Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" Desktop Processors Launched: +15% ST, +41% MT Uplift

[JustBenching]

I really don't think the price of the CPUs themselves is the hindrance here.

Consider, cheapest 7600X / 7700X 32GB DDR5-5600 build I can do at Microcenter:
Assumption : You've got a case, PSU, KB / mouse, Wifi Card/wired connection, OS license, CPU cooler, and drives

ASRock X670E PG Lightning AMD AM5 : $259 (note, this just dopped $10 in price)
Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-5600 C36 : $157
7600X : $299
$20 discount on MB/CPU combo : -$20
Total : $695

Sub 7700X @$399:
Total : $795

So, lets say AMD lopped off $50 on the CPU price. That would save you 7% on the 7600X build, and 6.2% on the 7700X build.

Also keep in mind, with the build above, you're not going to see the kind of numbers in the reviews with it.

You need faster memory, and a better cooler than a typical Zen 2/Zen 3 user has. Assuming this mobo can actually hit DDR5-6000, you need to spend about $90 more on RAM and $120 on an AIO that can handle the heat. That brings the totals up to $815 for 7600X build and $915 for 7700X build. This still might not be enough, this is the cheapest ASRock mobo available, no idea how good it is but ASRock doesn't have a good rep right now on low and midrange boards, and most of the cheap boards you're *lucky* if you can hit DDR5-6000 (at least on Alder Lake).

None of these boards seem to have Wifi either, whereas Z690 / Z790 chipsets have a built in AX211 wifi 6E controller - so many of the boards have this for just $10-$20 more. For example, the MSI Z690-A Pro Wifi DDR5 is $239 from MC (no markdown). The Same Z690-A Pro DDR5 without Wifi is only $179 (marked down from $209).

i.e. if you have to buy a Wifi card, that's another $50 or so.

At these prices, lowering the CPU cost $50 - helps - but not much.

To add insult to injury, a 12600k + Z690 pro A ddr4 + a patriot bdie kit goes for what, 500-550?

 

[Wirko]

I do not think that is possible. Surely the thread director and Windows can only allocate the entire application to specific cores, but not certain tasks within the application. That would require a really integrated ecosystem where the application would tell the system everything it is doing.

It's possible, why not? The basic unit that the Windows scheduler manages, now with the help of the Director, is a thread. Various threads within a process do very different things, some put a heavy load on the cores, some mostly wait for something to happen, and so on. The scheduler must be smart enough to put each one on the suitable core. At the same time, it must also observe priority and affinity settings - those can be set per process, not per thread, because a process often starts new threads and ends them. (Very roughly, application = process, and task = thread)

Further integration the way you suggested it - yeah, I have similar ideas too, don't know if it's on the way to become reality though. A piece of code could be tagged with some metadata, like hints to help the scheduler decide what kind of core is the best fit for it.

 

[wheresmycar]

ASRock X670E PG Lightning in the UK: £330 ​

I really don't think the price of the CPUs themselves is the hindrance here.

^absolutely...

i think you overlooked the following from my previous post:

"paired with an affordable B-series board"

"I'm sure many (like myself) are waiting to see how B-series boards hold up, possibly small but relevant further trim on DDR5 prices and no doubt some Intel-AMD price war action at the close of 2022"

"Even if the reviews saw the 7600X outpacing the 12600K by a clear mile... i still wouldn't splurge up for a super expensive platform upgrade"

I'm not looking to buy into pompously flaunting X/XE-series boards.... i'm waiting to see how B-series pans out (presumably a better fit for gamers)

Also I don't mind throwing a little extra cash at some high performance DDR5 memory. This is inescapable if going the DDR5 route, whether 13th Gen/Zen 4. For me its simple, wait towards the end of 2022 and re-configure all build possibilities and see where we are with best value configurations. If the AM5 socket isn't far ahead, i wouldn't mind forking out ~$50 (or more) to buy into the AM5 3 year+ support plan.

