The Chinese tech press is abuzz with slides allegedly from Intel's pre-launch press-deck for the Core Ultra 2-series "Arrow Lake-S." The most sensational of these are Intel's first-party performance claims for the top Core Ultra 9 285K model. There's good news and bad news. Good news first—Intel claims to have made a big leap in energy efficiency with "Arrow Lake," and the 285K should offer gaming performance comparable to the current Core i9-14900K at around 80 W lower power draw for the processor. But then there in lies the bad news—despite claimed IPC gains for the "Lion Cove" P-core, and rumored clock speeds being on par with the "Raptor Cove" P-cores on the i9-14900K, the 285K is barely any faster than its predecessor in absolute terms.

In its first party testing, when averaged across 12 game tests, which we used Google optical translation to make out the titles of, Intel used performance numbers of the i9-14900K as the mean. The 285K beats the i9-14900K in only four games—Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, Age of Mythology Retold, Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, and F1 23. It's on-par with the i9-14900K in Red Dead Redemption 2, Total War: Pharaoh, Metro Exodus, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Rainbow Six Siege. It's slower than the i9-14900K in Far Cry 6, FF XIV, F1 24, Red Dead Redemption 2. Averaged across this bench, the Core Ultra 9 285K ends up roughly on par with the Core i9-14900K in gaming. Intel also compared the 285K to AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X, and interestingly, even the Ryzen 9 7950X3D.

Intel's future processor microarchitectures and their constituent CPU cores have hit the rumor-mill. The "Lion Cove" P-core is now current-gen, as products based on the Core Ultra 200V "Lunar Lake" processor, which implements it, have been announced. "Lion Cove" will also be the main workhorse of "Arrow Lake," and Intel's Xeon 7 P-core server processors. The core ditches Hyper-Threading, but introduces a double-digit percent IPC gain over "Raptor Cove." The thunder of "Lion Cove" was stolen by the new "Skymont" E-core during the "Lunar Lake" technical presentations, as it offers nearly the same IPC as "Raptor Cove," at much lower power, and is held back by a lack of HTT and its inability to operate at high clock speeds that "Raptor Cove" can. We predict "Skymont" is shaking things up at Intel, and will have an impact on the way the company's future CPU cores are designed—to place greater emphasis on power and die-area to achieve IPC growth targets with each generation.

The successor to "Lion Cove" is codenamed "Royal Core." This would be the first time in over five years (since "Sunny Cove") that Intel's P-core codename doesn't use "Cove," signaling a departure from that naming scheme. The first iteration of "Royal Core" will power Intel's "Nova Lake" microarchitecture that succeeds "Lunar Lake." A slightly updated version of this core, codenamed "Royal Core 1.1," will power the "Beast Lake" microarchitecture, which likely falls in the lineage of "Arrow Lake," if not being a direct successor to it. An alleged Intel employee's work project description revealed "Cobra Core," a CPU core that succeeds "Royal Core," although the codename of its parent microarchitecture hasn't been revealed. Microarchitectures such as "Beast Lake," and its successor implementing "Cobra Core" are slated for much later into the decade, and we don't expect them to see the light of the day till at least 2026-27, if not later.

Intel on Monday (08/05) provided additional information on its recently announced 2-year worldwide warranty extension for select models within its 13th Gen and 14th Gen Core desktop processors based on the "Raptor Lake" silicon. It mentioned that those who made unsuccessful RMA claims for their processors can reach out to Intel Customer Support for further assistance and remediation. This should prove especially useful for all those that tried to make RMA claims for their processors when these instability issues first came to light, but were met with RMA claim rejections.

Intel also listed out the exact processor model numbers affected by the instability issues, which are eligible not just for the warranty extensions, but also RMA claim assistance. These include every processor model within the 13th- and 14th Gen that are based on the larger "Raptor Lake" or "Raptor Lake Refresh" silicon, which has eight "Raptor Cove" CPU cores, four "Gracemont" E-core clusters, 2 MB of L2 cache per P-core, and 4 MB of L2 cache per E-core cluster. Several processor models within the 13th and 14th Gen are based on the older "Alder Lake" silicon with 1.25 MB of L2 cache per P-core, and 2 MB of L2 cache per E-core cluster. These chips are unaffected by the issue, as are entry-level processors based on the H0 die that only has up to six P-cores, and no E-core clusters.

