The Core i5-13600K is the best mainstream gaming chip, while the Core i9-13900K is the fastest gaming chip on the market, but it is surpassed by the 13700K. Both chips offer superior performance in both gaming and productivity at their respective price points.
With a 20 percent generational leap in gaming performance, the 13th-Gen Intel “Raptor Lake” Core i9-13900K ($589; $319; respectively) and Core i5-13600K ($319; respectively) outperform rival chips from AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series. Using the brand-new Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, we put each of the three Raptor Lake chips through their paces to determine which CPU is best for gaming and which CPU ranks highest in our CPU benchmark hierarchy. Raptor Lake’s performance improvements are due to its record-high clock speeds of up to 5.8 GHz, with a 6 GHz model on the way. Additionally, Intel now holds the lead in core counts for the first time since AMD’s Ryzen debuted in 2017.
Raptor Lake’s microarchitectures are similar to those of the previous generation of Alder Lake chips in many ways, but they have been vastly improved, resulting in significant performance enhancements. Even though Intel still makes use of the “Intel 7” process node, it was able to increase clock speeds and reduce power consumption by taking advantage of significant advancements in a more recent version of the silicon. Additionally, Intel etched the cores on a new, larger die with additional cores and L3 cache, revealing the L2 cache that was previously hidden.
Raptor Lake gives us the kind of performance boosts that we would normally only expect from moving to a new process node when it is combined with fine-grained tuning and expanded use of core features. As Intel tries to fight off the 5nm Ryzen 7000 processors, such as the Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 5 7600X, which recently took the lead over Alder Lake, these kinds of advancements are necessary.
Raptor Lake, like its predecessor, is compatible with the most recent connectivity standards, such as DDR5 and PCIe 5.0. DDR5 now supports official speeds of DDR5-5600 that are faster. In comparison to AMD’s Ryzen 7000, especially for midrange options, Intel also maintains DDR4 support for less expensive build options. Raptor Lake will also integrate with existing motherboards to provide Alder Lake users with an upgrade path; however, the brand-new 700-series motherboards provide slightly more connectivity options. Additionally, Intel added additional CPU overclocking features.
Naturally, there are limitations. Although Intel’s new chips are its most power-efficient to date, the company has increased power limits for all desktop PC chips, following AMD’s lead-regaining strategy. As a result, the heat may be difficult to manage, necessitating a robust cooling strategy. On the other hand, even without using exotic cooling, you can now easily overclock to the highest clock rates we’ve ever seen. With an AIO watercooler, for instance, we dialed in 5.6 GHz all-core overclocks with relative ease.
The Core i5-13600K was priced higher by Intel, but the Core i7 and i9 were priced the same. The 13th-Generation Raptor Lake processors are now the best CPUs for gaming and most other work, even though they don’t take the outright performance lead in all threaded workloads, thanks to the company’s continued aggressive chip pricing and options for cheaper platforms and memory.
Each of Intel’s three overclockable Raptor Lake chips comes in two variants, giving you the option of purchasing less expensive KF-series models without graphics. The remaining 16 processors in the lineup are expected to be available from Intel early next year. The 13th-Gen Raptor Lake processors have a mix of big performance cores (p-cores) for latency-sensitive work and small efficiency cores (e-cores) for threaded and background applications, just like the chips from the previous generation. The Gracemont architecture is still used by the e-cores, while the Raptor Cove design is used by the p-cores. After the benchmarks, we’ll go over the architecture in greater detail.
AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X will compete with Intel’s 24-core 32-thread $589 Core i9-13900K, so Intel has a price advantage. The Core i9-13900K has the highest clock rates of the new chips, increasing by 600 MHz to a peak clock rate of 5.8 GHz, a record for mainstream desktop computers. Since Raptor Lake Core i9 models use Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost and Turbo Boost 3.0 technologies, the 13900K must meet certain power and temperature requirements to reach 5.8 GHz on two cores. On all Raptor Lake chips, Intel has also increased the boost frequencies for the p-cores and e-cores, but decreased the base clocks by 200 MHz. This is done to manage the Base Turbo Power (BTP) rating, so the latter shouldn’t matter much in practice.