 

[RandallFlagg]

ASRock X670E PG Lightning in the UK: £330 ​

^absolutely...

i think you overlooked the following from my previous post:

"paired with an affordable B-series board"

"I'm sure many (like myself) are waiting to see how B-series boards hold up, possibly small but relevant further trim on DDR5 prices and no doubt some Intel-AMD price war action at the close of 2022"

"Even if the reviews saw the 7600X outpacing the 12600K by a clear mile... i still wouldn't splurge up for a super expensive platform upgrade"

I'm not looking to buy into pompously flaunting X/XE-series boards.... i'm waiting to see how B-series pans out (presumably a better fit for gamers)

Also I don't mind throwing a little extra cash at some high performance DDR5 memory. This is inescapable if going the DDR5 route, whether 13th Gen/Zen 4. For me its simple, wait towards the end of 2022 and re-configure all build possibilities and see where we are with best value configurations. If the AM5 socket isn't far ahead, i wouldn't mind forking out ~$50 (or more) to buy into the AM5 3 year+ support plan.

X670(E)xtreme in particular seems quite expensive. About $90+ more than equivalent Intel Z690, while the Z790 pre-order prices (MSRP) are about $10 more than the Z690s. I'm thinking the X670 will be more in line with the price of Z790. Pretty sure AMD and their board partners are just trying to milk the early adopters as hard as possible. There's just no way an X670E was 'easier' to make and get supplied than the other boards, quite the opposite. It's done on purpose.

 

[mahirzukic2]

Looks like the surge for the 7950X is over. It's fallen to #5, 7900X fell to #13 from 8, and 7700X to 29 from 20. 7600X went from 30-something to 46. BBuy is little better, with 7700X at #9. 7950X is showing sold out there, but is way down the list on best sellers (page 2) right next to a still available 7900X.

This has to be the slowest selling launch I've ever seen.

Yep, and it all has to do with the platform cost and not the Zen 4 being bad. On the contrary, it's very good, but also very expensive.
And you know what the people choose rather? Performance or cost? Cost every single time (most of the time ofc).

I really don't think the price of the CPUs themselves is the hindrance here.

Consider, cheapest 7600X / 7700X 32GB DDR5-5600 build I can do at Microcenter:
Assumption : You've got a case, PSU, KB / mouse, Wifi Card/wired connection, OS license, CPU cooler, and drives

ASRock X670E PG Lightning AMD AM5 : $259 (note, this just dopped $10 in price)
Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5-5600 C36 : $157
7600X : $299
$20 discount on MB/CPU combo : -$20
Total : $695

Sub 7700X @$399:
Total : $795

So, lets say AMD lopped off $50 on the CPU price. That would save you 7% on the 7600X build, and 6.2% on the 7700X build.

Also keep in mind, with the build above, you're not going to see the kind of numbers in the reviews with it.

You need faster memory, and a better cooler than a typical Zen 2/Zen 3 user has. Assuming this mobo can actually hit DDR5-6000, you need to spend about $90 more on RAM and $120 on an AIO that can handle the heat. That brings the totals up to $815 for 7600X build and $915 for 7700X build. This still might not be enough, this is the cheapest ASRock mobo available, no idea how good it is but ASRock doesn't have a good rep right now on low and midrange boards, and most of the cheap boards you're *lucky* if you can hit DDR5-6000 (at least on Alder Lake).

None of these boards seem to have Wifi either, whereas Z690 / Z790 chipsets have a built in AX211 wifi 6E controller - so many of the boards have this for just $10-$20 more. For example, the MSI Z690-A Pro Wifi DDR5 is $239 from MC (no markdown). The Same Z690-A Pro DDR5 without Wifi is only $179 (marked down from $209).

i.e. if you have to buy a Wifi card, that's another $50 or so.

At these prices, lowering the CPU cost $50 - helps - but not much.

I totally agree with everything you said. And I think that's the problem, Zen 4 processors are not (necessarily) expensive, the whole platform around it is. And that's the real problem.
We need to have cheapest motherboard at 100 or 150$, not 260 or 320 euros in EU (this is the same MB as you listed here). We need RAM at 50 - 70% of its current cost. If you had this, your total cost would drop 50 - 80 for RAM and 110 - 160 for MB for a total of 200 on average. Which would be 4 times the savings compared to the CPU being dropped 50$, so 28% on the 7600X build, and 25% on the 7700X build.
This is BIG.

And this is the Achilles heel of the Zen 4 ecosystem. Platform cost.