A CPU-Z screenshot of an alleged Intel Core Ultra 9 285K "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processor engineering sample is doing rounds on social media, thanks to wxnod. CPU-Z identifies the chip with an Intel Core Ultra case badge with the deep shade of blue associated with the Core Ultra 9 brand extension, which hints at this being the top Core Ultra 9 285K processor model, we know it's the "K" or "KF" SKU looking at its processor base power reading of 125 W. The chip is built in the upcoming Intel Socket LGA1851. CPU-Z displays the process node as 7 nm, which corresponds with the Intel 4 foundry node.

Intel is using the same Intel 4 foundry node for "Arrow Lake-S" as the compute tile of its "Meteor Lake" processor. Intel 4 offers power efficiency and performance comparable to 4 nm nodes from TSMC, although it is physically a 7 nm node. Likewise, the Intel 3 node is physically 5 nm. If you recall, the main logic tile of "Lunar Lake" is being built on the TSMC N3P (3 nm) node. This means that Intel is really gunning for performance/Watt with "Lunar Lake," to get as close to the Apple M3 Pro as possible.

Intel introduced a line of 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" Socket LGA1700 processors for the embedded systems market. A highlight of these chips is that they come with their "Gracemont" E-core clusters disabled, and are pure P-core chips. It's interesting that Intel targets these chips for the embedded systems segment, but isn't building these in the non-socketed BGA packages carried over from its mobile platforms. Intel is addressing nearly all performance market-segments with these chips, including the very top. The Core i9-14901KE processor leading the pack is an 8-core/16-thread chip with eight "Raptor Cove" cores sharing the full 36 MB L3 cache available on the "Raptor Lake-S" die, a maximum boost frequency of 5.80 GHz, base frequency of 3.80 GHz, and processor base power of 125 W. The chip features an iGPU. The "K" in KE denotes that the chip supports overclocking.

Next up, is the Core i9-14901E, the 65 W sibling of this chip, which lacks an unlocked multiplier, and boosts up to 5.60 GHz, with a 2.80 GHz base frequency. Things get interesting with the Core i7-14701E, because the differentiator between the Core i9 and Core i7 SKUs is E-core count, and here we see the i7-14701 retaining the same 8-core/16-thread pure P-core configuration as the Core i9 chips, but with a touch lower frequencies of 5.40 GHz maximum boost, and 2.60 GHz base.

In a surprising development, Intel plans to extend the longevity of its Socket LGA1700 platform even as the newer LGA1851 platform led by the Core Ultra 200 "Arrow Lake" remains on track for a late-Q3/early-Q4 2024 debut. This, according to a sensational leak by Jaykihn. It plans to do this with a brand-new silicon for LGA1700, codenamed "Bartlett." This should particularly interest gamers for what's on offer. Imagine the "Raptor Lake-S" die, but with four additional P-cores replacing the four E-core clusters, making a 12-core pure P-core processor—that's "Bartlett." At this point we're not sure which P-core is in use—whether it's the current "Raptor Cove," or whether an attempt will be made by Intel to backport a variant of "Lion Cove" to LGA1700.

This wouldn't be the first pure P-core client processor from Intel after its pivot to heterogeneous multicore—the "Alder Lake" H0 die has six "Golden Cove" P-cores, and lacks any E-core clusters. Intel is planning to give launch an entire new "generation" of processor SKUs for LGA1700 which use the newer client processor nomenclature by Intel, which is Core 200-series, but without the "Ultra" brand extension. There will be SKUs in the Core 3, Core 5, Core 7, and Core 9 brand extensions. Some of these will be Hybrid, and based on the rehashed "Raptor Lake-S" 8P+16E silicon, and some "Alder Lake-S" 8P+8E; but "Bartlett" will be distinctly branded within the series, probably using a letter next to the numerical portion of the processor model number. There will not be any Core 3 series chips based on "Bartlett," but Core 5, Core 7, and Core 9.

Intel is preparing a complete refresh of its desktop platform this year, with the introduction of the Core Ultra 200 series processors based on the "Arrow Lake" microarchitecture. The company skipped a desktop processor based on "Meteor Lake," probably because it didn't meet the desired multithreaded performance targets for Intel as it maxed out at 6P+8E+2LP, forcing Intel to come up with the 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" generation to see it through 2H-2023 and at least three quarters of 2024. The company, in all likelihood, will launch the new "Arrow Lake-S" Core Ultra 200 series toward late-Q3 or early-Q4 2024 (September-October). The first wave will include the overclocker-friendly K- and KF SKUs, alongside motherboards based on the top Intel Z890 chipset. 2025 will see the series ramp to more affordable processor models, and mainstream chipsets, such as the B860. These processors require a new motherboard, as Intel is introducing the new Socket LGA1851 with them.

