Intel Core i3 14100F CPU Review

Just the other day, we took a look at the 14400F, A refreshed CPU that is the successor to the 13400F, and while it kept the core counts the same, it did see an increase in clock speed, which, depending on the game, made quite a bit of a difference, though for the most part, we were talking about 3% faster overall which might not sound like much, but considering the similar price point, definitely gave some room for discussion, even if AMD seemed to be able to beat it and for a cheaper price too. So what if you want something slightly lower-end from Intel’s latest i3 range? Well, that brings us to today with the i3 14100, a modest $140 processor that could rival the likes of the similarly priced Ryzen 5 5600, but before we get into that, here’s a quick word from this video’s sponsor. Intel i3 14100 Features GAME WITHOUT COMPROMISE - Go beyond performance with the latest 14th Generation Intel Core processors, based on the Raptor-Lake Refresh Architecture with a hybrid design incorporating a mixture of high-performance P-Cores and efficient E-Cores. The i3-14100 comes with up to 4 cores and up to 8 threads. Capable of reaching maximum clock speeds of 4.7GHz and providing incredible versatility with support for PCIe 5.0 components, DDR4 and DDR5 memory and All-New Wifi 7 connectivity. Be your Best with Intel. REVOLUTIONARY PERFORMANCE AND MULTITASKING - Newly optimised hybrid architecture and industry-leading technology enable you to go beyond gaming and creation. From progressing in-game to advancing in real life, Intel® empowers you to be your best self. 4 PERFORMANCE CORES - unleashes the capability to optimise the latest games and gaming software. INTEL THREAD DIRECTOR - Keeps your gaming free of interruptions by making sure your background tasks never slow you down. REALISE YOUR DREAM BUILD - 14th Generation Intel Core desktop processors deliver broad spectrum support and maximum versatility to enable you to personalise and optimise your system to suit your needs using the latest gaming technologies. EXPANDED MEMORY OPTIONS - Support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory gives you complete control over your memory configurations. BUILD OUT YOUR SETUP - Support for the latest PCIe Gen 5.0 components. COMPETITIVE CONNECTIVITY - Connect quickly and without interference with support for up to Wi-Fi 7 networks. 14th Gen So let’s look at what’s changed from the 13th gen because just like the rest of the 14th gen stack, this is a refresh. It’s the same architecture, the same 4 performance cores, and the same amount of cache and power delivery. The only changes come by way of the base and turbo frequencies. The 14100 has seen an increase in the base clock from 3.4GHz, up to 3.5GHz and the max turbo frequency has also seen a bump from 4.5GHz to 4.7GHz so much like I said when we looked at the 14400F, you essentially have an overclocked 13th gen processor, and that’s all there is to it. Now with the i5 we looked at, things were fairly interesting because though the only change, much like the i3 was down to the clock speeds, the price was pretty similar, separated by just $4 but with the i3, it’s quite a bit different. Starting with the 12100F, which can now be had for $95 which is extremely affordable in the grand scheme of things. Moving up from there is the 13100F at $117, which puts it 23% more expensive, and then beyond that is the 14100 at $140 which is another 20% more expensive, so much higher levels of disparity and that will likely play a huge part in my overall conclusion unless that small but modest extra clock speed makes a much larger difference in terms of performance. Now in terms of performance, to test, we used our Intel-based test bench consisting of an ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme motherboard with 32GB of TEAMGroup T-Force Delta RGB 7600MHz CL36 DDR5 memory. For our Zen 4 bench, we used the Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master 32GB of G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo 6000MHz CL30 memory and for Zen 3, we used the Gigabyte X570S AORUS Master with 32GB of Kingston Fury 3600MHz CL16 memory. All testing was used with an INNO3D RTX 4090 iChill X3 OC to alleviate any bottlenecks and the latest version of Windows 11 was used. As this is a CPU review and we’re looking at CPU performance, we’re focussing on 1080p today as this is where the CPU is typically at its highest utilisation and our main focus will be on the increase in performance if any over its predecessor, the 13100F. Also, if you want to see all of the charts, we will be putting them up onto our Patreon, where you’ll also get a ton of other cool and exclusive benefits as well as helping to support everything we do on the