 

[Valantar]

Maybe it works in the ideal scenario when everything is still new. Try it with an air cooler some months later with dust bunnies and old thermal paste.
It will either begin to throttle or will cause system instabilities - either dead chip or system shut downs.

As someone who has seen a Threadripper system with a first generation Enermax LiqTech TR4 AIO cooler, I know for a fact just how well AMD's recent CPUs handle heat. That system chugged along nicely - at ~600MHz on all cores, 95°C thermals, with zero water circulation at all. Actually had to use it like that for a day or two doing backups and other stuff before the cooler could be replaced. No instability, no issues beyond it being stupidly hot and system responsiveness being understandably quite low.

Point being: what you're describing doesn't seem realistic. Yes, the worse the cooling, the lower the clocks. Keeping your system reasonably clean is a must - but this is nothing new. This happened on Ryzen 5000 if your thermals exceeded 75°C, so the threshold was lower there, after all. As for "old thermal paste" - I've literally never seen a system I've built suffer thermally from old paste. Buy decent stuff, it'll last for years and years.

Will you see a few hundred MHz lower clocks if you don't clean your system more than, say, once a year? Sure. But that's true for essentially every system, unless your cooling is massively overkill to begin with.

 

[Wirko]

As someone who has seen a Threadripper system with a first generation Enermax LiqTech TR4 AIO cooler, I know for a fact just how well AMD's recent CPUs handle heat. That system chugged along nicely - at ~600MHz on all cores, 95°C thermals, with zero water circulation at all. Actually had to use it like that for a day or two doing backups and other stuff before the cooler could be replaced. No instability, no issues beyond it being stupidly hot and system responsiveness being understandably quite low.

Hah, interesting. Did you check the voltages in that state, to see if the CPU undervolts itself in addition to slowing down the clock?

 

[Valantar]

Hah, interesting. Did you check the voltages in that state, to see if the CPU undervolts itself in addition to slowing down the clock?

Can't remember if I did, but I doubt it. No doubt the voltage at clock speeds that low is already very low from the stock V/F curve though. It's been a while since that incident, so my memory of it isn't all that clear.

 

[OkieDan]

We will need to have thermometer on the cooler itself to relay on instead the cpu or use a nonexistent method than AMD hasn't provided yet.

I use water temps from AIO for fan curves, it's much better than cpu temps as it prevents rpm fluctuations for short duration cpu spikes.

 

[Dirt Chip]

I use water temps from AIO for fan curves, it's much better than cpu temps as it prevents rpm fluctuations for short duration cpu spikes.

What is the equivalent at fan cooling?

 

[mahirzukic2]

What is the equivalent at fan cooling?

I don't think there is.

 

[Valantar]

What is the equivalent at fan cooling?

CPU power + a decent amount of hysteresis might do the job. Though I don't think many motherboards allow you to control fans through CPU power draw - you'd need something like an Aquacomputer Quadro for that.

 

[OkieDan]

What is the equivalent at fan cooling?

You're probably stuck with using "Fan Control" or whatever 3rd party software I believe someone else mentioned in this thread, which allows you to control how fast fan speed can ramp up per second.

 

[Dirt Chip]

CPU power + a decent amount of hysteresis might do the job. Though I don't think many motherboards allow you to control fans through CPU power draw - you'd need something like an Aquacomputer Quadro for that.

So that's a deal breaker for me with zen4.
Sad.

You're probably stuck with using "Fan Control" or whatever 3rd party software I believe someone else mentioned in this thread, which allows you to control how fast fan speed can ramp up per second.

The thing is, I wouldn't take the "risk" with a new platform (and 12 years from my last upgrade) that might not allowe me to fine tune the heat to noise (fan speed). A very basic things I think.

 

[OkieDan]

So that's a deal breaker for me with zen4.
Sad.


The thing is, I wouldn't take the "risk" with a new platform (and 12 years from my last upgrade) that might not allowe me to fine tune the heat to noise (fan speed). A very basic things I think.

People take risks on a new intel platform ever other generation. If you don't want to upgrade to an AIO that can set fan curve based on temps though then I guess you're kinda stuck with loud fans if you want best performance or lower performance if you want to dial in a specific RPM to set a particular noise level or stick with intel only until if/when they go the same route as AMD.

