Intel i9-13900K and i5-13600K Review: Say Hello to Raptor Lake

Today’s Core i9-13900K and i5-13600K processors are part of Intel’s new Raptor Lake CPU line-up. On the surface, Intel has stuck with what they’ve gotten very good at, adding cores and increasing speeds. As you’ll see in the review below, the all-core and single-core boost speeds are just slightly ahead of the recently launched Ryzen 7000 series CPUs.

The flagship CPU using the Intel 7 process node, previously referred to as Intel 10nm Enhanced SuperFin, is the i9-13900K, a 24-core, 32-thread CPU with a maximum boost speed of 5.8 GHz for the P-Cores and 4.3 GHz for the E-Cores; we’ll elaborate on this later. This time, the i9-13900K MSRP is in the same range as the 12900K at launch, with a suggested price of $589.00. You can preorder your 13900K at Newegg for $659, a $70 premium over the recommended price from Intel. You can also preorder the i5-13600K at Newegg for $329 MSRP. We have included a list of SKUs with specifications and suggested pricing below, but as we can see, retail outlets don’t always follow these guidelines.

Today we are pitting AMD against Intel, and we’ll see who comes out as a winner in our testing suite. The showdown includes the 24-core, 32-thread i9-13900K and the 14-core, 20-thread i5-13600K from Intel versus the Ryzen 9 7950X (16-core @ $699) and the Ryzen 7 7700X (8-core @ $399) to align core count and pricing.

Specifications and Features

With Raptor Lake, Intel is still combining performance cores (P-cores) and efficient cores (E-cores) into one die, but this time the E-core count has been doubled, and they come with a speed increase thanks to the new “Raptor Cove” core. Looking at the i9 13900K, we still have eight performance cores (P-Cores) incorporating Intel Hyperthreading technology for 16 threads. These cores can boost up to 5.8 GHz for single and lightly threaded performance and 5.4 GHz for heavier all-core loads.

During our testing, the i9-13900K ran consistently at a 5.5 GHz all-core boost during multi-threaded benchmarks. In addition to the P-Cores, the i9 13900K has 16 efficient cores (E-Cores), up from the eight E-cores we had with the 12900K. The E-cores, optimized for highly-threaded workloads, have a turbo boost of up to 4.3 GHz, a 400 MHz increase over the previous generation.

The i5 13600K is a scaled-down version offering six P-Cores with 12 threads boosting to 5.1 GHz, a 200 MHz increase over the 12600K. The E-core count has doubled from four to eight E-Cores, with a 3.9 GHz boost speed. Only the P-Cores have hyperthreading capabilities hence the odd thread count of the CPUs.

The 13th Gen CPUs also have a significant increase in both the L2 and L3 cache allotment. The L2 cache for each P-core increased from 1.25 MB to 2.0 MB, and the 2.0 MB of L2 cache for each efficient 4-core cluster is now 4.0 MB. Doing the math gives the i9 13900K 32 MB L2 cache and the 13600K 20 MB L2 cache between the P-Cores and E-Cores. On top of that, the i9 13900K has 36 MB of L3 Intel Smart Cache. The shared L3 cache size also depends on the CPU, as we see the 13700K having 30 MB and the 13600K reduced to 24 MB of L3 cache, still significant increases over previous generations. Tying things together, we have the ring bus (uncore). Compared to Alder Lake, we also see a significant speed increase from 3600 MHz to 4600 MHz in Raptor Lake.

Unlike AMD who’s all in on DDR5, Intel will continue to support DDR4 with Raptor lake. This approach offers a “value-oriented” upgrade path for adopting the new platform with the official support of DDR4 3200. On the DDR5 front, Intel has raised its official support speeds to DDR5 5600 for one DIMM per channel (1DPC), up from DDR5 4800. They have also increased the 2DPC rates from DDR5 3600 up to DDR5 4400, a significant improvement on both fronts. According to Intel, this is the official memory support, meaning any speed above this is overclocking the memory controller.

Intel continues to use their Enhanced Intel Xe graphics in the Raptor Lake CPUs, namely, the Intel UHD Graphics 770. Like the rest of the Raptor Lake CPU, the iGPU has also seen a slight bump of 100 MHz. The iGPU has 32 execution units with high-efficiency dual encoders and supports up to a single 8K HDR or four 4K HDR displays simultaneously. It also has support for Display Port 1.4a and HDMI 2.0b connectivity.

Below is a list of the new Raptor Lake unlocked CPUs with specifications and pricing; keep in mind this is MSRP.