channel. Video How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test benches to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and are kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Processor Test Systems Test System (AM5) Motherboard Gigabyte X670E AORUS Master Review Buy Now Processor Changes Per Review Review Buy Now GPU INNO3D RTX 4090 iCHILL X3 OC Review Buy Now RAM TEAMGroup T-Force Delta RGB 7600MHz CL36 Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 537.42 Test System (AM4) Motherboard Gigabyte X570S AORUS Master Review Buy Now Processor Changes Per Review Review Buy Now GPU INNO3D RTX 4090 iCHILL X3 OC Review Buy Now RAM Kingston Fury Renegade DDR4 32GB 3600MHz CL16 Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 537.42 Test System (Z690) Motherboard MSI Z690 UnifyBIOS Version 7D28v17 Review Buy Now Processor Changes Per Review GPU INNO3D RTX 4090 iCHILL X3 OC Review Buy Now RAM TEAMGroup T-Force Delta RGB 7600MHz CL36 Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 537.42 Test System (Z790) Motherboard ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Extreme Review Buy Now Processor Changes Per Review GPU INNO3D RTX 4090 iCHILL X3 OC Review Buy Now RAM TEAMGroup T-Force Delta RGB 7600MHz CL36 Review Buy Now CPU Cooler NZXT Kraken Z73 RGB Buy Now Power Supply NZXT C1000 Gold Review Buy Now Storage Seagate FIRECUDA 530 1TB Review Buy Now Chassis NZXT H7 Flow Review Buy Now OS Windows 11 Pro Version 21H2 Drivers Graphics: 537.42 Software We use a variety of software from different developers to assist in our testing and to give us the most consistent results possible. Some applications are specifically used for testing, while others are simply used for monitoring and to aid us in making sure that our results are as accurate as possible. Software Used 3DMark FireStrike & TimeSpy (download) AIDA64 (download) Blender 3.6.0 Classroom (download) CapFrameX 1.7.0 (download) Cinebench R23 (download) Corona 1.3 (download) CPU-Z (download) Geekbench 5 (download) Google Octane 2.0 (link) GPU-Z (download) HWMonitor (download) Keyshot Viewer 11.2.1 (download) Mozilla Kraken 1.1 (link) PCMark 10 Express (download) PugetBench For Davinci Resolve Super PI 2.1 WP (download) V-Ray 5.00.20 (download) WebXPRT 4 (link) Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we've began using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, and all FPS caps that can be removed are. We also enable XMP and Resizable bar technology across all platforms to keep things as fair as possible. Games While we test a lot of games, it's not possible to display all of the data on the website or in our videos. Instead, we include access to all of our testing data for our Patreon members (link), where members get a ton of other benefits as well. What we do, however, is display charts for averages across all game titles to give a better picture of performance across all titles tested. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II Cyberpunk 2077 F1 23 Far Cry 6 Hogwarts Legacy Horizon Zero Dawn Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Remnant II The Riftbreaker Watch Dogs: Legion Resolutions 1080p (Full HD) Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. Power Consumption Not being content on simply reading total system power draw at both idle and load, we now have the ability thanks to sensors built into the system to find the exact CPU package power draw during any one instance. We now check power draw during Cinebench R23 single and multi-core runs as well as during a set amount of games. Temperatures Temperatures are measured in a very similar way to power consumption and are taken during a Cinebench R23 multi-core and single-core run, as well as during a set amount of games at the max levels seen. Super PI 2.1 WP Super PI is a single-threaded benchmark that calculates pi to a specific number of digits. It uses the Gauss-Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of a program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute pi to 232 digits Available now on Super PI. Starting things off with Super Pi, and here we’re not off to a bad start, the 14100 manages to improve upon the results of both 400 series and 100 series CPUs from the two generations before it, but when we compare the 14100 to the 14400F, we see that the 14100 has a somewhat significant jump down in performance from the 14400, and whilst this doesn’t sound out of the ordinary, lower tier CPU performs worse, it actually contradicts with what we saw from both the 13th and 12th gen processors, where the 100 series CPU outperformed the 400 series albeit by margin of error. Blender 3.3.0 Blender Open Data is a platform to collect, display and query the results of hardware and software