R-Batches, 13900KSS and IMC regressions? – Intel Core 14th Gen Binning Results from almost 600 CPUs

1 - Procedure and Disclaimer 2 - i9-14900K and i9-14900KF 3 - 6 GHz VID for 14900K(F) vs. 13900KS – Which CPU is better? 4 - i7-14700K and i7-14700KF 5 - i5-14600K and i5-14600KF 6 - i9's from 2022 and 2023 - Which vintage is better? 7 - IMC-Tests, SP vs. Cinebench and Conclusion

6 GHz VID at 14900K(F) vs. 13900KS – Which CPU is better?

Now I have a comparison of the “VID Fmax” values – hereinafter simply referred to as “VID” – for you. Although these are almost identical to the P SP values for the 14900 chips in the distribution, as the SP calculation is presumably mainly based on the VID, the VID values themselves are not weighted, which makes them more suitable for a comparison. Because which CPU is basically identical in design and also has a 6 GHz VID for the P cores? Exactly, the 13900KS. This allows us to directly compare how the 13900KS differs from its successors. It should be noted that the 13900KS CPUs here are from the year 2023, from production weeks according to the batch numbers, in which 14 CPUs were also already manufactured. The manufacturing process should therefore be the same for all 3 SKUs and all batches also come from the same production facility in Taiwan, at least according to the number. A 2022 vs. 2023 comparison for the 13900 CPUs will be available later.

Unfortunately, this time we only had a relatively small number of 13900KS CPUs available (24) – yes, I know: complaining at a high level – but that makes the conclusions less reliable. Is Intel now reserving the really good chips of the newer SKUs so that you can no longer win a silicon grand prize with a 13900KS? At least that’s how it was for us. The worst 13900KS CPU has a VID of 1493 mV, the best is 1433 mV, relatively far away from the end of the flagpole of the 14 i9s with 1398 mV.

What is the VID or VID Fmax?

Briefly about VID and SP: Simply put, the VID determines at which clock frequency the CPU requests which voltage from the mainboard. For example, if the CPU wants to run at 6 GHz, it tells the power supply: I would like 1398 mV. And this VID is “fused”, i.e. programmed in, by Intel for each CPU during production and thus determines in a “V/F table” which voltage is required at which clock frequency.

As I said, this is a very simplified explanation, as voltage drop, load line calibration and AC/DC load lines influence the actual core voltage, and each core has its own V/F values and not all cores boost to the maximum clock rate at the same time, at least not ex works. But to put it simply, you can recognize the quality of the cores by the VID: Less VID = better CPU, and vice versa.

And this is probably exactly what Asus makes use of when calculating its Silicon Prediction (SP) values. By running each core briefly at its maximum clock rate and observing the voltage supply on the mainboard, you can draw conclusions about the programmed VID values and thus determine the quality. There should then be a table of values with a corresponding weighting for each CPU SKU – otherwise 14900K and 13900KS with the same VID values would also have the same SP values.

My colleagues at Intel and Asus will probably want to rip my head off because of this simplification and speculation, but this VID to P SP key is probably not far from the actual truth. In reality, for example, there is no P SP 119, and CPUs with VID 1403 are classified as P SP 120. So a little more magic than an Excel wallpaper is probably still happening in the BIOS or someone at Asus has forgotten a line in Excel.

13900K(F) vs. 13900KS vs. 14900K(F)

If you can’t get enough of speculoos before Christmas, I’ve got a second helping for you. Because we still had some 13900K and 13900KF CPUs available. These have actually already been rendered obsolete by the 13900KS as far as the chances of winning the main prize are concerned, but we tried our luck anyway. In vain, but we can now use the data to compare the silicon quality between all Raptor Lake i9 K SKUs – well, with a little imagination.

Because the SP weighting and thus the values are different between all 3 CPU types and the V/F table for the 13900K and KF CPUs ends at 5.8 GHz and not at 6 GHz. The 13900KS and 14900K/KF do have a VID at 5.8 GHz, but we didn’t include this in our binning. So I got creative and made a note of the ratio of 5.8 GHz VID to 6 GHz VID of some CPUs that were posted in the relevant OC forums. One CPU, for example, has values of 1354 mV and 1403 mV, and thus requires 49 mV for the last 200 MHz. Another CPU has values of 1378 mV and 1458 mV, so it needs 80 mV more. The ratio is not simply fixed or only a percentage, but linear enough to feed it to ChatGPT for interpolation. And lo and behold, for every real 5.8 GHz VID, an interpolated, theoretical 6 GHz VID can be generated for all 13900K(F) CPUs.

Since the X-axis would otherwise have been too wide and the columns too narrow, I expanded the categories from 5 mV to 10 mV steps and grouped the CPUs together. The worst 13900K(F) CPU would therefore theoretically need 1608 mV after this interpolation to reach 6 GHz on its best core. Of course, this cannot work for various reasons, especially due to the heat density. It is easy to see how Intel has to sort out and that only the better 50% of all i9 CPUs can become a 13900KS or 14900K(F), from a 6 GHz VID of 1508 mV or less.