Core configurations of the "Arrow Lake-S" chip surfaced on the web thanks to Jaykihn, a reliable source with Intel leaks. In its maximum configuration, the chip is confirmed to feature 8 P-cores, and 16 E-cores. There are no low-power island E-cores. Each of the 8 P-cores is a "Lion Cove" featuring 3 MB of dedicated L2 cache; while each the E-cores are "Skymont," arranged in 4-core modules that share 4 MB L2 caches among them. Intel claims that the "Lion Cove" P-core offers a 14% IPC increase over the "Redwood Cove" P-core powering "Meteor Lake," which in turn had either equal or a 1% IPC regression compared to "Raptor Cove." This would put "Lion Cove" at a 13-14% IPC advantage over the "Raptor Cove" cores. It's important to note here, that the "Lion Cove" P-cores lack HyperThreading, so Intel will be banking heavily on the "Skymont" E-cores to shore up generational multithreaded performance increase. "Skymont" was a show-stopper at Intel's Computex event, with a nearly 50% IPC gain over previous generations of Intel E-cores, which puts it at par with the "Raptor Cove" cores in single-thread performance.

An unnamed Intel Core Ultra "Arrow Lake-S" desktop processor engineering sample (ES) made it to the hands of someone willing to post its CPU-Z Bench screenshot. The processor allegedly scores a whopping 1143.2 points in the CPU-Bench single-thread benchmark; and 12922.4 points in the multithreaded benchmark. When compared with the internal Intel Core i9-13900K reference scores of CPU-Z, the single-thread benchmark score is a staggering 26.71% increase over that of the i9-13900K (902 points); while the multithreaded score is 22% lower.

Since we don't know which processor model this "Arrow Lake-S" ES is, we have no way of telling if it is the top SKU with its rumored 8P+16E core configuration, or a mid-tier Core i5 SKU with the expected 6P+8E configuration. The single-threaded test only loads one P-core, and here the IPC of one of the chip's "Lion Cove" P-cores is able to trounce one of the "Raptor Cove" P-cores of the i9-13900K reference score. You also have to understand that the Hyper-Threading plays no role in this thread. Where it could play a role is the multithreaded test. "Lion Cove" lacks HTT support unlike "Raptor Cove," and the i9-13900K is a 24-core/32-thread processor. It's important to note here, that "Arrow Lake" doesn't just have up to 8 "Lion Cove" P-cores, but also up to 16 "Skymont" E-cores that Intel claims to have achieved a massive IPC gain over its predecessor, bringing its IPC in the league of past-generation P-cores such as the "Raptor Cove" or "Golden Cove."

AMD's upcoming Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processors based on the "Zen 5" microarchitecture won't beat the Ryzen 7000X3D series at gaming workloads, said Donny Woligroski, the company's senior technical marketing manager, in an interview with Tom's Hardware. The new "Zen 5" chips, such as the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X, will come close to the gaming performance of the 7800X3D and 7950X3D, but won't quite beat it. The new processors, however, will offer significant generational performance uplifts in productivity workloads, particularly multithreaded workloads that use vector extensions such as VNNI and AVX512. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D remains the fastest gaming desktop processor you can buy, it edges out even Intel's Core i9-14900KS, in our testing.

Given this, we expect the gaming performance of processors like the Ryzen 7 9700X and Ryzen 9 9950X to end up closer to those of the Intel Core i9-13900K or i9-14900K. Gamers with a 7000X3D series chip or even a 14th Gen Core i7 or Core i9 chip don't have much to look forward to. AMD confirmed that it's already working on a Ryzen 9000X3D series—that's "Zen 5" with 3D V-cache technology, and is sounds confident of holding on to the title of having the fastest gaming processors. This doesn't seem implausible.

