The upcoming Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" promises to be an overclocker's delight, with an extreme overclocking feat surfacing of an astounding 8 GHz overclock of the chip. There are several riders to this feat. The most obvious being that an engineering sample (and not a retail chip), was used. Extreme cooling, such as liquid-nitrogen was used to keep the feisty chip cool. All 16 of its E-cores were disabled, and the 8 P-cores had HyperThreading disabled.

A stunning 1.792 V core voltage was used, to get the clock speed up to 8000 MHz, with an 80.0 multiplier and 100 MHz base clock. This would be the first Intel processor in around a decade to hit the 8 GHz-mark, with the last one being the i7-5775C "Broadwell." The clock-speed leaderboard is dominated by the AMD FX-8350 and FX-8150, with the unbeaten record being The Stilt's 8772 MHz.

The most juicy bits of the Intel 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" launch press-deck just leaked, courtesy of Igor's Lab. They reveal the six SKUs Intel will debut the 13th Gen Core desktop processor series with, highlight key differences with the previous-gen "Alder Lake," and also detail what the new Intel Z790 chipset brings to the table. To begin with, the first-wave of 13th Gen Core processors will include six SKUs—the Core i9-13900K, i9-13900KF, i7-13700K, i7-13700KF, i5-13600K, and the i5-13600KF. The -K and -KF parts are identical to each other, spare for the lack of integrated graphics with the -KF ones.

Many of the key specs of these six SKUs were already leaked to the web along with those of several SKUs from future waves of 13th Gen SKUs, but this slide confirms a handful interesting specs related to power. The slide confirms 125 W as the Processor Base Power value for all six SKUs, 253 W as the Maximum Turbo Power value for the Core i9 and Core i7 K/KF SKUs; and 181 W as the Maximum Turbo Power for the Core i5 K/KF SKUs. This is a definite step up from the 241 W MTP for the previous-gen Core i9, 190 W MTP for the Core i7, and 150 W MTP for the Core i5. Of course, these limits are like a hedge blocking your path, you can relax them in the motherboard BIOS.

Courtesy of Wccftech, we now have a complete picture of what Intel is planning to announce on the 27th of this month. The information is extremely detailed and covers no less than 14 different processor SKUs, ranging from the Core i9-13900K/KF to the Core i5-13400/F. All of the CPUs except the Core i5-13400/F and the upcoming Core i3 models will support memory speeds of up to DDR5 5600, whereas the lower end parts will be limited to DDR5 4800. All 13th Gen Intel CPUs should also support DDR4 3200 memory. Just as with the 12th Gen CPUs, the 13th Gen KF and F will not support ECC memory and of course, no IGP.

There's nothing that really stands out when looking at the specs and most things are expected based on earlier rumours. The Core i9-13900K/KF will indeed boost up to 5.8 GHz on up to two cores and all P-cores will boost up to 5.4 GHz, with the E-cores boosting up to 4.3 GHz. The Core i7-13700K/KF will have a much bigger gap here, compared to the the Core i7-12700K/KF versus the Core i9-12900K/KF where there was a 200 MHz boost frequency gap, which has now been extended to 400 MHz, as the Core i7-13700K/KF only boosts up to 5.4 GHz on two cores. Interestingly, the base clock frequency for the P-cores seems to have dropped 200 MHz on theK/KF parts, compared to 12th Gen equivalents in the product stack. For the remaining details, have a look at the data provided below.

An AMD Ryzen 9 7950X "Zen 4" 16-core/32-thread processor was put through the Geekbench 5.4.5 benchmark, and it's becoming all too clear that AMD has a highly competitive product on its hands. The 7950X yielded a single-threaded score of 2217 points, and 24396 points in the multi-threaded tests. With these scores, the 7950X is about 14% faster than the "Golden Cove" P-cores of the i9-12900K "Alder Lake" processor in the single-threaded tests, and comes out as being 41% faster than it in the multi-threaded test. Against the leaked i9-13900K "Raptor Lake," the 7950X is shown being about 4% slower in the single-threaded test (against the "Raptor Cove" P-cores); and about 7.8% slower in the multi-threaded test.

