Intel 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh Desktop CPU Whispers From Computex: More Power Hungry, Faster Clocks, Faster Memory Support

Intel may not have announced its 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh yet but there was enough chatter on the show floor to get an idea of what the upcoming desktop chips might look like.

We talked to several motherboard, memory, and cooling vendors who had a little bit to share about what to expect from Intel's 14th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop Refresh CPU lineup. The lineup seems to be referred to as 14th Gen Desktop CPUs as previously hinted in rumors. This was confirmed at the ADATA booth which showcased their brand DDR5-6400 CKD memory. This new DIMM runs at 1.10V and offers 6400 MT/s transfer speeds with CL46 timings. It will be available in 8 GB, 16 GB & 32 GB flavors for desktops and notebooks.

On the spec card, you can see that ADATA has clearly mentioned 14th Gen CPU and since this is a standard desktop DIMM design, the only thing that comes to mind is the Raptor Lake Refresh CPU lineup from Intel. We also heard the same 14th Gen branding from other vendors. One vendor also mentioned that they had received the BIOS firmware for Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh Desktop CPUs just a week ago.

The same manufacturer also mentioned that while Intel gave them a BIOS for early next-gen CPU support, there was also going to be another BIOS for a different CPU that was yet to release. They may be referring to a different silicon or a totally different architecture but that remains to be seen. Other manufacturers are already doing memory AVL/QVL testing for DDR5 memory on their board platforms.

Gigabyte, MSI, and ASRock have all introduced newly refreshed motherboards at Computex 2023. These motherboards are designed with new connectivity features but also boast some upgraded VRM designs such as the Phantom Gaming NOVA WIFI 7 which specifically states that it has been designed to support more high-power "Future" CPUs.

As for the power consumption, Raptor Lake CPUs are already some of the hottest & power hungry chips on the desktop platform and it looks like the power envelope is keep on going up with everyone more or less confirming that the chips will feature higher power than the existing Core i9-13900KS CPU.

In return, you will see a slight bump in clock speeds to 6.2-6.5 GHz & maybe a few changes here & there but they won't be vastly different than what you are getting right now since the architecture remains the same and so does the manufacturing process. Memory vendors will be tuning DDR5 memory even further for the next-gen Intel CPUs and it looks like the 700-series is here to stay and will be the last LGA 1700/1800 socketed platform.

So just as a recap, here's everything we can expect from Intel's 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh Desktop CPUs:

The Intel 14th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop CPU refresh is expected either in late Q3 or early Q4 so we can expect quite a few rounds of information prior to its reveal as Intel has some key events laid out in this year.