An AMD Ryzen 9000 "Granite Ridge" desktop processor engineering sample with a maximum boost frequency of 5.80 GHz was found to offer an astonishing 19% higher single-threaded performance increase over an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. "Granite Ridge" is codename for the Socket AM5 desktop processor family that implements the new "Zen 5" CPU microarchitecture. The unnamed "Granite Ridge" processor comes with an OPN code of 100-0000001290. Its CPU core count is irrelevant, as the single-threaded performance is in question here. The processor boosts up to 5.80 GHz, which means the core handling the single-threaded benchmark workload is achieving this speed. This speed is 100 MHz higher than the 5.70 GHz that the Ryzen 9 7950X processor based on the "Zen 4" architecture, boosts up to.

The single-threaded benchmark in question is the CPU-Z Bench. The mostly blurred out CPU-Z screenshot that reveals the OPN also mentions a processor TDP of 170 W, which means this engineering sample chip is either 12-core or 16-core. The chip posts a CPU-Z Bench single-thread score of 910 points, which matches that of the Intel Core i9-14900K with its 908 points. You've to understand that the i9-14900K boosts one of its P-cores to 6.00 GHz, to yield the 908 points that's part CPU-Z's reference scores. So straight off the bat, we see that "Zen 5" has a higher IPC than the "Raptor Cove" P-core powering the i9-14900K. Its gaming performance might end up higher than the Ryzen 7000 X3D family.Many Thanks to TumbleGeorge for the tip.

Intel today launched the Core i9-14900KS Special Edition desktop processor, which forms the company's new flagship product in the desktop segment. The Core i9-14900KS is based on the same "Raptor Lake Refresh" silicon as the i9-14900K, and offers an 8P+16E core configuration. What's new is that Intel has increased clock speeds for both the P-cores and E-cores. The P-cores now boost up to 6.20 GHz, a 200 MHz increase over those of the i9-14900K; while the E-cores boost up to 4.50 GHz, a 100 MHz increase. But these tiny speed bumps aren't what make the i9-14900KS special. It's the 320 W Extreme Power Delivery Profile, something the regular i9-14900K lacks. On select Intel Z790 and Z690 motherboards with two 8-pin EPS power connectors, the processor is able to draw large amounts of power to hold onto its high boost frequencies. Intel also made the i9-14900KS from the highest bins of the "Raptor Lake Refresh" silicon.

The Core i9-14900KS comes with a 3.20 GHz base frequency for the P-cores. Each of the 8 "Raptor Cove" P-cores comes with 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache. The 16 "Gracemont" E-cores are arranged in four E-core clusters. Each cluster shares a 4 MB L2 cache among its four cores. The 8 P-cores and 4 E-core clusters share a 36 MB L3 cache. The processor comes with a base power value of 150 W—25 W higher than the 125 W of the i9-14900K. Its maximum turbo power is still 253 W, and is engaged on platforms capable of Intel Performance Power Delivery Profile. It's only with some of the more premium motherboards that the 320 W Extreme Power Delivery Profile is engaged. The Core i9-14900KS is a Special Edition SKU, meaning that it may not be available in all the markets where the i9-14900K sells. Intel is pricing this chip at $690, a $100 premium over the i9-14900K, though interestingly, $50 cheaper than what its predecessor, the i9-13900KS, launched at.

Be sure to check out the TechPowerUp Review of the Core i9-14900KS.The launch press-deck by Intel, along with its first-party performance claims, follows.

China's homegrown Loongson 3A6000 CPU shows promise but still needs to catch up AMD and Intel's latest offerings in real-world performance. According to benchmarks by Chinese tech reviewer Geekerwan, the 3A6000 has instructions per clock (IPC) on par with AMD's Zen 4 architecture and Intel's Raptor Lake. Using the SPEC CPU 2017 processor benchmark, Geekerwan has clocked all the CPUs at 2.5 GHs to compare the raw benchmark results to Zen 4 and Intel's Raptor Lake (Raptor Cove) processors. As a result, the Loongson 3A6000 seemingly matches the latest designs by AMD and Intel in integer results, with integer IPC measured at 4.8, while Zen 4 and Raptor Cove have 5.0 and 4.9, respectively. The floating point performance is still lagging behind a lot, though. This demonstrates that Loongson's CPU design can catching up to global leaders, but still needs further development, especially for floating point arithmetic.