performance tests - provided by the Blender community. Available now on Blender. Blender didn’t turn out to be all that impressive, with just a single sample per minute increase over the 13100F, but this is the same level of improvement we saw going up from the 12th gen to the 13th gen, so it’s not exactly surprising, to say the least. Whilst you could say that it draws the 14th-generation CPU closer to the 5600 from AMD, in reality, it wouldn’t make a perceivable difference, making it feel a little pointless. Cinebench R23 Cinebench is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer's hardware capabilities. Improvements to Cinebench Release 23 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D's ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user. Best of all: It's free. Available now on Maxon. Moving on to Cinebench, we'll start by looking at the single core performance where, to no one's surprise, 14100 manages to perform a little better than the 13 and 12100Fs with 3% improvement over the 13th gen CPU and 9% over the 12th gen CPU. Interestingly, it also performs a very small 0.1% higher than the 7600 from AMD, but this result flips in favour of the 7600 when we look at the multi-core performance, where now the 14100 falls 1% behind the 7600. The Intel CPU does still manage to keep its lead over the older 100 series CPUs however, with 4% more performance over the 13100F and 10% more performance over the 12100F, again though, in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t look like much. Corona 1.3 Test and compare the performance of your CPU using this free benchmark application, which is built upon Corona Renderer 1.3. Available now on Corona Shifting to Corona we see pretty much the same thing, with a small improvement over the 13th gen, of just 3%, which is arguably the margin of error, this is a little worse than the improvement we saw going from 12th gen to 13th gen, where the improvement was 4% and with higher numbers too which makes the percentages appear smaller. But with something like this, you are better off with the 12400 which sees a massive 42% improvement over the 14100, and for less money too. Keyshot Viewer 11.2.1 KeyShot Viewer is a free, stand-alone desktop application that enables secure sharing of KeyShot scenes for interactive, photo-realistic 3D model viewing, presentation and configuration, using the same real-time ray tracing render engine as KeyShot to produce amazing visuals with speed and quality. Available now on KeyShot. Keyshot Viewer is up next and we see the same pattern as the previous few tests, we are seeing very small improvements over the 13th and 12th gen processors, and once again we see better value propositions from older CPUs, the 12400, for example, has a pretty big jump of 40% more performance for less money, and if this type of thing continues, you’d really have to ask yourself why you would spend the money on a 14100 when there are pre-existing CPUs that cost less and will provide a better experience overall. V-Ray 5.00.20 V-Ray® Benchmark is a free standalone application to test how fast your system renders. It’s simple, fast and includes three render engine test. Available now on Chaos. V-Ray doesn’t show us anything different from what we’ve already seen, the 14100 sits a small margin above the performance of the 13100F and the 12100F with a 6% and 9% increase respectively, these numbers are certainly better than a lot of what we’ve seen up to now, but when you consider the 31% jump up to the next best-performing CPU, the 7600, it all of a sudden doesn’t seem that impressive. 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark tests your system's GPU and CPU performance by rendering extremely demanding game-like scenes in real time. The faster the benchmark runs, the better your score. Now your quest begins. What can you do to get a better score? 3DMark is available on Steam here. In 3DMark Fire Strike the results are pretty much what you would expect, the 14100 has a small boost over the 13100F with 3% higher performance on the overall score and 5% more on the physics score. These improvements are very similar to those that we saw going from the 12100F to the 13100F, where the score improved by 4% and the physics score also went up by 4%. Even though we didn’t see the 14100 trade places with any CPUs in the standings it’s still nice to see these kinds of improvements going from one generation to another and being a refresh, it’s expected too. 3DMark Timespy Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for gaming PCs running Windows 10 and above only. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, built from the ground up to support the latest API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of modern graphics cards and is typically a good benchmark for mid-to-high-end hardware. Furthermore, Timespy Extreme is designed for 4K performance testing. 