After launching a line of Raptor Lake-Refresh chips for desktop computers last fall, Intel is bringing the family to mobile with a new set of 55-watt Raptor Lake Refresh-HX-series processors designed for gaming laptops, mobile workstations, and other laptops and mini PCs that can benefit from a bit of extra CPU power.
Since these processors are based on Raptor Lake architecture, they don’t have Meteor Lake features like Intel’s AI Boost neural processing unit, Low-Power Efficiency CPU cores, or Intel Arc integrated graphics. But with support for CPU speeds up to 5.8 GHz, up to 192GB of RAM, and designed to be used in systems with discrete graphics, you might not really miss any of those things.
So what sets these new chips apart from the Raptor Lake-HX processors Intel launched a year ago? That varies from chip to chip, but in general:
- Support for up to 192GB of RAM (up from 128GB)
- Higher CPU and GPU frequencies across the board
- More Performance or Efficiency CPU cores on some models (when compared with their 13th-gen counterparts)
- Thunderbolt 5 support
The new chips include built-in support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, but can also now be paired with an optional discrete wireless card for WiFi 7 and BT 5.4.
Manufactured on the Intel 7 processor, the new processors include support for PCIe Gen 5 and Gen 4, with the PCH offering up to 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0 and 12 lanes of PCIe 3.0 support. And Intel says its new HX-series processors are overclockable.
Here’s a run-down of some key specs for the first five Raptor Lake Refresh-HX chips:
| i9-14900HX | i7-14700HX | i7-14650HX | i5-14500HX | i5-14450HX | |
| Cores / Threads | 24 / 32 8 P-cores 16 E-Cores | 20 / 28 8 P-Cores 12 E-Cores | 16 / 24 8 P-cores 8 E-Cores | 14 / 20 6 P-Cores 8 E-cores | 10 / 16 6 P-cores 4 E-Cores |
| Base / Max Turbo (P-core) | 2.2 GHz / 5.8 GHz | 2.1 GHz / 5.5 GHz | 2.2 GHz / 5.2 GHz | 2.6 GHz / 4.9 GHz | 2.4 GHz / 4.8 GHz |
| Base / Max Turbo (E-core) | 1.6 GHz / 4.1 GHz | 1.5 GHz / 3.9 GHz | 1.6 GHz / 3.7 GHz | 1.9 GHz / 3.5 GHz | 1.8 GHz / 3.5 GHz |
| GPUÂ | Intel UHD Graphics | ||||
| Intel Smart Cache | 36MB | 33MB | 30MB | 24MB | 20MB |
| Max memory speed | DDR-5600 DDR4-3200 | ||||
| Max Memory capacity | 192GB | ||||
| Processor Base Power | 55W | ||||
| Processor Max Turbo | 157W | ||||
One interesting thing to note? Intel says there are more than 60 PCs on the way with 14th-gen Intel Core HX-series processors based on Raptor Lake Refresh architecture… and only “10+ next-generation designs” with 14th-gen Intel Core Ultra chips based on Meteor Lake architecture.
It’s unclear whether that’s because there’s more demand for Raptor Lake Refresh than Meteor Lake, or if it’s an indication that Intel is having a hard time ramping up production of Meteor Lake (which is manufactured on a new Intel 4 process).
But it’s worth noting that there are some pros and cons to each chip family. Meteor Lake processors have higher-performance integrated graphics, a built-in neural processing unit, hardware-accelerated support for AV1 encoding and decoding, and efficiency improvements.
But Raptor Lake Refresh-HX supports more cores and threads, higher clock speeds (and overclocking support), and Thunderbolt 5.