However, the 3A6000 is held back by low clock speeds and limited core counts. With a maximum boost speed of just 2.5 GHz across four CPU cores, the 3A6000 cannot compete with flagship chips like AMD's 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X running at 5.7 GHz. While the 3A6000's IPC is impressive, its raw computing power is a fraction of that of leading x86 CPUs. Loongson must improve manufacturing process technology to increase clock speeds, core counts, and cache size. The 3A6000's strengths highlight Loongson's ambitions: an in-house LoongArch ISA design fabricated on 12 nm achieves competitive IPC to state-of-the-art x86 chips built on more advanced TSMC 5 nm and Intel 7 nm nodes. This shows the potential behind Loongson's engineering. Reports suggest that next-generation Loongson 3A7000 CPUs will use SMIC 7 nm, allowing higher clocks and more cores to better harness the architecture's potential. So, we expect the next generation to set a bar for China's homegrown CPU performance.

A conglomerate of Japanese hardware outlets has tested Intel's latest batch of Raptor Lake Refresh desktop processors—their findings arrived in the form of a YouTube video (viewable below). The lowly Intel 300 CPU was sampled as part of PAD's lab tests—this 14th generation model serves as a natural successor to Team Blue's Pentium Gold G7400 processor. Pentium and Celeron brands were retired in the "essential product space" in 2022, along with the introduction of a replacement: simple "Intel Processor" in a light blue color scheme.

Expectations are not set very high for a two-core, 4-thread CPU in modern times—some news outlets believe that this an Alder Lake part (AKA a frequency tweaked Pentium Gold G7400), despite being launched alongside many Raptor Lake Refresh parts. The Intel 300 sports two Raptor Cove P-cores with hyper-threading capabilities—base performance is set at 3.9 GHz, with no provisions for boosting above that figure. The rest of its basic specs consist of a 46 W TDP and 6 MB of L3 cache (3 MB on each core). Team Blue's Core i3-14100 quad core CPU sits just above the 300 in the latest batch of 14th Gen—naturally, the former pulls ahead of the latter in synthetic benchmarks. PC Watch and Co. tests present a maximum 55% multi-core performance gap between the two lower end options, although the single-threaded difference was measured 13% (in Cinebench).

Thanks to the leaked slides obtained by @InstLatX64, we have more details and some performance estimates about Intel's upcoming 5th Generation Xeon "Emerald Rapids" CPUs, boasting a significant performance leap over its predecessors. Leading the Emerald Rapids family is the top-end SKU, the Xeon 8592+, which features 64 cores and 128 threads, backed by a massive 480 MB L3 cache pool. The upcoming lineup shifts from a 4-tile to a 2-tile design to minimize latency and improve performance. The design utilizes the P-Core architecture under the Raptor Cove ISA and promises up to 40% faster performance than the current 4th Generation "Sapphire Rapids" CPUs in AI applications utilizing Intel AMX engine. Each chiplet has 35 cores, three of which are disabled, and each tile has two DDR5-5600 MT/s memory controllers, which operate two memory channels each and translating that into eight-channel design. There are three PCIe controllers per die, making it six in total.

Newer protocols and AI accelerators also back the upcoming lineup. Now, the Emerald Rapids family supports the Compute Express Link (CXL) Types 1/2/3 in addition to up to 80 PCIe Gen 5 lanes and enhanced Intel Ultra Path Interconnect (UPI). There are four UPI controllers spread over two dies. Moreover, features like the four on-die Intel Accelerator Engines, optimized power mode, and up to 17% improvement in general-purpose workloads make it seem like a big step up from the current generation. Much of this technology is found on the existing Sapphire Rapids SKUs, with the new generation enhancing the AI processing capability further. You can see the die configuration below. The 5th Generation Emerald Rapids designs are supposed to be official on December 14th, just a few days away.

With the reality of high performance Arm processors from Apple and Qualcomm threatening Intel's market share in the client computing space, Intel is working on learner more PCB-efficient client SoCs that can take the fight to them, while holding onto the foundations of x86. The first such form-factor of processors are dubbed -MX. These are essentially -U segment processors with memory on package, to minimize PCB footprint. Intel has fully integrated the PCH into the processor chip with "Meteor Lake," with PCH functions scattered across the SoC and I/O tiles of the processor. An SoC package with dimensions similar to those of -UP4 packages meant for ultrabooks, can now cram main memory, so the PCBs of next-generation notebooks can be further compacted.