3DMark is available on Steam here. Sticking with 3DMark for now but moving over to the Timespy benchmark, and again we see small increases in performance over the 13100F with the 14100 performing just under 3% better in both the score and CPU score. This once again reflects the improvements we saw with the jump to the 13th gen, which saw the 13100F outperforming its predecessor by admittedly marginal differences. Geekbench 5 Geekbench 5 is a cross-platform benchmark that measures your system's performance with the press of a button. How will your mobile device or desktop computer perform when push comes to crunch? How will it compare to the newest devices on the market? Find out today with Geekbench 5. Available now on Geekbench. Moving on to Geekbench, where the 14100 falls right where we would expect it to, with a 2% increase in the single-threaded score and a 4% increase in the multi-threaded score, it’s still nothing major, but it does decrease the jump up to the 5600X in the multi-threaded score, it’s also worth noting that despite the 5600Xs higher multi-thread score, the single thread score actually falls below the 14100 by 14%, which shows how the Intel CPU still might be a better option for single thread applications. PCMark 10 PCMark 10 features a comprehensive set of tests that cover the wide variety of tasks performed in the modern workplace. With a range of performance tests, custom run options, Battery Life Profile, and new Storage benchmarks, PCMark 10 is the complete PC benchmark for the modern office. Available now on Steam. Next up is PCMark. Here we see 14100 actually performing quite well compared to other CPUs, it manages to not only outperform the 12100F and the 13100F by 4% and 1% respectively, but it also manages to see a small improvement of 0.6% in the score over the 5800X3D. It’s worth pointing out that the 5800X3D is a CPU designed more for gaming and this benchmark is designed more for general use, but regardless, for the price difference it would make no sense to go for the X3D CPU if you only plan on using the PC for day to day applications or work, but I think we already knew that. Google Octane 2.0 Octane 2.0 is a benchmark that measures a JavaScript engine’s performance by running a suite of tests representative of certain use cases in JavaScript applications. Google Octane now on Google Developers. In Google Octane the Intel CPU managed to outperform all three of the ryzen 5000 series CPUs that we compared it against, but with that said, the 12100F did also manage to achieve this, albeit by a slightly smaller margin and the 12100F and the 14100 were only separated by 1%. Unfortunately for the 14100, the 13100F actually managed to perform better, with a 4% lead over the newer CPU, which of course is pretty damning for the value proposition. Mozilla Kraken 1.1 Kraken is a JavaScript performance benchmark created by Mozilla that measures the speed of several different test cases extracted from real-world applications and libraries. Mozilla Kraken now on Github. Switching over to Mozilla Kraken, things are kind of all over the place, when we compare the 14100 to its predecessors though we see that the 14th gen processor is the better option of the three, with a 4% increase over the 13100F and a 11% increase over the 12100F, bizarrely the 14100 also performs better than the 14400F by 1% and the 13400F by 0.2 milliseconds, but I guess that is what you would expect, with this test being measured in milliseconds and the duration of the test being extremely short, you could expect this kind of thing to happen with the results. WebXPRT 4 WebXPRT 4 is a browser benchmark that compares the performance of almost any web-enabled device. It contains HTML5, JavaScript, and WebAssembly-based scenarios created to mirror the tasks you do every day: Photo Enhancement, Organize Album Using AI, Stock Option Pricing, Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan using WASM, Sales Graphs, and Online Homework. Use WebXPRT to see exactly how well different devices handle real-world tasks. Mozilla Kraken now on Principled Technologies. Next is WebXPRT where the 14100 once again proves that, even if marginal, it is the best performing of the 100 series Intel CPUs, with 4% more performance than the 12100F and a tiny 1-point increase over the 13100F, these increases aren’t anything to get too excited about though, and with such small numbers it's easy to put it down to margin of error, and with some retests we could easily see some shifts in the chart as some scores increase and some decrease. A Plague Tale Follow the grim tale of young Amicia and her