Introduction

The raptors are here! We're reviewing the Intel Core i9-13900K, which leads the company's new 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake" desktop processor series. This gains significance as it is the company's final generation of processors built on a monolithic die with a uniform silicon fabrication node, with the CPU cores, iGPU, caches, and platform controllers sitting on a single die. With future generations, Intel is expected to put its IDM 2.0 product development strategy into motion, and we'll see processors made from multi-chip modules (MCMs).

The Intel Core i9-13900K in this review doubles down on the Hybrid architecture, which dealt a blow to AMD's leadership in the segment with the 12th Gen "Alder Lake." The idea behind Hybrid is not to chase down AMD's lead with CPU core-counts, as Intel did with the 8th through 11th generations; but to place two distinct kinds of CPU cores, with different performance and power bands. The larger performance cores (or P-cores) handle the most demanding workloads, and Intel calculates that eight of these should suffice, as even workloads such as games don't need more than 16 threads from performance cores; while a Zerg swarm of physically smaller efficient cores (or E-cores), with reasonably high IPC, could help the processor overcome the multi-threaded performance deficit to AMD processors in creator tasks. The E-cores also give the processor a low power footprint in everyday workloads.



With the 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" desktop processors, Intel is increasing core-counts generationally, but only with the E-core counts. The number of P-core remains the same; although Intel has updated the P-cores themselves with higher IPC. The 13th Gen Core i9 SKUs, such as the i9-13900K in this review, come with 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores (8P+16E), an increase from the 8P+8E configuration of the previous-gen i9-12900K. The 13th Gen Core i7 chips, such as the i7-13700K, will have an 8P+8E loadout, an uplift from the 8P+4E one of the i7-12700K, and matching that of the i9-12900K. The Core i5 K-series gets an upgrade too, which is now 6P+8E, compared to 6P+4E of the previous generation.

The "Raptor Lake" silicon feature eight "Raptor Cove" performance cores that offer higher IPC, as well as operate at significantly higher clock-speeds than the "Golden Cove" cores on "Alder Lake." The dedicated L2 caches of these cores have been enlarged in size to 2 MB, compared to 1.25 MB of the previous generation. The "Gracemont" E-cores are unchanged in architecture from the previous-generation, although Intel has enlarged their L2 caches, from 2 MB per 4-core cluster, to 4 MB, and increased their clock speeds. The L3 cache shared between P-cores and E-core clusters has been generationally enlarged across the board, it's 36 MB on the Core i9 chips, 30 MB on Core i7, and 24 MB for the Core i5 K-series.

The new 13th Gen Core desktop processors share the same Socket LGA1700 package as the 12th Gen "Alder Lake," and are compatible with Intel 600-series chipset motherboards with BIOS updates; although they launch alongside improved 700-series chipset boards, which also let you use older 12th Gen processors with them. The new processors also offer platform flexibility with support for older DDR4 memory, in addition to DDR5, and the PCI-Express setup for the processors is unchanged—16 PCIe Gen 5 lanes for the graphics card, an M.2 Gen 4 slot for CPU-attached NVMe SSD, and DMI 4.0 x8 chipset bus. You will come across 700-series chipset motherboards with Gen 5 NVMe slots, but these slots cut into the x16 PEG lanes meant for the graphics card, making it run at x8 bandwidth (while the Gen 5 M.2 slot is active).

The Core i9-13900K, as we mentioned, leads the raptor pack by maxing out the "Raptor Lake-S" silicon, with its 8P+16E core configuration, the full 36 MB L3 cache, the highest clock speeds, and unlocked multipliers. The P-cores operate at a frequency of 3.00 GHz, and can boost up to a massive 5.80 GHz, while the E-cores run at 2.20 GHz, boosting up to 4.30 GHz. While the processor base power (PBP) value of the processor is unchanged at 125 W, its maximum turbo power (MTP) has been increased to 253 W from the 241 W of the 12900k. Intel is pricing the Core i9-13900K aggressively, at USD $590, which would place it bang in the middle of the AMD Ryzen 9 7000-series "Zen 4" lineup, which is led by the $700 7950X. If you can live without integrated graphics, the Core i9-13900KF is for you—it's practically identical to this chip, but lacks integrated graphics, and is cheaper by $25.

Architecture

The "Raptor Lake" microarchitecture, as we mentioned, is the swansong of monolithic silicon client processors for Intel. Future generations will implement the IDM 2.0 product design, and will be multi-chip modules with chiplets built across various foundry nodes. The "Raptor Lake" silicon is fabricated on the same Intel 7 (10 nm Enhanced SuperFin) foundry node as the previous-gen "Alder Lake," although Intel claims to have squeezed out a handful of improvements, such as better electron channel mobility, which can let both the P-cores and E-cores gain increases in clock speeds by as much as 600 MHz over the previous-generation, and minimally higher power. The transistor-density is unchanged, since it's the same the node. The "Raptor Lake" die measures 23.8 mm x 11.8 mm (257 mm² die-area).


The channel mobility improvements on the Intel 7 node in particular lets the chip designers raise the V/F curve, with over 50 mV reduction in iso-frequency (voltage needed for frequency); over 200 MHz iso-voltage (frequency increase at a given voltage); which enables up to 600 MHz increase in Turbo Boost frequencies, with the increase of maximum turbo power (MTP) to as high as 253 W for the Core i9-13900K and i7-13700K; and as high as 181 W for the Core i5-13600K.

