A laptop version of the Intel Core i9-14900HX has made its way into a new Acer machine. We don't want to spoil the Titanic level, but Apple won't be sweating too hard over Geekbench results leaked by competitors' latest processors.

This 14th-generation Raptor Lake-HX CPU in what looks like an updated version of the Acer Predator Helios 18 (thank you, NotebookCheck), which we did for our MacBook Pro 14-inch M3 review It beat Apple's base M3 chip in our Geekbench 6 test. As for Cupertino's top-of-the-line M3 Max chip, which is found in the fiercely powerful MacBook Pro 16-inch M3 Max, it's a different story altogether.

As you can see, the M3 Max comfortably exceeds the leaked i9-14900HX specs in both single-core and multi-core tests. If you are an Intel fan like the author, you will be a bit disappointed with the above numbers.

Nor does Intel's latest offering boast an earth-shattering upgrade over its predecessor: the Core i9-13900HX scores a (still respectable) 2,720/16,522 on Geekbench. This means that the new processor offers a 10% and 8% performance increase over the older processor.

In a world where Apple finally seems ready to get serious about Mac gaming, some of the best gaming laptop PCs (traditionally powered by AMD or Intel chipsets) may be getting a lot of scare from the California tech giant

Acer.

The Acer Predator Helios 18 with 32GB of RAM and an Nvidia RTX 4080 Laptop GPU sounds impressive on paper, but the MacBook Pro M3 Max 16-inch blew us away during our review testing.

In games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Baldur's Gate 3, and Lies of P, my colleague Tony Polanco recorded over 100 frames per second in each of these titles. This is unprecedented gaming performance on any MacBook we've had hands-on with.

I would gladly take a sauna on the surface of the sun to test my favorite titles on the 16-inch MacBook Pro M3 Max, but alas, my apartment cannot afford $3,999.

Regardless, with the numbers the M3 Max puts up (Apple's powerful silicon also achieved an impressive score of 31,271 / 187 fps in the 3DMark Wildlife Unlimited test), it seems capable of being a gaming beast.

The Helios 18 and other gaming laptops that will be equipped with Intel's Core i9 13900HX are probably nervous by now.