little brother Hugo, in a heartrending journey through the darkest hours of history. Hunted by Inquisition soldiers and surrounded by unstoppable swarms of rats, Amicia and Hugo will come to know and trust each other. As they struggle to survive against overwhelming odds, they will fight to find purpose in this brutal, unforgiving world. Available now on Steam. Moving over to gaming tests, and starting with A Plague Tale Requiem, and straight away we can see the 14100 making improvements over the last generation 13100F, but these gains in FPS are minimal in this game, with just 3% more frames on average, so can easily be considered margin of error. Despite this minor improvement, it does actually mean that the 14100 now matches the 5600X from AMD, albeit with a slightly lower 1% low FPS. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Become Eivor, a Viking raider raised to be a fearless warrior, and lead your clan from icy desolation in Norway to a new home amid the lush farmlands of ninth-century England. Find your settlement and conquer this hostile land by any means to earn a place in Valhalla. England in the age of the Vikings is a fractured nation of petty lords and warring kingdoms. Beneath the chaos lies a rich and untamed land waiting for a new conqueror. Will it be you? Available now on UPlay. Moving over to Assassin's Creed Valhalla, where we see the 14100 makes almost no difference compared to the 13100F, with just a single FPS more, but two less in the 1% lows, with an improvement as small and insignificant as this there really isn't much else to add here, but with this being a newer chip that comes in at a higher price, this won’t look good for a value proposition. Baldur's Gate 3 Gather your party and return to the Forgotten Realms in a tale of fellowship and betrayal, sacrifice and survival, and the lure of absolute power. Mysterious abilities are awakening inside you, drawn from a mind flayer parasite planted in your brain. Resist, and turn darkness against itself. Or embrace corruption, and become ultimate evil. From the creators of Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes a next-generation RPG, set in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Available now on Steam. Next up is Baldur's gate 3, where yet again we are seeing a very poor showing from the 14100, coming in with an identical average FPS as the 13100F but with 4% fewer frames in the 1% lows, with these lows, which are admittedly within margin of error, it actually makes the 14100 look more comparable to the 12100F and really makes you wonder why you’d spend more on this CPU, so hopefully we’ll get some games that can take better advantage of this CPU to prove it’s worth. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare® II drops players into an unprecedented global conflict that features the return of the iconic Operators of Task Force 141. From small-scale, high-stakes infiltration tactical ops to highly classified missions, players will deploy alongside friends in a truly immersive experience. Infinity Ward brings fans state-of-the-art gameplay, with all-new gun handling, advanced AI system, a new Gunsmith and a suite of other gameplay and graphical innovations that elevate the franchise to new heights. Modern Warfare® II launches with a globe-trotting single-player campaign, immersive Multiplayer combat and a narrative-driven, co-op Special Ops experience. Available now on Steam. In Call of Duty we get exactly that, the 14100 has now gained 9% more frames over the last generation, and whilst this doesn’t make up for the jump in performance going up to the 12400 or even the ryzen 5 5600 which both come in at a pretty much identical price point, it does at least close the gap a little, and should still offer some benefit over the older CPUs. Cyberpunk 2077 Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world, action-adventure RPG set in the megalopolis of Night City, where you play as a cyberpunk mercenary wrapped up in a do-or-die fight for survival. Improved and featuring all-new free additional content, customize your character and playstyle as you take on jobs, build a reputation, and unlock upgrades. The relationships you forge and the choices you make will shape the story and the world around you. Legends are made here. What will yours be? Available now on Steam. Moving on to Cyberpunk 2077, where we see yet another very minor improvement, and much like with the other games we saw that have little to no improvement, we saw barely any increase in the average FPS but actually see a more significant decrease in the 1% lows, and with this being a repeating pattern you start to wonder if this is actually a margin of error difference or if the new CPU just can’t maintain the frame rate