Z790 and Socket 1700

Raptor Lake CPUs are compatible with 600 and 700 series LGA 1700 motherboards enabling a straight CPU upgrade path if you already own a 600 series board. As you’ll see below, the most significant difference between Z690 and Z790 has increased PCIe 4.0 lanes and 20 Gbps USB ports.

The new i9 13900K has 20 dedicated PCIe lanes; 16 are PCIe 5.0 (32 GT/s) in either an X16 or X8/X8 format and allow for some sharing with NVMe PCIe 5.0 devices. We also have four PCIe 4.0 (16 GT/s) lanes for storage devices. That brings us to the Z790 chipset connected to the CPU with Intel’s DMI 4.0 x8 link, which has double the transfer capabilities of the DMI 3.0 link. Compared to the Z690 chipset, we now have an increase in the PCIe Gen 4.0 lanes from 12 to 20 and a decrease in PCIe 3.0 from 16 down to eight. USB connectivity is primarily unchanged aside from adding another possible USB Gen 3.2 2×2 20 Gbps port raising that to five from the four we had on Z690. The platform also has integrated Intel Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+), Intel Killer 2.5G, and integrated support for Intel I219-V LAN.

We have included a small chart to help simplify the changes between Z690 and the Z790 chipsets.

Turbo Boost and Power Levels

We’re all familiar (or not) with Intel’s collection of turbo boost technologies that accelerate the CPU frequency depending on factors such as power use and temperature. Starting with Alder Lake, they have trimmed down the various names and have left us with three. We now have Turbo Boost Max, an all-core boost for the P-Cores and E-Cores, although they run at different speeds. Then we have Turbo Boost Max 3.0 for lightly threaded loads, optimizing performance by sending work to your fastest cores. This technology is only used on the P-Cores and is available on the 13700K and 13900K CPUs. There is one additional boost bin, the Thermal Velocity boost. The TVB is only available with the i9-13900K/F

We still have two different power levels for the operating window of the CPU. PL1 (Power Level 1) is the processor’s base power or default and remains 125 W for continual operation. PL2 is the maximum turbo power which varies by CPU. PL2 is 253 W for the 13900K and the 13700K; this is a slight increase of 12 W over the 12900K and a significant boost over the 12700K of 63 W. The 13600K has also seen a bump in the available power up to 181 W compared to the 150 W for the 12600K. Remember that many motherboard vendors default to PL1 = PL2, so the processor runs at maximum turbo out of the box.

Meet the i9-13900K and i5-13600K

Here’s a slideshow of the sample packaging, which differs from retail, some close-ups of the CPUs’ top and bottom, plus a comparison of the i9-13900K and the i9-12900K. Overall you can see the two CPUs are practically identical aside from some of the SMD placement on the PCB.

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Meet the i9-13900K and i5-13600K

Before things start, below are images of the 13900K and 13600K in CPU-Z at their stock settings with XMP enabled.

Test Setup and Results

Here we take a slightly different approach to CPU testing with ours based on many Hwbot.org benchmarks since that is what we are known for, overclocking and benchmarking. We also use real-world testing with Cinebench, Blender 3.3, Corona, and 7Zip to give readers a good idea of the product’s general performance.

13th Gen Intel Test System

AMD Ryzen 7000 Test System

12th Gen Intel Test System

Intel Core i9-13900K and i5-13600K Performance Testing

CPU Tests

• AIDA64 Engineer CPU, FPU, and Memory Tests
• Cinebench R20 and R23
• Corona Benchmark
• Blender 3.3 Benchmark, We use the sum of all three tests
• SuperPi 1M/32M
• WPrime 32M/1024M
• 7Zip

We run all CPU tests at their default settings with XMP/EXPO enabled unless otherwise noted. We also used an unlimited power setting which MSI chose to suit our cooling method.

Gaming Tests

We have updated our gaming tests and dropped them down to four games for CPU reviews. Our testing is done at 1080p as it’s more CPU-dependent, but we use both CPU-heavy and GPU-bound titles. All game tests were run at 1920×1080 with all CPUs at default settings unless otherwise noted. Please see our testing procedures for details on in-game settings.

• Shadow of the Tomb Raider – DX12, “Highest” preset
• Far Cry 6 – DX12, Ultra preset, VSync Off
• F1 2021 – DX12, Very High defaults, TAA, and x16 AF, Bahrain track, show FPS counter.
• Metro: Exodus – DX12, Ultra defaults
• UL 3DMark Fire Strike (Extreme) – Default settings

AIDA64 CPU, FPU, and Memory Tests

Below are a couple of shots of the AIDA64 cache and memory benchmark results for the i9-13900K and i5-13600K. As you can see, the number of cores and CPU speed slightly impact memory bandwidth, with the 24-core i9-13900K taking the lead over the 14-core i5-13600K. The new Raptor Lake CPUs have improved the memory bandwidth and latency compared to the previous generation. The Ryzen CPUs pulled ahead in the latency category but couldn’t keep up regarding raw throughput.

