Ferocious Performance: Testing the Intel Core i9-14900HX in a Familiar Laptop

Intel’s recent 14th-gen mobile Core HX processors provide little upgrade over the prior generation. In practice, that holds accurate. However, the news is positive for budget gaming laptops. The Core i9-14900HX is the quickest mobile PC CPU, with 24 cores and 32 threads. Compared to the Core i9-13980HX from a year ago, aspects like core and thread count remain identical, as does the process technology. The HX chips are different from the Core Ultra laptop chips, emphasizing performance over battery life. The new Core i9-14900HX has a turbo clock speed of 5.8GHz, a slight improvement over the 13th-gen. Our testing compared the 14th-gen Core i9-14900HX to the 13th-gen Core i9-13980HX using different benchmarks other than games. The results showed minimal differences between the two. On the one hand, the V-ray rendering and Bapco CrossMark benchmark produced nearly identical results, but the Handbrake transcode and Blender tests showed slight improvements. The new platform offers Thunderbolt 5, a difference from the 13th-gen. However, neither the components nor the certified peripherals are available, making the upgrade irrelevant for owners of 13th-gen Core HX notebooks. If you own a gaming notebook from earlier generations, the 14th-gen Core HX may be a better option. Additionally, the 14th-gen Core HX may perform better than AMD’s Ryzen 7000 HX series and Ryzen 8000 Mobile. Ultimately, the similarities between 13th-gen Core HX and 14th-gen Core HX make the upgrade unattractive for owners of 13th-gen notebooks.