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Raptor Lake Refresh has remained a surprisingly relevant platform as DDR5 prices continue to push the cost of building a PC higher. Intel's 14th-Gen chips support DDR4 and DDR5, given you have a compatible motherboard, making them an easy upgrade path if you don't already have DDR5 memory. Keep in mind that DDR4 will give up about 13% of your gaming performance , however.
Earlier this year, Intel's Robert Hallock told Tom's Hardware Premium that Raptor Lake is a core part of Intel's strategy for "years to come," signaling a stabilization in prices and inventory. Hopefully that's what we're seeing in action now. The main Raptor Lake Refresh stack is on sale, with popular chips like the Core i7-14700KF hitting their lowest price ever.
Intel's 14th-Gen CPUs are still its fastest gaming chips, with the Core i9-14900K outclassing the newer Core Ultra 7 270K Plus based on the results in our CPU benchmark hierarchy . Although newer Arrow Lake CPUs are faster in applications, Raptor Lake Refresh still holds some of the best gaming performance for Team Blue.
The Intel Core i9-14900KF is a fully overclocked 24-core processor comes with eight performance and 16 efficiency cores, and is still one of the best Intel options if you're looking for a new gaming CPU.
Both the Core i9-14900K and Core i9-14900KF are on sale, but the KF version (unlocked without integrated graphics) is a particularly good deal. It's down to its lowest price ever at $369.99, beating the low it saw last year of around $391. The only difference between this chip and the Core i9-14900K is the integrated graphics. If that's a dealbreaker, the Core i9-14900K is on sale for $400 right now, too.
The Core i9-14900KF is Intel's fastest gaming CPU based on our test suite. It's also a potent chip in productivity applications with 24 cores split across 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, with single-core boosts up to 6 GHz. If you end up picking up the 14900K (or any chip here), make sure you're using the latest BIOS for your motherboard to apply Intel's Raptor Lake degradation mitigations.
Score Intel's Core i7-14700KF, the same as the 14700K but without integrated graphics, with a $80 discount using code FTTF7678 at the checkout.
A step down the stack, we have the Core i7-14700KF, which is also down to an all-time low price at $279.99. The Core i7-14700K is also on sale for $299.99 . This is the sweet spot for Intel's Raptor Lake Refresh range, especially when it comes to gaming. You get 97% of the gaming performance of the Core i9-14900K for around $80 less.
That's due to the core split. The Core i7-14700K has 20 total cores, but it comes with the same eight performance cores as the Core i9, offering similar performance in applications that primarily live on those cores. The 12 efficiency cores still pitch when in heavily-threaded workloads.
Unfortunately, the Core i5-14600KF is not on sale, though its selling price of $239.99 is better than what we've seen over the past few months. Lower down the stack, the Core i5-14400F is on sale, which is a chip that rarely sees discounts.
The Core i5-14400F is a 10-core processor with six performance cores and four efficiency cores. It clocks up to 4.7 GHz and slots into LGA 1700 motherboards with support for DDR4 or DDR6.
The Coire i5-14400F has dropped as low as $130 before, so the price right now isn't the best we've ever seen. However, it's better than the selling price of this chip over the past year. Following the holiday rush at the end of last year, the chip has hovered around $200 for the majority of 2026.
The Core i5-14400F is a good alternative to the 14600K if you only care about gaming. That's because it comes with the same six performance cores, shaving the efficiency cores in half to just four. That limits the chip's multi-threaded grunt in applications, naturally.
Hopefully these price drops are a sign of Raptor Lake Refresh inventory stabilizing, not a clearance sale. Time will tell on that front. For now, these are some of the best prices we've seen on Raptor Lake Refresh chips.
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/its-finally-a-good-time-to-buy-a-raptor-lake-cpu-during-prime-big-deals-day-chips-drop-to-all-time-low-prices-as-inventory-seemingly-stabilizes#main
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.