A leaked Intel company document detailing the "go to market" (GTM) plan for its 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processors, reveals key dates associated with it. Intel will likely hold a launch event for the 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processors on September 27, 2022 (when it's September 28 in Taiwan). This happens to be the same day AMD's Ryzen 7000 "Zen 4" processors go on sale. Pre-orders for these processors will open on October 13, 2022 (or October 14 in Taiwan). This is when you'll be able to order one online. October 20 is when the processors will be available to purchase off the shelf (October 21 in Taiwan). This document does not deal with review NDAs, so we'll have to guess that reviews go live somewhere between September 27 and October 13.

Built on the same Intel 7 process as "Alder Lake," "Raptor Lake" introduces an IPC increase with its "Raptor Cove" P-cores, and a doubling in the count of its "Gracemont" E-cores, along with increases in L2 cache sizes for both the P-cores and E-core clusters. The processor is said to be built on the same LGA1700 package as the 12th Gen, and compatible with Intel 600 series chipset motherboards with a UEFI firmware update. The processors launch alongside new Intel 700-series chipset motherboards that have out-of-the-box support for them.

A screenshot of an alleged AMD Ryzen 9 7950X "Zen 4" processor surfaced on the web, courtesy of OneRaichu, and this time there's no blur-out with the score field—15645 points. When compared to the alleged CPU-Z Bench scores of the Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake" from last week, the Intel 8P+16E hybrid processor ends up 7.9% faster than this score, but still a very close second.

The Ryzen 9 7950X ends up a significant 23.47% faster than the leaked score of the Core i7-13700K (8P+8E), and the AMD flagship scores 33.5% faster than the previous-gen Intel flagship Core i9-12900K. While both the i7-13700K and i9-12900K are 8P+8E, the "Raptor Lake" gets ahead with higher IPC for the P-cores, slightly higher clocks, and more cache for the E-core clusters. The 7950X is also 32.12% faster than its predecessor, the Ryzen 9 5950X "Zen 3," and a whopping 58.39% faster than the Core i7-12700K (8P+4E).

Intel 700-series chipset motherboards could come with improved memory overclocking capabilities, suggest an alleged leaked specs-sheet of an MSI Intel Z790 chipset motherboard. As the pioneering platform for DDR5, Intel 600-series chipset motherboards, particularly those based on the Z690, typically marketed DDR5 memory overclock speeds of around DDR5-6000 or DDR5-6200 in their specs sheets, as the then-expensive DDR5 memory kits started at JEDEC-spec speeds of DDR5-4800 in the entry-level, with performance-segment kits around the DDR5-6000 mark.

The unnamed MSI Z790 chipset motherboard supports DDR5 overclocked frequencies of over DDR5-6800 at 1DPC (one DIMM per channel) with single-rank modules; over DDR5-6400 with 1DPC + dual-rank modules; over DDR5-6400 with 2DPC + single-rank modules; and over DDR5-5600 with 2DPC + dual-rank. Earlier reports suggested that Intel is "discouraging" motherboard vendors from coming up with 700-series motherboards that feature DDR4 memory slots, but this doesn't mean there won't be any. MSI has an Intel Z790 motherboard with DDR4 slots in the works, and it's capable of overclocks of up to DDR4-5000 in the most optimal configuration, and DDR4-4000 in the least optimal one.

When it releases, the Core i5-13400 will join a long like of Intel processors that are extremely successful in the market—chips that are priced around the $200-mark, and bang in the middle of the market bell-curve. Other chips in the lineup include the i5-12400, i5-11400, i5-10400, and the i5-9400. With the 13th Generation "Raptor Lake," Intel is configuring the i5-13400, i5-13500, and the i5-13600 (non-K) as 6P+4E processors (that's 6 "Raptor Cove" P-cores with 4 "Gracemont" E-cores); whereas their 12th Gen predecessors only had 6 "Golden Cove" P-cores, and no E-cores. The top Core i5 part, the i5-13600K, will stand out featuring a 6P+8E configuration.