The 13900K maintains the previous BTP of 125W, but Intel has increased the Maximum Turbo Power (MTP) by 12W, bringing it to 253W—a new desktop processor record that surpasses the Ryzen 7000’s peak rating of 230W.
In contrast, AMD’s design employs only cores that are analogous to “performance cores,” so we’ll have to look to the benchmarks to determine the winners rather than relying solely on core counts. The Core i9-13900K has eight more e-cores than its predecessor, providing significantly more threaded horsepower and technically taking the core count lead on the mainstream desktop PC over the 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X. The boost clock on the e-cores has been increased by 400 MHz to 4.3 GHz. Even though the Gracemont architecture is used in the e-cores, Intel claims that changes to the caching policy and other fine-grained optimizations (more on this below) now produce the same IPC and frequency as the original 14nm Skylake cores at a lower power consumption.
The only Raptor Lake chip equipped with Intel’s Adaptive Boost Technology (ABT) is the Core i9-13900K. Simply put, ABT enables Core i9 processors to dynamically boost to higher all-core frequencies based on electrical conditions and available thermal headroom, allowing for varying peak frequencies. In order to get the most out of your setup, it also lets the chip run at 100C during normal operation. On the third page, we talk more about this.
The Core i7-13700K, which retails for $409, now has eight e-cores, four more p-cores, and a 400 MHz increase in e-core frequency to 4.2 GHz. Additionally, Intel increased this chip’s MTP to 253W, an increase of 63W over the previous-generation Core i7-12700K (+33%).
Four extra e-cores are included in the $319 Core i5-13600K, and Intel increased the p-core clocks by 200 MHz to reach 5.1 GHz. Additionally, Intel increased the e-cores by 300 MHz for a 3.9 GHz boost. Naturally, this means that the chip will use more power; the 13600K weighs 181W (+20%) more and has a 31W higher MTP than the previous generation.
If you are willing to overclock, the Core i5-13600K appears to be the most impressive Raptor Lake chip. We were able to easily achieve a 5.6 GHz overclock, which nearly matches the gaming performance of the stock Core i9-13900K. However, you will be required to pay for the privilege. The only chip to see an increase in price is the $319 Core i3-13600K; The 13600KF, which does not include graphics, and the full-featured model both cost $30 more than the previous generation. E-cores are coming to more of the Raptor Lake Core i5 lineup, according to Intel. There are currently only four e-cores on the Core i5 ‘K’ Alder Lake model, while the others do not.
All three chips benefit from a portion of the enhancements. For instance, Intel increased the L2 cache for each p-core from 1.25MB to 2MB and the L2 cache for each cluster of e-cores from 2MB to 4MB. The addition of additional e-core clusters, each of which has an adjacent L3 cache slice as part of the design, has also increased the amount of L3 cache. All K-series Raptor Lake chips will see an increase in cache capacity as a result.
When compared to Alder Lake’s previous speed of 4800 MT/s, Intel’s DDR5 memory support has increased to 5600 MT/s with one DIMM per channel (1DPC). Importantly, Intel increased 2DPC speeds to 4400 MT/s, up from 3600 MT/s in the previous generation. DDR4 memory, which Intel predicts will coexist with DDR5 memory in the market until the end of 2024, is also supported by Raptor Lake. In contrast to AMD’s all-in approach with DDR5, this strategy ensures a value option for Intel platforms.
Raptor Lake and Alder Lake both plug into motherboards that use the LGA 1700 socket, so they can be used with chips from the 600-series or the 700-series. If you use a motherboard from the previous generation of the 600-series for Raptor Lake, according to Intel, you shouldn’t notice any performance differences based on similar components. As is customary, Intel will first introduce its Z-series motherboards (Z790 in this instance), followed by the value-oriented B- and H-series when the rest of the Raptor Lake lineup is released.