I imagine most people on air coolers with Ryzen 7000 will set their fan curves to not ramp up until a much higher temp than in the past and simply set a max RPM they find tolerable for 90+ C. Obviously not every air cooler user will find that acceptable.

 

[Dirt Chip]

People take risks on a new intel platform ever other generation. If you don't want to upgrade to an AIO that can set fan curve based on temps though then I guess you're kinda stuck with loud fans if you want best performance or lower performance if you want to dial in a specific RPM to set a particular noise level or stick with intel only until if/when they go the same route as AMD.

I imagine most people on air coolers with Ryzen 7000 will set their fan curves to not ramp up until a much higher temp than in the past and simply set a max RPM they find tolerable for 90+ C. Obviously not every air cooler user will find that acceptable.

I will wait and see how the 13900\k behave before I decide.

Any rumers if and when 7900\7950 non X will arrive?

 

[OkieDan]

I will wait and see how the 13900\k behave before I decide.

Any rumers if and when 7900\7950 non X will arrive?

Good idea to wait for 13th gen reviews. I haven't seen anything about non X 7000 series yet.

You might request CPU package power monitoring to be added if not already supported in SpeedFan and "Fan Control" software. There could be a motherboard out there that can control fan speed off package power via bios or their software suite. I could see this feature being something more and more people who use air cooling will want with CPUs that hit thermal limits before hitting power limits.

Until the options exist I think a lot of people on air cooling will simply choose a noise level they're ok with and set their final fan curve to hit that speed at 90c or so. It's not like air coolers don't already ramp up at the slightest duration of high demand and ryzen 7000 isn't going to be 95c at idle or watching videos.

More advanced users may undervolt and set power limits like the videos linked in this post.

 

[Chrispy_]

The interesting thing here is that RPL architecture offers very small improvements over Alder Lake:

Of the 15% single-threaded performance, most of that is just a frequency bump from insane 250W PL2 madness on the refreshed process node. 5% actual IPC is nice to have as a bonus but it means that RPL probably isn't going to be significantly better than ADL outside of the flagship i9s and perhaps the i7-13700K.

More pedestrian non-K models like the i5-13400 aren't going to be running at almost 6GHz. Intel will of course artificially cap the turbo frequencies on those to avoid cannibalising ADL i7 inventory as they've done timeless counts in the past.

 

[THU31]

I think we always knew Raptor Lake was basically kind of a refresh. All the leaks were mostly mentioning more E-cores and higher clocks. What we did not know is that clock-for-clock efficiency is supposed to be much better.

Zen 4 improvements mostly come from the same thing - clocks and cache. And that is a completely new platform. Alder Lake was so much more impressive (and appealing) a year ago than Zen 4 is now. But this might change with 3D cache and cheaper boards.

Compared to Kaby Lake, Comet Lake and Rocket Lake, this is so much better in every way.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Any thoughts on these comparisons? Prices are from MC on 12th gen, newegg preorder on 13th.

12600K $250 vs <>
12700K $350 vs 13600K $329
12900K $499 vs 13700K $459

I'm not sure I'm seeing the value on 13th gen vs current discounted 12th gen parts.

I don't see performance uplift being significant for 13600K outside of multi-threaded apps, heavy MT I don't care about as long as it is as fast as my current 10850K - which a 12600K is about equal.

 

[Why_Me]

Any thoughts on these comparisons? Prices are from MC on 12th gen, newegg preorder on 13th.

12600K $250 vs <>
12700K $350 vs 13600K $329
12900K $499 vs 13700K $459

I'm not sure I'm seeing the value on 13th gen vs current discounted 12th gen parts.

I don't see performance uplift being significant for 13600K outside of multi-threaded apps, heavy MT I don't care about as long as it is as fast as my current 10850K - which a 12600K is about equal.

I just hope Raptor Lake isn't Rocket Lake 2.0

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...-30m-cache-up-to-5-40-ghz/specifications.html
Maximum Turbo Power: 253W

 

[RandallFlagg]

I just hope Raptor Lake isn't Rocket Lake 2.0

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...-30m-cache-up-to-5-40-ghz/specifications.html
Maximum Turbo Power: 253W

I'm not worried about that 253W or power in general. Mostly because in order to get there, you need to do an all-core workload, and need to do it for a long time to become an issue.