Intel had recently shown Meteor Lake-MX packages to the press as a packaging technology demonstration in its Arizona facility. It's unclear whether this could release as actual products, but in a leaked company presentation, confirmed that its first commercial outing will be with Lunar Lake-MX. The current "Alder Lake-UP4" package measures 19 mm x 28.5 mm, and is a classic multi-chip module that combines a monolithic "Alder Lake" SoC die with a PCH die. The "Meteor Lake-UP4" package measures 19 mm x 23 mm, and is a chiplet-based processor, with a Foveros base tile that holds the Compute (CPU cores), Graphics (iGPU), SoC and I/O (platform core-logic) tiles. The "Lunar Lake-MX" package is slightly larger than its -UP4 predecessors, measuring 27 mm x 27.5 mm, but completely frees up space on the PCB for memory.

The upcoming Core i7-14700K "Raptor Lake Refresh" processor has a core configuration of 8P+12E. That's 8 "Raptor Cove" performance cores, and 12 "Gracemont" efficiency cores spread across 3 E-core clusters. Compared to the i7-13700K, which has been carved out of the "Raptor Lake-S" silicon by disabling 2 out of the 4 available E-core clusters and reducing the L3 cache size to 30 MB from the 36 MB present; the i7-14700K gets an additional E-core cluster, and increases the shared L3 cache size to 33 MB, besides dialing up the clock speeds on both the P-cores and E-cores in comparison to the i7-13700K.

The processor likely has a P-core base frequency of 3.70 GHz, with a 5.50 GHz P-core maximum boost. In comparison, the i7-13700K tops out at 5.40 GHz P-core boost. An alleged i7-14700K engineering sample in the wild has been put through Cinebench R23, where it scores 2192 points in the single-threaded test, and 36296 points in the multi-threaded test. The processor also scored 14988.5 points in the CPU-Z Bench multi-threaded test. Intel is expected to release its 14th Gen Core "Raptor Lake Refresh" desktop processors some time in October 2023.

Finding itself embattled with AMD's EPYC "Genoa" processors, Intel is giving its 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" processor a rather quick succession in the form of the Xeon Scalable "Emerald Rapids," bound for Q4-2023 (about 8-10 months in). The new processor shares the same LGA4677 platform and infrastructure, and much of the same I/O, but brings about two key design changes that should help Intel shore up per-core performance, making it competitive to EPYC "Zen 4" processors with higher core-counts. SemiAnalysis compiled a nice overview of the changes, the two broadest points of it being—1. Intel is peddling back on the chiplet approach to high core-count CPUs, and 2., that it wants to give the memory sub-system and inter-core performance a massive performance boost using larger on-die caches.

The "Emerald Rapids" processor has just two large dies in its extreme core-count (XCC) avatar, compared to "Sapphire Rapids," which can have up to four of these. There are just three EMIB dies interconnecting these two, compared to "Sapphire Rapids," which needs as many as 10 of these to ensure direct paths among the four dies. The CPU core count itself doesn't see a notable increase. Each of the two dies on "Emerald Rapids" physically features 33 CPU cores, so a total of 66 are physically present, although one core per die is left unused for harvesting, the SemiAnalysis article notes. So the maximum core-count possible commercially is 32 cores per die, or 64 cores per socket. "Emerald Rapids" continues to be based on the Intel 7 process (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin), probably with a few architectural improvements for higher clock-speeds.

Intel today expanded its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" client processor family into the commercial segment. Devices in this segment are bought in bulk by large businesses and enterprises; the processors powering them have certain in-built device security and remote management features that enforce company policy regardless of where the employees take the devices. Intel has been pioneering hardware-level remote-management and device security features for close to two decades now, with its vPro feature-set (originally launched as Centrino vPro in the 2000s. The new 13th Gen Core vPro lineup covers popular processor models across various device form-factor classes, spanning ultraportables (15 W or below), thin-and-light commercial notebooks (28 W to 35 W segment); mainstream commercial notebooks (45 W to 55 W); and commercial desktops (65 W).