Maximum boost frequencies of the Core i5-13400 and i5-13500 surfaced on the web thanks to Passmark screenshots scored by TUM_APISAK. Boost frequencies of 13th Gen Core processors weren't part of the recent lineup leak. The i5-13400 has a maximum boost frequency of 4.10 GHz, while the i5-13500 comes with 4.50 GHz. Both SKUs have an identical base frequency of 2.50 GHz. The maximum turbo frequency of 4.10 GHz for the i5-13400 is significantly lower than the 5.80 GHz of the flagship i9-13900K, and the 5.10 GHz of the i5-13600K. It's also quite spaced apart from the i5-13500, with its 4.50 GHz. Perhaps Intel really wants some consumer interest in the Core i5 SKUs positioned between the i5-13400 and the i5-13600K.

An Intel Core i9-13900 "Raptor Lake" (non-K) processor was spotted in the wild by Benchleaks. The non-K parts are expected to have 65 W Processor Base Power and aggressive power-management, compared to the unlocked i9-13900K, although the core configuration is identical: 8 P-cores, and 16 E-cores. Besides tighter power limits out of the box, and a locked multiplier, the i9-13900 also has lower clocks, with its maximum boost frequency for the P-cores set 5.60 GHz, compared to the 5.80 GHz of the i9-13900K. It's still a tad higher than the 5.40 GHz of the i7-13700K.

Tested in Geekbench 5.4.5, the i9-13900 scores 2130 points in the single-threaded test, and 20131 points in the multi-threaded one. Wccftech tabulated these scores in comparison to the current-gen flagship i9-12900K. The i9-13900 ends up 10 percent faster than the i9-12900K in the single-threaded test, and 17 percent faster in the multi-threaded. The single-threaded uplift is thanks to the higher IPC of the "Raptor Cove" P-core, and slightly higher boost clock; while the multi-threaded score is helped not just by the higher IPC, but also the addition of 8 more E-cores.

Alleged Cinebench R23 single-threaded benchmark numbers of the upcoming Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 5 7600X "Zen 4" processors, leaked to the web by Greymon55, and tabulated by VideoCardz, show the two chips to be matching Intel's 12th and 13th Gen Core processors. The 7700X 8-core/16-thread processor is shown scoring anywhere between 2000 to 2099 points (denoted as 20xx), while the 7600X does anywhere between 1900 to 1999 points (19xx). This would see the two easily match/beat the 12th Gen Core "Alder Lake" P-cores, with the i9-12900K scoring 2000 points, and the i5-12600K getting 1920 points.

Numbers for the unreleased 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" put Intel at an advantage, with the i9-13900K allegedly scoring 2290 points, and the i5-13600K allegedly 1967 points, but what's important is that the single-thread performance, and application performance of less-parallelized workloads, such as games, could be highly competitive for "Zen 4" against Intel.

AMD is allegedly ready with a working "Zen 4" chiplet that has stacked 3D Vertical Cache (3DV cache) memory, which supplements the on-die L3 cache, and is found to massively improve gaming performance. "Moore's Law is Dead" reports that the Zen 4 + 3DV Cache chiplet will be used with various Ryzen 7000X3D SKUs, as well as special EPYC "Genoa" SKUs.

The 3DV Cache deployed with the "Zen 4" chiplet is a second-generation to the one on the "Zen 3 + 3DV cache" chiplet, and AMD has worked on a number of bandwidth and latency improvements, so it performs in-sync with the generationally-faster on-die L3 cache of the "Zen 4" chiplet. Unlike the CCD below it that's built on TSMC N5 (5 nm EUV), the L3D (the stacked die with the 3DV cache) is possibly be built on an older node, such as N6 (6 nm), since it only contains a slab of memory and doesn't warrant N5. "Moore's Law is Dead" reports that AMD expects to repeat the magic of the 5800X3D when it comes to gaming performance, and expects Ryzen 7000X3D processors to dominate Intel's 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" processors. This was echoed by another reliable source, greymon55.

