you considering other options, here's two other graphics cards to consider.
How we test graphics cards
I spend several days with the RX 7600 running benchmarks, playing games, and generally measuring its performance against competing cards.
I paid special attention to its 1080p performance, since this is the main target audience for this card, while also stretching into 1440p gaming as well.
Having covered and tested many graphics cards in my career, I know how a graphics card should perform at this level and what you should be spending for this level of performance.
