Intel Core i5-14600K vs Intel Core i9-12900

Core i5-14600K vs Core i9-12900 comparison

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i5-14600K is faster than the Core i9-12900. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i9-12900 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-12900 has slightly more cores with 16 cores compared to the Core i5-14600K that has 14 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-14600K. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i5-14600K has a significantly higher clock speed compared to the Core i9-12900. Also, the Core i5-14600K has a slightly higher turbo speed. The info from our database shows that the Core i5-14600K has more L2 cache than the Core i9-12900. Despite this, the Core i9-12900 has slightly more L3 cache compared to the Core i5-14600K.

Most CPUs have more threads than cores. This technology, colloquially called hyperthreading, improves performance by splitting a core into multiple virtual ones. This provides more efficient utilisation of a core. Indeed, the Core i5-14600K has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.