What just happened? Intel's Core i9-14900K Raptor Lake Refresh chip is an absolute speed demon of a CPU, but Team Blue has an even faster processor lined up – the Core i9-14900KS, which can hit 6.2 GHz out of the box. It appears that the unannounced chip has just appeared in some prebuilt systems on an Israeli retail site, suggesting an official reveal by Intel is imminent.
The Core i9-14900KS was always expected, given that Intel also released the previous-generation Core i9-13900KS. Israel-based retailer PC-Online seems to have confirmed this by listing several pre-built PCs featuring the binned variant of the Core i9-14900K, which, with a 6.2 GHz stock clock speed, is thought to be the fastest consumer processor ever.
PC-Online lists the Core i9-14900KS as having the 200 MHz advantage over the Core i9-14900K, the same speed bump that the Core i9-13900KS has over the Core i9-13900K. Expect the new 14th-gen chip to have the same 24-core/32-thread configuration as its standard version, while the 68MB cache (32MB L2, 36MB L3) also appears unchanged.
The Core i9-14900KS is also expected to have a 150W PBP like the Core i9-13900KS and a maximum turbo of 253W, the same as the Core i9-14900K, though that will probably peak around 300W - 320W.
Considering an extreme overclocker has already pushed the Core i9-14900K to a record-breaking 9 GHz, don't be surprised to see the Core i9-14900KS capturing some new records.
An unusual element of the listings is that all the systems come with DDR4-3200 RAM, whereas one would expect DDR5 to be paired with the Core i9-14900KS. The likely explanation is that these are business-focused machines and not gaming PCs, which also explains the lack of a dedicated graphics card and office-style cases. The other option is these are fake or a mistake on the retailer's part.
With Intel launching the Core i9-14900K at the same $599 price as its Core i9-13900K predecessor, one would expect the Core i9-14900KS to cost the same $699 as the Core i9-13900KS. We might hear an official announcement from Intel about the Core i9-14900KS either on December 14 at its AI Everywhere show where the Meteor Lake / Emerald Rapids chips will be unveiled, or at CES 2024 in January, the same event where Nvidia looks likely to show off the long-rumored RTX 4000-series Super cards.