The flagship Core i9-13900K/KF "Raptor Lake" processor could come with a maximum boost frequency as high as 5.80 GHz, according to early store listings by a Canadian retailer that mentions the processor's retail SKU. This would be the highest possible clock speed sustained by the "Raptor Cove" P-cores of the processor, with its best available boosting algorithm (Intel processors tend to have many). The listing also reveals the maximum boost frequency of the Core i7-13700K/KF to be 5.40 GHz. Intel typically gives its unlocked Core i7 SKUs one less boosting algorithm than the Core i9, besides lower frequencies. The fastest mid-range part from the series, the Core i5-13600K, ticks at speeds of up to 5.10 GHz.

The listings see the Core i9-13900K go for CAD $941 (USD $727), the i9-13900KF at CAD $901 (USD $696), the Core i7-13700K at CAD $663 (USD $512), the i7-13700KF at CAD $626 (USD $484); the mid-range Core i5-13600K at CAD $461 ($356), and the i5-13600KF at CAD $424 (USD $327). These prices may seem high as they're pre-launch listings, and hardware in Canada tends to be slightly pricier than in the States. Going by launch prices of the 12th Gen Alder Lake, Intel seems to be raising the launch prices of "Raptor Lake" by a single-digit percentage.

According to an investigative report by "Chips and Cheese," the larger L2 caches in Intel's 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake-S" doesn't come with a proportionate increase in cache latency, and Intel seems to have contained the latency increase well. "Raptor Lake-S" significantly increases L2 cache sizes over the previous generation. Each of its 8 "Raptor Cove" P-cores has 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache, compared to the 1.25 MB with the "Golden Cove" P-cores powering the current-gen "Alder Lake-S," which amounts to a 60 percent increase in size. The "Gracemont" E-core clusters (group of four E-cores), sees a doubling in the size of the L2 cache that's shared among the four cores in the cluster, from 2 MB in "Alder Lake," to 4 MB. The last-level L3 cache shared among all P-cores and E-core clusters, sees a less remarkable increase in size, from 30 MB to 36 MB.

Larger caches have a direct impact on performance, as more data is available close to the CPU cores, sparing them a lengthy fetch/store operation to the main memory (RAM). However, making caches larger doesn't just cost die-area, transistor-count, and power/heat, but also latency, even though L2 cache is an order of magnitude faster than the L3 cache, which in turn is significantly faster than DRAM. Chips and Cheese tracked and tabulated the L2 cache latencies of past Intel client microarchitectures, and found a generational increase in latencies with increasing L2 cache sizes, leading up to "Alder Lake." This increase has somehow tapered with "Raptor Lake."

An alleged low-res picture of the next-generation NUC 13 Extreme "Raptor Canyon" compute element codenamed "Shrike Bay," was leaked to the web. NUC Extreme desktops over the past several generations have been using a form-factor where the CPU, chipset, memory, and SSD are located on a single add-on card with custom wiring; while the rest of the system consists of a PCIe backplane (analogous to the ISA backplane systems from the 1980s). The NUC 13 Extreme compute element rocks a 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processor, possibly a switch to DDR5 from DDR4 on the NUC 12 Extreme, and processor options spanning the Core i9-K/KS, i7-K/KS, and i5-K. A liquid+air hybrid cooling solution much like that of the NUC 12 Extreme, could cool the various hot components on the compute element. According to leaked roadmaps, "Raptor Canyon" and the "Shrike Bay" compute element could debut within Q4-2022.

AMD has reportedly pushed market-availability date of its next-generation Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" desktop processors from September 15 to September 27, 2022. This would clash with the rumored product-announcement date of the Intel 13th Generation Core "Raptor Lake" processor series. If true, this is possibly a move designed to prevent Intel from sharing performance numbers of Ryzen 7000-series processors in the product-announcement presentation of "Raptor Lake," as Intel can only compare the chips it is announcing with competing AMD products that are available in the market at the time.

