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.

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.

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.

Although Intel's 13th generation of Core CPUs—codenamed Raptor Lake—aren't expected to launch until sometime in September or October this year, details of some of ASRock's motherboards for the new CPUs have leaked. ASRock is preparing to launch at least nine Z790 and three H770 motherboards, of which at least four will have support for DDR4 memory, according to VideoCardz. The list is missing a flagship Aqua model, but contains Taichi, Pro RS, Phantom Gaming Lightning and Riptide models, as well as a Steel Legend H770 boards and a couple of -C models, which are likely budget boards, despite being based on the Z790 chipset.

There will be a microATX Phantom Gaming Lighting board with DDR4 and a Phantom Gaming Riptide model with DDR5 support. So far no other features have been reported and from our understanding, the Z790 won't differ hugely from the Z690 chipset. The extra PCIe lanes from the 13th gen Core CPUs are expected to support PCIe 5.0 this time around, which will allow for faster NVMe based M.2 drives to be used. Intel is not planning on integrating Thunderbolt 4 support in these CPUs based on available information.