as well as the older chips. When we enable ray tracing we see some more small increases in FPS, with 5% more FPS over the 13100F on average, this now brings us above the 5600 from AMD, even if only a little. Something hard to ignore is the 1% lows, again we see some drops here, with the 14100 now providing us with the worst frame rate we’ve seen here, and with lows down to 35 from the average FPS of 60, this is something you’re likely going to be noticing quite a bit. F1 23 Be the last to brake in EA SPORTS™ F1® 23, the official video game of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship™. A new chapter in the thrilling "Braking Point" story mode delivers high-speed drama and heated rivalries. Available now on Steam. In F1 23 we see more of the same, the 14100 sees a margin of error increase in FPS over the previous generations' offerings with only 2% more FPS than the 13100F and a more impressive 7% over the 12100F, but with such high frame rates this improvement isn’t really going to be noticeable anyway. Again though, we see a downgrade in the 1% lows, now falling behind the 12100F and 13100F by 2% and 8% respectively Far Cry 6 Welcome to Yara, a tropical paradise frozen in time. As the dictator of Yara, Antón Castillo is intent on restoring his nation back to its former glory by any means, with his son, Diego, following in his bloody footsteps. Their oppressive rule has ignited a revolution. Available now on Ubisoft Connect. Far Cry 6 doesn’t offer much either, with the 14100 sitting with an average FPS that matches the 13100F but again, falls behind in the 1% lows. Yet again this is looking a bit dire, and, yet again, there isn’t really much I can say here. Unfortunately for Intel, this is starting to make the 14100 look a bit pointless. We can at least have solace in the fact that this is just a refresh, and we should see an improvement next generation. Hogwarts Legacy Hogwarts Legacy is an open-world action RPG set in the world first introduced in the Harry Potter books. Embark on a journey through familiar and new locations as you explore and discover magical beasts, customize your character and craft potions, master spell casting, upgrade talents and become the wizard you want to be. Experience Hogwarts in the 1800s. Your character is a student who holds the key to an ancient secret that threatens to tear the wizarding world apart. Make allies, battle Dark wizards, and ultimately decide the fate of the wizarding world. Your legacy is what you make of it. Live the Unwritten. Available now on Steam. Moving over to Hogwarts legacy we see another margin of error increase over the 13100F with just under 3% more frames, this does increase to 6% when compared to the 12100F but it’s still nothing amazing. But with all admittedly underwhelming good things comes a downside, and once again, we are met with a significantly worse 1% low figure, falling behind the 13100F by 16%, of course, it’s worth mentioning that the low frame rates here do inflate this figure somewhat, but regardless, it’s still not what we want to be seeing. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered In Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, the worlds of Peter Parker and Spider-Man collide in an original, action-packed story. Play as an experienced Peter Parker, fighting big crime and iconic villains in Marvel’s New York. Web-swing through vibrant neighbourhoods and defeat villains with epic takedowns. Available now on Steam. Thankfully, our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman has something to offer, we actually see 6% more performance from the 14100 over the 13100F, with a higher 1% low figure to match, this 1% low result also manages to get a one up on the AMD 5600, which falls just behind in the 1% lows by 2%, and when considering that the 5600 is only ahead in the average FPS by 1%, this is actually a pretty good showing for the 14100, at least relatively. When we turn ray tracing on we see a boost in the average FPS of a solid 8% over the 13100F, the higher frame rate isn’t enough to have the CPU trade places in the chart with any other processors but it does mean that it draws much closer to the Ryzen 5 5600 and the 12400. The 1% lows even see an improvement, with the 14100 actually managing to boost a small 3% above the 12400 here, and with the average FPS only falling behind by 4%, this could actually provide a more consistent gaming experience. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 The Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition celebrates all the positive feedback, reviews and awards garnered, but it is also a “Thank You” to our fans – new and old – that have made Microsoft Flight Simulator such a phenomenon. Best of all, the Microsoft Flight Simulator Game of the Year Edition will be available as a free update for existing players on PC. Available now on Steam. Flight Sim is well known for its ability to cripple a gaming PC, and without a high-end processor or 3D V-Cache you’re pretty much guaranteed to see a bottleneck, and this is no exception, but despite that the 14100 as it does see a very small single FPS increase over the 13100F, we also see a pretty big jump over the 12100F with 12% more frames. The 5600 and 5600X seem to take a beating in this game, dropping right down and seeing the 14100 sit a healthy 8% above them. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart With all new graphical and technical enhancements for deeper immersion, Red Dead Redemption 2 for PC takes full advantage of the power of the PC to bring every corner of this massive, rich and detailed world to life including increased draw distances; higher quality global illumination and ambient occlusion for improved day and night lighting; improved reflections and deeper, higher resolution shadows at all distances; tessellated tree textures and improved grass and fur textures for added realism in every plant and animal. Available now on Steam. Unfortunately, Ratchet & Clank has us moving back to old habits, with the average frame rate matching that of the 13100F, and yet again, we see a lower 1% low FPS, by 3% this time. For a newer CPU that comes in more expensive than the 13100F, this is pretty disappointing to see. When we enable ray tracing we actually see some improvement, with 3% more FPS in both the average and lows. While this increase is marginal, it is at least something positive and means that the 14100 only falls 2% behind the 5600X from AMD, closing that 6% gap that we saw between the 5600X and the 13100F, and with the 14100 coming in cheaper than the 5600X whilst also supporting DDR5, this could actually provide a better option for people who want to use their PC more for work than gaming. Remnant II Remnant II is the sequel to the best-selling game Remnant: From the Ashes that pits survivors of humanity against new deadly creatures and god-like bosses across terrifying worlds. Play solo or co-op with two other friends to explore the depths of the unknown to stop an evil from destroying reality itself. To succeed, players will need to rely on their own skills and those of their team to overcome the toughest challenges and to stave off humanity’s extinction. Available now on Steam. Remnant II provides us with even more improvements, with the 14100 now performing 3% better than the 13100F and the 5600X as well as coming in with 8% more FPS than the 12100F and the 5600. Whilst these gains aren’t enough to rival the 12400, it does provide a clear benefit to the newer CPU over its older brothers. Watch Dogs: Legion Build a resistance from virtually anyone you see as you hack, infiltrate, and fight to take back a near-future London that is facing its downfall. Welcome to the Resistance. Recruit and play as anyone in the city. Everyone you see has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set. Hack armed drones, deploy spider-bots and take down enemies using an Augmented Reality Cloak. Explore a massive urban open world featuring London’s many iconic landmarks and fun side activities. Take your recruits online and team up with your friends as you complete missions and challenging endgame content. Available now on UPlay. Finally we have Watch Dogs Legion, and we’re finishing on a pretty modest one, as the 14100 does see an improvement, but barely, with just 2% more frames on average than the 13100F and 5% more than the 12100F, what’s worth noting is that the 13100F saw a decrease in 1% low FPS from the 12100F by 7%, but then the 14100 comes in and brings that frame rate back up to match the 12100F, so even though it’s an improvement, it’s also kind of not, that just depends how you look at it. Overall Game Average FPS Testing a variety of games allows you to see how a particular piece of hardware performs in that title, but with the ability to look at overall game averages and how they perform across all titles, we can extrapolate the positioning of that hardware compared to similar hardware on the market. So that was kinda painful, but nothing was really that surprising. After all, this CPU is just a refresh of the last generation and that kind of leaves me in a weird place when I look forward to the 15th generation and what that might look like and you might find yourself asking if it was really worth it. Of course, to put things into perspective we always like to look at the overall performance across all of the games we tested, and we also need to decide if it’s actually worth buying or not. So looking at the overall average FPS across all 