A September 27 market availability could still mean a late-August product announcement along the sidelines of Gamescom, with product reviews in the following weeks. It's just that the market availability date is now pushed to late-September. Intel's launch cycle for "Raptor Lake" could see a late-September announcement, but it remains to be seen if product availability is immediate, or timed weeks later. The 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" processor is built on the same LGA1700 package as current "Alder Lake," and compatible with existing Intel 600-series motherboards with a UEFI firmware update; although will be launched alongside new Intel 700-series chipset motherboards. AMD's Ryzen 7000-series product launch will be timed with those of compatible Socket AM5 motherboards based on the AMD 600-series chipset, and a new line of DDR5 memory modules featuring the AMD EXPO technology.

The upcoming 13th Gen Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake" 8P+16E core processor offers a significant multi-threaded performance increase with its power-limits relaxed, according to Cinebench R23 testing unearthed by OneRaichu. In its default settings, with stock power limits, the i9-13900K draws up to 254 W of package power, where it scores 35693 points. With the power limits unlocked in the motherboard's UEFI setup program (i.e. PL1/PL2 set at an impossible 4096 W), the processor's package power peaks at 345 W (a 36% increase in peak power-draw), but results in a multi-threaded score of 40616 points, or a 13.8% performance gain.

An Intel Core "Raptor Lake" engineering sample was de-lidded by Expreview giving us a first look at what will be Intel's last monolithic silicon client processor before the company switches over to chiplets, with its next-generation "Meteor Lake." The chip de-lidded here is the i9-13900, which maxes out the "Raptor Lake-S" die, in featuring all 8 "Raptor Cove" P-cores and 16 "Gracemont" E-cores physically present on the die, along with 36 MB of shared L3 cache, and an iGPU based on the Xe-LP graphics architecture.

The "Raptor Lake-S" silicon is built on the same Intel 7 (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin) silicon fabrication node as "Alder Lake-S." The "Raptor Lake-S" (8P+16E) die measures 23.8 mm x 10.8 mm, or 257 mm² in area, which is 49 mm² more than that of the "Alder Lake-S" (8P+8E) die (around 209 mm²). The larger die area comes from not just the two additional E-core clusters, but also larger L2 caches for the E-core clusters (4 MB vs. 2 MB), and larger L2 caches for the P-cores (2 MB vs. 1.25 MB); besides the larger shared L3 cache (36 MB vs. 30 MB). The "Raptor Cove" P-core itself could be slightly larger than its "Golden Cove" predecessor.

Is there anything better than yet another benchmark leak of upcoming products? This time around we don't have to make do with Geekbench or some other useless benchmark, as a bilibili user in the PRC has posted a video where he has put the upcoming Intel Core i5-13600K and Core i7-13700K CPUs through 10 different games, plus 3DMark Fire Strike and Time Spy. This has been done at 1080p, 1440p and 2160p at that, using a GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics card. Both CPUs are QS or Qualification Samples, which means they're going to be close to identical to retail chips, unless there are some last minute issues that are discovered. The CPUs were tested using an ASRock Z690 Steel Legends WiFi 6E motherboard, well, two actually, as both a DDR4 and a DDR5 version were used. The DDR4 RAM was running at 3600 MHz with slow-ish timings of 18-22-22 in gear 1, whereas the DDR5 memory was running at 5200 MHz, most likely at 40-40-40 timings, although the modules were rated for 6400 MHz, in both cases we're looking at 32 GB.

Courtesy of @harukaze5719, we have some much easier to read graphs than those provided by the person that tested the two CPUs, but we've included the full graphs below as well. Each CPU was compared to its current SKU equivalent from Intel and in many of the games tested, the gain was a mere percent or less to three or four percent. However, in some games—at specific resolutions—especially when paired with DDR5 memory, the performance gain was as much as 15-20 percent. A few of the games tested, such as FarCry 6 at 4K, the game ends up being GPU limited, so a faster CPU doesn't help here as you'll see in the graphs below. There are some odd results as well, where the DDR5 equipped systems saw a regression in performance, so it's hard to draw any final conclusions from this test. That said, both CPUs should offer a decent performance gain, as long as the game in question isn't GPU limited, of around five percent at 1440p when paired with DDR5 memory.