The 13th Gen vPro series have a lot in common with the 12th Gen Core vPro series, At a hardware-level, these are processors based on the same "Raptor Lake" silicon as the mainstream-client 13th Gen Core processors, but with the enhanced vPro Management Engine that interacts with a compatible operating system to offer endpoint remote manageability for administrators. The desktop versions of these chips have identical SKU differentiation to 65 W 13th Gen Core processors already launched, but with either vPro or vPro Essentials feature-sets. Something similar applies to the 15 W U-segment, 28 W P-segment, and 35-45 W H-segment Core vPro processors. Along with these processors, Intel is debuting Q700-series chipsets specific to the form-factor. For U- and P-segment mobile processor SKUs, the core-logic is part of the processor package; while the H-segment and S-segment (desktop) processors come with discrete chipsets. With the 13th Gen, Intel is also standardizing a new WiFi 6E (Gig+) WLAN chipset with vPro features.

Earlier this week, we learned about the existence of the Intel Core i5-13490F, a China-exclusive processor SKU that's designed to strike "just the right" price-performance against AMD's Ryzen 5 7600 series, and possibly even the Ryzen 7 7700. It turns out that the i5-13490F isn't the only such SKU, there's also the Core i7-13790F. Positioned between the i7-13700 and i9-13900, the i7-13790F is a unique piece of silicon. It has the same 8P+8E core-configuration as the i7-13700 and i7-13700K, and even the same 5.20 GHz maximum P-core turbo frequency as the i7-13700, but comes with a little extra shared L3 cache of 33 MB.

Each of the 8 "Raptor Cove" P-cores on the i7-13790F has 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache, and each of the two available E-core clusters has 4 MB of L2 cache that's shared among the four "Gracemont" E-cores in the cluster. The L3 cache that's shared among the 8 P-cores and 2 E-core clusters, has been bumped up to 33 MB from 30 MB on the other 13th Gen Core i7 desktop SKUs. This is still short of the 36 MB physically present on the "Raptor Lake-S" silicon. There are a couple of gotchas, though. Firstly, this is still a "locked" (non-K) SKU having minimal overclocking capabilities, with a 65 W base power and possibly the same 219 W maximum turbo power as the i7-13700; and secondly, as an "F" SKU, it lacks integrated graphics. The i5-13490F and i7-13790F appear to be targeting the SI and retail channels, and come in an exclusive black paperboard box. The i7-13790F is priced at RMB ¥2,999 including taxes, or about $440.

Intel today formally launched the Core i9-13900KS "Raptor Lake" flagship desktop processor. At an MSRP of USD $700, the i9-13900KS is positioned a notch above the $590 i9-13900K, which it replaces as the top 13th Gen Core desktop part you can buy. The i9-13900KS features the same 8P+16E core-configuration as the i9-13900K, but at increased clock speeds and power limits. It is the world's first 6 GHz processor, with its maximum boost frequency set at exactly 6.00 GHz, up from 5.80 GHz of the i9-13900K. This is not just a minor +200 MHz speed bump, but backed by increased power-limits, which enable improved multi-threaded boost-frequency spread thanks to the Adaptive Boost Technology carried over from the previous-generation i9-12900KS.

The 8 "Raptor Cove" P-cores of the i9-13900KS are clocked at 3.00 GHz base with up to 6.00 GHz boost, compared to 3.00/5.80 GHz of the i9-13900K, while the E-core frequencies are left untouched at 2.20 GHz base and up to 4.30 GHz boost. The big change here is the processor base power value, which is now set at 150 W, compared to 125 W of the i9-13900K, and while the maximum turbo power value is the same 253 W, Intel has changed the way its power headroom is utilized to support improved boost frequency spread across the P-cores. It seems like Intel hasn't sampled tech publications this processor, and the handful publications that have posted their reviews today using processors sourced from friendly retailers, report increased power-draw, and the need for large aftermarket cooling solutions even at stock frequencies. The i9-13900KS is being offered as an overclocking-friendly chip to those who know what they're doing and can handle extreme cooling solutions.

Intel today launched its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors, and companion 700-series motherboard chipset. These processors are built in the same LGA1700 package as the previous generation "Alder Lake," and are backwards-compatible with 600-series chipset motherboards through a BIOS update. Likewise, 700-series chipset motherboards support older "Alder Lake" processors. With the new 13th Gen Core, Intel is broadly promising an up to 15% uplift in single-threaded performance, which has a bigger bearing on gaming performance; and an up to 41% multi-threaded performance uplift; over the previous-generation, when comparing the top Core i9-13900K with its predecessor, the i9-12900K. Intel also claims to have outclassed the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X in multi-threaded performance, and the Ryzen 7 5800X3D in gaming performance.

