Thursday, September 8th 2022
Non-K 13th Gen Core i5 (such as i5-13400) Based on Older "Alder Lake" Architecture, Hints Intel Slide
Remember how 12th Gen Core i5 non-K was vastly different in performance from the Core i5 K/KF on account of being 6P+0E processors in comparison to more L3 cache and a 6P+4E core-count of the i5-12600K/KF? Intel is doubling down on creating architectural confusion in the mid-range, according to a 3DCenter.org article citing a leaked slide from Intel's 13th Gen Core launch press-deck.
We had earlier thought that the 13th Gen non-K Core i5 will have a 6P+4E core-config, but still be based on "Raptor Lake" (i.e. "Raptor Cove" P-cores + "Gracemont" E-cores), in comparison to the i5-13600K/KF, which are confirmed "Raptor Lake" chips with 6P+8E configuration; but it turns out that Intel is basing the non-K 13th Gen Core i5 on the older "Alder Lake" microarchitecture. These chips will be 6P+4E (that's six "Golden Cove" P-cores + four "Gracemont" E-cores), which make them essentially identical to the i5-12600K, but without the unlocked multiplier, and a lower 65 W processor base power.
Being based on the "Alder Lake" architecture has many implications for chips such as the i5-13400, i5-13500, and i5-13600 (non-K), the biggest of which will be lower IPC of the "Golden Cove" P-cores, which according to AMD's benchmarks, are already beaten by the "Zen 4." This means that the i5-13400 will have no chance squaring off against Ryzen 5 7000-series SKUs, given that the Ryzen 5 7600X already beats the current flagship i9-12900K in gaming performance, according to AMD.
The "Gracemont" E-core clusters on "Alder Lake" come with smaller 2 MB shared L2 caches, compared to 4 MB on "Raptor Lake," and so the performance of the E-cores will be lower, too. The i5-13400 and i5-13500 will have a tough time matching the multi-threaded performance of the 7600X despite the E-core muscle, owing to their lower clock-speeds on both the P-cores and E-cores.
This also casts doubt on whether there will even be a "13th Gen Core i3" series. There was no 11th Gen Core i3 "Rocket Lake," and Intel pushed the 10th Gen Core i3 "Comet Lake" through the market cycle of "Rocket Lake." as "Comet Lake" and "Rocket Lake" shared Socket LGA1200. It's likely that the Core i3 will continue being sold under the 12th Gen branding, as it's socket-compatible with both 600-series and 700-series chipset motherboards. These are still 4P+0E processors, and unless AMD comes up with 4-core/8-thread "Zen 4" parts, we don't see Intel tinker with the Core i3 series.
Source:
3DCenter.org
We had earlier thought that the 13th Gen non-K Core i5 will have a 6P+4E core-config, but still be based on "Raptor Lake" (i.e. "Raptor Cove" P-cores + "Gracemont" E-cores), in comparison to the i5-13600K/KF, which are confirmed "Raptor Lake" chips with 6P+8E configuration; but it turns out that Intel is basing the non-K 13th Gen Core i5 on the older "Alder Lake" microarchitecture. These chips will be 6P+4E (that's six "Golden Cove" P-cores + four "Gracemont" E-cores), which make them essentially identical to the i5-12600K, but without the unlocked multiplier, and a lower 65 W processor base power.
The "Gracemont" E-core clusters on "Alder Lake" come with smaller 2 MB shared L2 caches, compared to 4 MB on "Raptor Lake," and so the performance of the E-cores will be lower, too. The i5-13400 and i5-13500 will have a tough time matching the multi-threaded performance of the 7600X despite the E-core muscle, owing to their lower clock-speeds on both the P-cores and E-cores.
This also casts doubt on whether there will even be a "13th Gen Core i3" series. There was no 11th Gen Core i3 "Rocket Lake," and Intel pushed the 10th Gen Core i3 "Comet Lake" through the market cycle of "Rocket Lake." as "Comet Lake" and "Rocket Lake" shared Socket LGA1200. It's likely that the Core i3 will continue being sold under the 12th Gen branding, as it's socket-compatible with both 600-series and 700-series chipset motherboards. These are still 4P+0E processors, and unless AMD comes up with 4-core/8-thread "Zen 4" parts, we don't see Intel tinker with the Core i3 series.
46 Comments on Non-K 13th Gen Core i5 (such as i5-13400) Based on Older "Alder Lake" Architecture, Hints Intel Slide
Keep the cores if you want but give me the IPC.
Welp, not like AMD are competing in low end anyway, I suppose Intel are free to do this uncontested.
We will see a clear signal that they will use Raptor when they make public the specifications of the blocked processors. If it's Raptor, they will support "DDR5 up to 4800".
It's more than just about performance.
Ryzen still takes the majority of the top ten spots on Newegg/amazon US you'd think intel would really want to knock it out of the park with RL under 300 usd.
Edit: not to say it's impossible they'll still be RPL just that I'd completely understand why they might not be.
I'd expect MTL to be a top to bottom SKU reset and if everything works out for Intel with "tiles" that we shouldn't see reused cores in subsequent generations.
I take this news with a grain of salt.
Well Intel won't let us have the cake and eat it.
Yeah, no shit.I disagree, a 28 % uplift in R23 is nothing to sneeze at, and nothing like several pointless refreshes in the past.
In case anyone forgot what a refresh looks like:
What I am saying is that, if Intel was coming out with CPUs that where keeping the number of cores, but just switching from Alder to Raptor Lake architecture, the performance difference would have been small, considering the non K models have a TDP ceiling and Raptor's performance advantage comes also from higher frequencies, not juster better IPC.
And no, Intel doesn't have an obligation to increase the number of cores in all new Raptor models compared to the equivalent Alder Lake models.