As we approach the launch of Intel's upcoming Raptor Lake desktop processors, we are getting more leaks of testing performed by system integrators and 3rd parties that have early access to the engineering sample (ES) chips. A few days ago, we saw an Intel Core i7-13700K CPU run Geekbench 5 benchmark with the older DDR4 memory on ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E. Today, we are seeing a similar test performed on the same processor, with ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E/D5 equipped with DDR5 memory. While the previous DDR4 testing used modules running at 3200 MT/s, the DDR5 testing uses 5200 MT/s rated DRAM with unknown timings and setup.

As far as performance goes, the single-core result of the 16-core Intel Core i7-13700K processor was 2090 points with DDR4, while DDR5 showed a slight regression of 2069 points. Of course, this could be attributed to the margin of error. As far as multi-core performance goes, the DDR4 testing managed to produce 16542 points, whereas the DDR5-equipped platform scored 19811 points. This is an immediate 20% performance uplift in multi-core score. It shows that all the cores present in Raptor Lake processors are starving for bandwidth, and a faster memory protocol can bring quite an improvement. As usual, we have to wait to confirm this information with our testing so that we can draw more conclusions.

A post on Chinese forum Bilibili has revealed more exact details with regards to when Intel's Raptor Lake series of processors will launch and if nothing changes between now and then, the K and KF SKU's should be announced as previously thought, at the Intel Innovation '22 event that kicks off on the 27th of September. Retail availability, alongside Z790 motherboards should be about a month later, starting the week of the 17th of October. We've confirmed these dates with our own sources, but as always with early information, these things can change.

The rest of the Raptor Lake family of CPUs, as well as the H770 and B760 chipsets are expected to launch at CES 2023 in January and the poster on Bilibili claims that retail sales should be sometime in the second half of January. We've not been able to confirm the latter information here. As per older rumours, Intel is expected to change the PCIe lane allocation for the Z790 chipset compared to Z690 and based on the information posted, Z790 will have 20 PCIe 4.0 and eight PCIe 3.0 lanes, vs. 12 PCIe 4.0 and 16 PCIe 3.0 for the Z690 chipset. Raptor Lake is also said to get native support for faster DDR5 5600 memory, rather than just 4800 MHz DDR5 for Alder Lake. There are apparently no changes to the CPU PCIe lanes and DDR4 support is still here, but once again, no changes have been made to the DDR4 memory controller.

With Intel Raptor Lake-S desktop processors around the corner, we see an ever-increasing number of entries to the popular synthetic benchmark databases. Yesterday we had an Intel Core i5-3600K CPU, while today, we are presented with Core i7-13700K SKU. The new 13th generation Core i7-13700K CPU features eight P-cores and eight E-cores. Compared to the 12th generation Core i7-12700K, this is a step up with eight P-cores and four E-cores. According to Geekbench 5 benchmark, the new Qualification Sample (QS) of Core i7-13700K CPU was running at the minimum clock of 5.289 GHz, maximum clock of 5.381 GHz, and average speed of 5.36 GHz. It was tested on the same configuration as yesterday's i5 SKU with ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E motherboard with 32 GB of DDR4 memory.

As far as the results are concerned, the 13th gen i7-13700K SKU scored 2090 points in the single-core test, while the multi-core score totaled 16542 points. If we compare this to the 12th gen i7-12700K CPU that it replaces, the new model leads by about 10% and 17% in single-core and multi-core tests, respectively.

It's a busy day when it comes to Intel Raptor Lake benchmark leaks and this time around, we're looking at a pair of Core i5-13600K CPUs, but in two different motherboards. The first CPU sits in an ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme board and is paired with 32 GB of DDR5 memory, whereas the second CPU is in an ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6E board, this one also paired with 32 GB of RAM, but DDR4 rather than DDR5. Both systems are running Windows 10 and unlike the Core i9-13900K results that we saw a couple of weeks ago, these two results are both valid according to the Geekbench results browser.