In the AIDA64 CPU tests, we see that the Ryzen 9 7950 X takes the lead over the Raptor Lake rival in all tests except Zlib, where it tied with the 13900K, and the PhotoWorx test, always a blue team favorite, is Intel all the way. The 13600K and Ryzen 7 7700X traded blows here, but Intel pulled a slight lead.

Moving on to the AIDA64 FPU tests, the 7950X leads every test across the board by significant margins compared to all the CPUs. The Ryzen 7 7700X put on a good show besting the i9-12900K and the i5-13600K in every test.

Real-World Tests

Last year in our i9-12900K review, AMD lost its hold over Cinebench and lost that hold a few weeks ago to the Ryzen 9 7900X. As you see below, the i9-13900K managed a narrow victory in both Cinebench benchmarks. Compared to the Ryzen 9 7950X, the results were reasonably close across the board, but AMD’s flagship CPU pulled ahead in our other rendering benchmarks and 7Zip, which led by a 12% margin. The 13600K, on the other hand, led the 7700X in all tests by approximately 10% except in 7Zip, where the gap narrowed. Comparing the 13900K to its predecessor, we see huge gains of 30% across the board, mainly due to the aggressive speeds and increased core count of the Raptor Lake CPU.

Pi and Prime-Based Tests

Next up are the Pi and Prime number-based tests. SuperPi has always been an Intel favorite and relies heavily on CPU speed. A couple of weeks back, with the launch of the new ZEN 4 architecture, AMD had the advantage and wrestled a long-standing crown away from Intel. The new Raptor Lake CPUs have incredible single-core boost speeds, with the 13900K reaching 5.8 GHz. Combine that with better memory bandwidth, and the Core i9-13900K easily bested the Ryzen 9 7950X by 30 seconds in SuperPi 32m. For anyone familiar with benchmarking competitively, this is no small achievement.

Wprime, on the other hand, loves cores and threads. During the Alder Lake launch last year, we noticed that the new mixed core design seems to have some difficulty with this benchmark, albeit hit and miss. Some passes will run through just fine and return a decent score. WPrime 1024m, in particular, seems to be the most affected by this as it appears Windows or the CPU can’t schedule the threads properly and will spit out a terrible score. That wasn’t the case here; the AMD CPUs handle WPrime much better as you can see from the results, the Ryzen 9 7950X completed the 1024m benchmark in half the time it took the 13900K.

Gaming Results

We’ll let the gaming results speak for themselves. Aside from Metro Exodus, the 13900K and 13600K were the frames-per-second leaders in all the games. The 13600K, in particular, performed very well in our 1080p gaming benchmarks.

Next up, we have 3DMark Fire Strike Extreme, a DX11-based test; UL says the graphics rendering has detail and complexity far beyond other DX11 benchmarks and games using 2560×1440 resolution. The overall and graphics scores were reasonably close, as you can see below. Looking at the physics score, we can see that Intel’s hybrid design has paid off, giving the i9-13900K a 25% lead over AMD’s flagship 7950X.

IPC Testing

IPC (instruction per clock) for Raptor Lake P-cores compared to the previous generation is nearly identical, as shown below. There is a slight improvement, but very negligible. Most, if not all, of the performance gains, have come from the massive boost in both the P-core and E-core speeds. AMD is still in the game leading both the 7Zip benchmark and Wprime.

Power Consumption and Temperatures

We have included two sets of graphs here. One set compares AMD directly to Intel for power and temperature. The other set shows the difference between stock settings and overclocked settings.

As you can see below, the power usage of both Raptor lake CPUs is creeping up there. The 13600K is easily manageable, both stock and overclocked, but the 13900K is one thirsty CPU. During the blender benchmark, we see 471 W stock and 541 W once overclocked. Compared to the Ryzen 9 7950X, we’re seeing 80W minimum and 120W maximum power usage at stock settings. Remember that this is the total system power we are measuring, but these are strictly CPU tests. It could add up if this CPU were used in a 24/7 scenario doing some serious work. Electricity here is on average $0.12/kWh (kilowatt-hour); 100 W uses 0.1 kWh every hour, with 8760 hours in a year….. Doing the math, that’s $105 every year!