16 of the games we tested, and would you look at that, the 14100 sits a small margin above the 13100F which then only sits a small margin above the 12100F so the trend has just continued and in all honesty, it’s getting a little tiresome. Now what is interesting is the differences in frame rates. If you look at the increase from the 12th gen to 13th gen equivalent then you’ll see that the frame rate went up by an average of 4 FPS, and then the jump from the 13th gen to the 14th gen was another 4 FPS, so at least Intel is consistent here so silver linings and all that I guess. What this means for comparison purposes against AMD isn’t much. The Ryzen 5 5600 is still 8% faster overall and comes in around the same price so really this comes down to a win for Team Red in terms of gaming. Cost Per Frame Looking at the cost per frame allows us to see where a particular product is positioned relative to the competition and previous-generation products. By taking the price of the product and dividing it by the overall game average FPS, we have a simple formula that allows us to see if a product offers superior value for money. Now talking about price, when we look at the cost per frame things go from bad to worse, with the 14100 sitting worse than the 12100F and 13100F in terms of value, which isn’t exactly unexpected to say the least, as newer products are more expensive, but you could argue that it’s not new, as it’s just a refresh. What makes this the final nail in the coffin for the 14100 though is that the 5600 and even the 12400 both manage to see better price-to-performance ratios whilst having decent jumps in the average FPS as well. The 5600 sits $5 more expensive than the 14100 and both can utilise DDR4, though there is always an argument that the 14th gen can use DDR5 as well, but I’d like to think that anyone buying a 14100 is likely on a budget, so would probably opt for DDR4 anyway. The more interesting one for me is the 12400, which comes in $5 cheaper than the 14100 and has better overall frame rates than both the 14100 and the 5600 so for me, I’d likely be looking at that to get a good balance of cost and performance. Sure the 12100F is cheaper when looking at the cost per frame, but that’s also reflected in its performance. The other stand-out CPU here is the Ryzen 5 7600 which does come in $60 more expensive when compared to the 14100, but for that you get 49 FPS more on average and for only $0.01 more per frame which further shows how out of touch Intel are with pricing based on the performance, though this is only taking into account gaming, and productivity is a bit of a mixed bag that does show Intel in a somewhat better light in places. How Much Does it Cost? The Intel Core i3-14100F processor is available now on Amazon with an MSRP of £114.47, but at the time of writing it was 5% off, making it just £108.97. You can check for up-to-date stock and prices here. However, as if you've skipped to the last page of this review, I would suggest at least going back one page to the cost-per-frame overview, as we dive deeper into the value for money there. Overview So I think that pretty much sums things up. In all honesty, I think Intel need to pull it out of the bag with the next generation, because not only have they seemingly sailed on by with the lower-end parts starting with the 12th gen all the way up to what we looked at today, but they’ve also given AMD a chance to bring the fight and AMD seem to have better pricing on occasion and looking at price trackers, you can see that even with the pricing we did our calculations on today, some of the processors have actually seen lower prices from time to time so better deals can be had, and while that can be said for both AMD and Intel, I’ve personally noticed AMD being the aggressor of the two. Moving forward into the next generation, I’d like to see more than just a bump in clock speed, and some real innovation to come along because in all honesty, things right now are pretty boring, and even making videos like this where we’re talking a margin of error improvement in most cases, it just becomes a bit stale and not exciting for us to talk about, so I really do hope that changes and we as reviewers, and you as consumers can start to get excited again. Beyond that, is this a bad CPU? No, not really, but unless you're buying into building a new PC from scratch, it offers little to nothing new that the last generation doesn't already have to offer, limiting the appeal for those on an upgrade path. On the plus side, there's plenty of value in the market right now, with lots of CPUs from both AMD and Intel to choose from that trade blows in work and gaming tasks, but at the same time, it feels like forever ago since we had something that made us go "wow".