The "Raptor Cove" performance cores (P-cores) come with increased IPC, and while the company didn't specify the IPC gain over the previous-generation "Golden Cove" P-core, it mentions an over 15% single-threaded performance uplift. The ISA of the "Raptor Cove" core is identical to that of "Golden Cove," but the company has enhanced the hardware prefetcher dealing with the dedicated L2 cache. Helping the P-core performance uplift are the node improvements that help it sustain higher frequencies, and larger dedicated L2 cache—now 2 MB compared to 1.25 MB for "Golden Cove." The i9-13900K and i7-13700K get eight "Raptor Cove" P-cores, which come with HyperThreading enabled, so 16 threads from the P-cores. The Core i5-13600K gets six of these P-cores, so 12 threads from here.


The "Gracemont" E-cores are architecturally unchanged from "Alder Lake," but are tuned with higher frequencies, and the most important hardware-level change is the L2 cache. Groups of four E-cores are organized as E-core clusters, which share an L2 cache among the cores. Intel doubled this cache size from 2 MB on "Alder Lake" to 4 MB. Much like the P-cores, Intel has updated the L2 cache prefetcher algorithm for E-core clusters. The "Raptor Lake" silicon physically features four E-core clusters, so 16 E-cores in total. The Core i7-13700K is carved out by disabling two of these clusters, giving you 8 E-cores; while the i5-13600K is designed by disabling two E-core clusters, as well as two P-cores, for its 6P+8E configuration.


Intel made several other updates to the cache and memory sub-system besides the enlarged L2 caches mentioned above. The shared L3 cache is now as large as 36 MB of the Core i9 SKUs, 30 MB for the Core i7 SKUs, and 24 MB for the Core i5 K/KF SKUs. The Ring Bus interconnect continues to be the town-square for this silicon, and Intel has increased its frequency by 900 MHz, now at up to 5.00 GHz (it ran at up to 4.10 GHz on the i9-12900K). The new Dynamic INI (inclusive/non-inclusive) architecture lets components reserve portions of the L3 cache to themselves to minimize cache misses or DRAM roundtrips if the cache is saturated. The processor supports dual-channel DDR5 and DDR4 memory types (2x 64-bit channels in case of DDR4, 4x 32-bit sub-channels in case of DDR5). The chip now supports DDR5-5600 natively (JEDEC spec), while the native DDR4 frequency is unchanged at DDR4-3200.


While it didn't put out detailed architectural block-diagrams of its CPU cores like it did the last time, Intel was kind enough to give us a breakdown of how it achieved its claimed 15% single-threaded performance uplift, and >40% multi-threaded uplift. Generational increases to frequency, cache size and prefetcher improvements, and and memory frequency uplifts, add to these. Multi-threaded performance uplift rides on the back of these; plus the doubling in E-core count. Contributing to not just multi-threaded performance, but also consistency in multi-threaded performance across applications, are a series of updates to Intel Thread Director, the hardware-level middleware that makes Intel's Hybrid architecture work with software, by directing the right kind of workload to the right kind of CPU cores. It collaborates with OS scheduler improvements of Windows 11 22H2, particularly with smarter QoS (performance outlay) for background tasks.


All processor models being launched today are Unlocked K (or KF) SKUs, letting you go to town with overclocking. While there are no new overclocking handles with "Raptor Lake," Intel improved the software side of things, by giving Extreme Tuner Utility (XTU) new per-core multiplier settings for both the P-cores and E-cores; and a simplified UI for automated overclocking, with Speed Optimizer.

Intel Z790 Chipset

Alongside the six 13th Gen K-series processors SKUs, Intel is debuting the Z790 chipset. Motherboards based on this are guaranteed to come with out-of-the-box support for 13th Gen processors, even though 600-series chipset motherboards support them via a BIOS update, and many premium models feature USB BIOS Flashback. The Z790 sees a rebalancing of the downstream PCIe connectivity in favor of more downstream Gen 4 PCIe lanes, compared to the previous-gen Z690. You will find Z790 motherboards with DDR5 memory support, as well as those with DDR4 support—Intel hasn't restricted motherboard vendors from doing so.

Unboxing and Photography

As we detailed in our Unboxing Article, our Core i9-13900K and i5-13600K samples came in special media-kits. It's basically a flashy paperboard box the size of an M-ATX motherboard box, with the two processors inside, and some mementos designed to look like the "Raptor Lake" die.


The memento should go well as a backdrop item for video-format tech journalists. The retail Core i9-13900K should come in a fancy hardboard box with a jewel-case that resembles a silicon wafer, which contains the processor inside.


The Core i9-13900K processor package looks like the 12th Gen processor package, as it shares the same LGA1700 socket. It's backwards-compatible with 600-series chipset motherboards with a BIOS update.


The retail Core i9-13900K box doesn't include a cooler, but you can pick up any LGA1700 cooler—there's plenty of choice. Just make sure it can handle thermal loads of 125-250 W.

Test Setup

• All applications, games, and processors are tested with the drivers and hardware listed below—no performance results were recycled between test systems.
• All games and applications are tested using the same version.
• All games are set to their highest quality setting unless indicated otherwise.

AIDA64 Cache and Memory Performance

In this first test we're looking at the performance offered by the memory subsystem and the processor's L1, L2 and L3 caches. AIDA64 comes with a great benchmark that provides a nice overview over all these performance characteristics.

Super Pi

SuperPi is one of the most popular benchmarks with overclockers and tweakers. It has been used in world-record competitions practically forever. It is a purely single-threaded CPU test that calculates Pi to a large number of digits—32 million for our testing. Released in 1995, it only supports x86 floating-point instructions and thus makes for a good test for single-threaded legacy application performance.