Intel's performance claims are backed by some impressive hardware changes despite the company sticking with the same Intel 7 (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin) foundry node as "Alder Lake." To begin with, the single-thread performance uplift comes from the new "Raptor Cove" performance-core, which promises an IPC uplift over the previous-generation "Golden Cove," comes with more dedicated L2 cache of 2 MB per core (compared to 1.25 MB per core in the previous-generation); and significantly higher clock-speeds, going all the way up to 5.80 GHz. "Raptor Lake" has up to 8 P-cores, but the company has put in a lot of work in improving the contribution of E-cores to the processor's overall multi-threaded performance uplift. This is achieved by doubling the E-core count to 16. These are the same "Gracemont" E-cores as previous-generation, but Intel has doubled the L2 cache that's shared in a 4-core Gracemont cluster, from 2 MB per cluster to 4 MB. There are upgrades to even the hardware prefetchers of these cores.

An early review of a retail Intel Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake" 8P+16E processor shows it holding up to the rumored "20-40" claim, the idea that the processor can be up to 20% faster in gaming, and up to 40% faster in productivity, compared to the current i9-12900K. Much of the gaming performance increase is attributed to the higher IPC of the new "Raptor Cove" P-cores, and the much higher boost clocks they run at (up to 5.80 GHz); whereas the multi-threaded performance boost comes from not just the faster P-cores, but a doubling in the E-core count to 16, and improved E-core cache structures, besides higher clock speeds that they run on. For tests that scale across P-cores and E-cores, the i9-13900K behaves like a 24-core/32-thread processor, which is what it is. Among the tests included are CSGO, AIDA64, 7-Zip, WinRAR, Cinebench R15, R20, and R23; and their average, in comparison to the i9-12900K.

OneRaichu, who has access to engineering samples of both the AMD "Raphael" Ryzen 7000-series, and Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake," performed IPC comparisons between the two, by disabling E-cores on the "Raptor Lake," fixing the clock speeds of both chips to 3.60 GHz, and testing them across a variety of DDR5 memory configurations. The IPC testing was done with SPEC, a mostly enterprise-relevant benchmark, but one that could prove useful in tracing where the moderately-clocked enterprise processors such as EPYC "Genoa" and Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" land in the performance charts. OneRaichu also threw in scores obtained from a 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" processor for this reason, as its "Golden Cove" P-core powers "Sapphire Rapids" (albeit with more L2 cache).

With DDR5-4800 memory, and testing on SPECCPU2017 Rate 1, at 3.60 GHz, the AMD "Zen 4" core ends up with the highest scores in SPECint, topping even the "Raptor Cove" P-core. It scores 6.66, compared to 6.63 total of the "Raptor Cove," and 6.52 of the "Golden Cove." In the SPECfp tests, however, the "Zen 4" core falls beind "Raptor Cove." Here, scores a 9.99 total compared to 9.91 of the "Golden Cove," and 10.21 of the "Raptor Cove." Things get interesting at DDR5-6000, a frequency AMD considers its "sweetspot," The 13th Gen "Raptor Cove" P-core tops SPECint at 6.81, compared to 6.77 of the "Zen 4," and 6.71 of "Golden Cove." SPECfp sees the "Zen 4" fall behind even the "Golden Cove" at 10.04, compared to 10.20 of the "Golden Cove," and 10.46 of "Raptor Cove."

With Intel's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" facing stiff competition from AMD's Ryzen 7000 series, and the "Zen 4" series being augmented with 7000X3D series in early-2023, it's becoming a foregone conclusion that Intel will launch a possible "Core i9-13900KS" SKU, which is on its way to being the world's first desktop processor that can boost up to the 6.00 GHz mark. The processor should be able to boost its 8 "Raptor Cove" P-cores to the 6.00 GHz mark, given that the maximum boost frequency of the stock i9-13900K is already rumored to be at 5.70 GHz.

At its Tech Tour event in Israel, Intel confirmed that "Raptor Lake" brings a 15% single-threaded, and 41% multi-threaded performance gain over "Alder Lake." The single-threaded gain is from the higher IPC of the "Raptor Cove" P-core, coupled with its frequency set as high as 5.70 GHz; whereas the multi-threaded performance gain is a combination of increased IPC of the P-cores, and increased frequencies for both the P-cores and E-cores. The E-core clusters get more shared L2 cache, which should improve their performance, too.

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.