We used the EK Predator CLC, a very effective all-in-one 360 mm cooler, for testing. We then subjected the CPUs to the AIDA64 stability test, Corona benchmark, and Blender 3.3 benchmark. The CPUs run at default speeds and then repeated the tests with our overclocked settings for comparison.

Interestingly, the Core i9-13900K could overclock with a bit less than the stock voltage; otherwise, we would have throttled throughout most of our tests. The 13600K, on the other hand, did remarkably well; even overclocked, the temperatures were very well controlled, topping out just below 90°C.

Overclocking the Core i9-13900K and Core i5-13600K

In our first attempts at overclocking the 13900K, we tried setting a static voltage in the BIOS, but this proved very difficult, and we had a lot of throttling. Then we tried using a negative offset of 0.03 V; this allowed a slight overclock of the P-Cores to 5.6 GHz and another 200 MHz for the E-cores settling at 4.5 GHz. The flagship 13900K runs very near to its limit right out of the box and, in reality, doesn’t need much of a boost performance-wise.

The i5-13600K is an entirely different story when it comes to overclocking. This CPU still had tons of headroom on both the P-Cores and E-Cores. Using the same approach as we did with the 13900K, we added a +0.08 V offset to the stock voltage. This offset allowed for an extra 600 MHz on the P-Cores and 700 MHz for the E-Cores. Leaving us at 5.7/4.6 GHz, respectively, making for a significant boost to the stock performance. Surprisingly, the temperatures were still well within limits, but attempts at higher operating frequencies never panned out.

Conclusion

Before the Intel 7 node with Alder lake, Intel spent years refining its process and adding more cores while remaining competitive. Intel has applied the same practice for Raptor Lake. Across the stack, we have double the amount of E-Cores, more L2 and L3 cache, and we see speeds that until recently were only seen by extreme overclockers. Coincidentally, we saw this same massive speed boost recently with ZEN 4.

Using the Core i9-13900K as an example, 16 E-cores running at 4.3 GHz compared to eight at 3.9 GHz is a massive boost for multi-threaded workloads. Combine this with the 5.5 GHz all-core and 5.8 GHz maximum P-core turbo; you have one beast of a CPU. It’s as if they took a 12900K and turned all the dials up to 11! The 13900K is impressive at stock, but there is little room left for additional overclocking. Perhaps with a custom cooling solution there would be a bit more headroom, but we found the power levels were already getting relatively high and we could feel the temperature change in the lab when this CPU was working.

The i5-13600K, on the other hand, had much more potential for additional performance, as we saw in the overclocking section. It performs very well out of the box, pushing past the 7700X in most of our benchmarks. After a few minutes in the BIOS and some testing, we could dial in a very sizable overclock of 600 MHz and 700 MHz for the P-cores and E-cores, respectively. Even at these speeds, the temperatures were very reasonable for 24/7 operation.

Raptor Lake CPUs are compatible with the 600 and 700 series LGA 1700 motherboards using either DDR4 or DDR5. The new CPUs have made some memory speed improvements supporting up to DDR5 5600 and DDR4 3200. With ease, they will run higher memory speeds, such as our review kit at DDR5 6000, but this is overclocking as it is higher than DDR5 5600 so it’s not “officially” supported. Adopting a Z790 motherboard does have some benefits, with up to 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes compared to 12 with Z690, possible NVMe PCIe 5.0 connections, and an additional USB Gen 3.2 2×2 port. These may be nice to have but wouldn’t necessitate an upgrade from a Z690 motherboard; as demonstrated in this review, both Raptor Lake CPUs ran exceptionally well on the MEG Z690 ACE from MSI.

Looking at the Raptor Lake CPUs from a performance per dollar perspective and based solely on the suggested retail price, both the i9-13900K and i5-13600K would come out ahead. The 13900K with an MSRP of $589.00, available for preorder now at Newegg for $659, is $40 less than the Ryzen 9 7950X ($699.00 on Newegg) and is relatively on par performance-wise. The power usage is much higher than AMD, but that’s more of a personal thing, whether or not that’s an issue. The 13600K looks even sweeter. Performance is better than the Ryzen 7 7700X, and it’s $70 cheaper at $329 compared to $399 for the Ryzen CPU. Additionally, the platform upgrade can be easier and more affordable without needing DDR5 memory or a 700 series motherboard.

In the end, the new Raptor Lake CPUs have shifted the tide back to the “Blue Team” in just a few weeks. Intel gets two thumbs up and easy approval from Overclockers!

Shawn Jennings – Johan45

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