I'm not even sure what those numbers are supposed to mean, coming from a 10850K. I have my 28 second average set to 180W and my short power max (7s usually) at 235W while my 240 AIO can handle sustained 220W(ish). In real life though, I never hit those numbers.

I've run HWInfo64 all day at different points since I've owned this 10850K and I know, without doing something to intentionally stress my CPU like a benchmark, typical for me is ~30-35W average, ~150W peak package power. Heck I rarely even hit 150W peak, plenty of times I've seen it more like 100W peak, and the peaks are almost always caused by decompress and patch from steam or Windows update.

Maybe someone who is doing a lot of ray-tracing \ rendering should pay attention, but that's not me.

 

[JustBenching]

I'm not worried about that 253W or power in general. Mostly because in order to get there, you need to do an all-core workload, and need to do it for a long time to become an issue.

I'm not even sure what those numbers are supposed to mean, coming from a 10850K. I have my 28 second average set to 180W and my short power max (7s usually) at 235W while my 240 AIO can handle sustained 220W(ish). In real life though, I never hit those numbers.

I've run HWInfo64 all day at different points since I've owned this 10850K and I know, without doing something to intentionally stress my CPU like a benchmark, typical for me is ~30-35W average, ~150W peak package power. Heck I rarely even hit 150W peak, plenty of times I've seen it more like 100W peak, and the peaks are almost always caused by decompress and patch from steam or Windows update.

Maybe someone who is doing a lot of ray-tracing \ rendering should pay attention, but that's not me.

I went from a 10900k to a 12900k.

First of all, major difference is the idle wattage. Holy cow the 12900k drops down to 2 watts. 10900k for me (oced) was always sitting at like 20w+.

The truth is, at the same wattage, the 12900k is a little bit harder to cool, but not by much. It's still a huge die, and the bigger the die - the easier it is cooled.

If you are doing a lot of rendering / ray - tracing, none of that matters, cause no one is going to use any CPU at 250w to do that. You gain 3 to 5% performance going from 150w to 250w, and the same applies to AMD's zen 4. You power limit them and go on with your workloads. It's absurd - and I hope it stops now - listening to the amd crowd arguing about cinebench numbers and wattage, as if anyone in theier right mind will be rendering at 5ghz all core clockspeeds at 250w. It's just borderline silly.

 

[DarthJedi]

E-core problems are just a myth nowadays. I've seen zero issues with that.
Of course, problems persist for the users of Windows 10, because hybrid CPUs need Windows 11 due to kernel changes (core scheduler/thread manager) fit for them.

 

[RandallFlagg]

I went from a 10900k to a 12900k.

First of all, major difference is the idle wattage. Holy cow the 12900k drops down to 2 watts. 10900k for me (oced) was always sitting at like 20w+.

The truth is, at the same wattage, the 12900k is a little bit harder to cool, but not by much. It's still a huge die, and the bigger the die - the easier it is cooled.

If you are doing a lot of rendering / ray - tracing, none of that matters, cause no one is going to use any CPU at 250w to do that. You gain 3 to 5% performance going from 150w to 250w, and the same applies to AMD's zen 4. You power limit them and go on with your workloads. It's absurd - and I hope it stops now - listening to the amd crowd arguing about cinebench numbers and wattage, as if anyone in theier right mind will be rendering at 5ghz all core clockspeeds at 250w. It's just borderline silly.

I can't agree more with this. People making those arguments are mostly either ignorant, or just unabashed Intel haters whether they are\were consciously aware of it or not.

I started HW Info yesterday when I posted that and my peak power since has been 105W and my average is 33W. And yes I played a game, Mordor Shadows of War, last night. Otherwise it's email, RDP, web, MS Teams, and a few other normal \ light loads.

Factually speaking, I'm likely using far less energy than I would with a Zen 3 Ryzen simply because their platform idle power draw is typically much higher. And I'm running Windows max performance setting with a 5Ghz all core and power limits raised from stock.

That's real life with an very mild OC 10850K. Current power, min power, max power, average power for the last 20 hours or so.

Clock speeds :