ASRock confirms key Intel 14th Gen Raptor Lake refresh details and gives some performance info too

Intel is putting the finishing touches on its upcoming 14th Gen CPU range. As we draw closer to a launch, it's not uncommon to get a few leaks including performance estimates, a release date or a new feature. Some leaks are more credible than others, but these come directly from ASRock. So until we come to the launch day and an announcement from Intel, this is about as official as it gets.

Perhaps the most interesting thing from ASRock's blog post (via IT Home) is a summary of performance estimates. It says it expects single-core performance to improve by 4% to 8% and multi-core performance by 8% to 15%. These estimates are mostly in-line with what we can expect without an architectural change. These increases are going to be due to clock speed and power budget increases, and E core count increases.

The ASRock post states that 14th Gen processors will come with support for DDR5-6400 memory, the fastest JEDEC-supported speed yet. That's a substantial increase over 13th Gen Raptor Lake's DDR5-5600 support. Of course, even 12th Gen CPUs unofficially support faster memory, but these speeds are categorized as overclocked.

This would point towards a decent improvement for the memory controller of 14th Gen CPUs. Universal DDR5-6400 support is not a thing to introduce on a whim. It's a good sign that DDR5 speeds will continue to advance. Look for a bunch of crazy DDR5 memory world records to be posted on the day of the launch.

And speaking of the launch, ASRock says that it's set for October. We'll know more at Intel's Innovation event beginning on September 19th. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is scheduled to give a keynote, and a reveal at that time is likely. 

ASRock has confirmed that 600-series motherboards will include support for the new CPUs via a BIOS update. This includes boards with DDR4 memory support, so you'll be able to carry your DDR4 over for one last hurrah before the industry switches to DDR5 completely.

H610 owners are in luck too. Like the other ASRock LGA1700 boards, a look at H610 download pages reveals support for "13th Gen & 12th Gen and next gen Intel® Core™ Processors (LGA1700)". That's all pretty much expected to be honest, but it's nice to see back and forward compatibility confirmed across the LGA 700 range.

ASRock motherboards will receive badges to indicate if they have newer 14th Gen supporting BIOS' installed. That'll be helpful for consumers.

PC Gamer will have full coverage of the launch. Will the new chips be able to take some of the spots on our Best CPUs for Gaming list? We love the i5-13600K. Will the presumably named i5-14600K dethrone it? We'll know in a few weeks.