Courtesy of @harukaze5719 we have a nice graph with the results below, even comparing them to the average Geekbench results for a Core i5-12600K, as well as a Ryzen 9 5950X and a Ryzen 5 5600X. The Core i5-13600K beats everything in the single threaded results and the ASUS system is not far behind the Ryzen 9 5950X in the multithreaded tests. The ASUS system is significantly faster than the ASRock one though, so it seems like Raptor Lake is really making the most out of DDR5 memory. As we don't know the memory clocks, it's hard to say if that is also a contributing factor here, but it's likely that the ASUS system uses much faster memory, as in some of the sub-tests like Rigid Body Physics, the two systems are on par in terms of performance. It'll be interesting to see how Intel prices these upcoming CPUs, especially considering that the company has already warned it'll raise its prices in time for the retail availability of Raptor Lake.

More details of Intel's upcoming Raptor Lake CPUs have tipped up online, as someone submitted the results of a CPU-Z benchmark to the CPU-Z database. The CPU in question is most likely one of the by now, many ES samples of what should be the Core i9-13900K, which means the multiplier is still limited to 50x, which means the clock speeds can't go beyond 5 GHz. Even so, the extra E-cores helps it best the Core i9-12900K in the multithreaded test over 1400 points, using the average results for all 12900K CPUs in the database. It's also faster than the average Core i9-12900KF in the single-threaded test, but it doesn't quite manage to beat the Core i9-12900K results here.

The test system was admittedly not the very best possible hardware, as an MSI Pro Z690-A DDR4 motherboard was used and the CPU was paired with 32 GB of CAS19 DDR4 2666 MHz memory, so there's clearly potential for improvement here. The test system was also using Windows 10, which is potentially another bottleneck when it comes to taking advantage of all the extra E-cores. The E-Cores reached a top speed of 2.99 GHz, with the P-cores peaking at 4.99 GHz. The CPU was hitting 100 degrees C during the test, which suggests that some serious cooling is going to be needed for these CPUs. Intel is likely to reveal its Raptor Lake CPU's during the Intel Innovation '22 event in San Jose, which kicks off on the 27th of September.

BIOSTAR, a leading brand of motherboards, graphics cards, and storage devices, today announces a critical BIOS update for Intel 600 series motherboards to support the latest 13th generation Raptor Lake CPUs.

Preparing for the imminent release of the latest Intel processors, BIOSTAR is already prepping up a BIOS update that will enable users to upgrade their 600 series motherboards directly to the latest processors. BIOSTAR has put a considerable amount of thought and work into the upcoming BIOS update, which promises seamless integration and flawless performance numbers that rival any other competitor in the market.

Intel's 13th Gen Core i5 "Raptor Lake" desktop processor lineup could see the top Core i5-13600K and i5-13600KF feature a 6P+8E core-configuration (that's six performance cores and eight efficiency cores). Each of the six P-cores has HyperThreading enabled, making this a 14-core/20-thread processor. Each of the six "Raptor Cove" P-cores has 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache. The eight "Gracemont" E-cores are spread across two E-core clusters with four cores, each. Each cluster shares 4 MB of L2 cache among the four E-cores (increased from 2 MB per cluster on "Alder Lake"). The P-cores and E-cores share 24 MB of L3 cache, increased from 20 MB on the i5-12600K.

A qualification sample (QS) of the Core i5-13600K made its way to social media, where it was put through a bunch of synthetic tests. In CPU-Z Bench, the i5-13600K QS scores 830 points in single-thread, compared to 648 points of the Ryzen 9 5950X "Zen 3," and trails it in the multi-threaded tests, with 10031.8 points, compared to 11906 points for the Ryzen. The QS comes with a Processor Base Power (PBP) value of 125 W, same as that of the i5-12600K. "Raptor Lake" is backwards compatible with Intel 600-series chipset motherboards, although it launches alongside the Intel 700-series chipset. It shares the LGA1700 socket with 12th Gen "Alder Lake," and is built on the same Intel 7 node (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin) as its predecessor.