Intel Core i9-13900K Cheaper and often faster, Intel is now ahead of AMD's best.

Today marks the release of Intel's 13th Gen Core processor series, codenamed Raptor Lake. The first models to launch in retail channels are all overclockable components, with six SKUs in the Core i9, i7 and i5 product segments. We've seen Intel's heterogeneous or hybrid design with the launch of Intel Alder Lake (12th Gen Core) products and the latest Raptor Lake corebrings a very similar design to the table, but with subtle improvements designed to help give Intel an edge in the desktop market.

Last month at Intel Innovation, Intel introduced the 13th generation of its Core processor family, led by the 13th generation Intel Core i9-13900K, announced as their fastest-ever desktop CPU. There are six unlocked 13th-generation Intel Core desktop processors available, with clock speeds running up to 5.8 GHz over a maximum of 24 cores and 32 threads. Intel launches Core i9-13900K, Core i7-13700K and Core i5-13600K processors. There will also be KF variations of these processors, which lack an integrated GPU but are otherwise identical to their K counterparts. The Core i9-13900K will be Intel's flagship processor. This CPU features a total of 24 cores and 32 threads, comprised of 8 P-cores and 16 E-cores. Intel claims that this CPU's Thermal Velocity boost clock can reach up to 5.8GHz. This processor's base TDP is 125W. The maximum TDP for the top-end products has been slightly increased to 253W. The Core i9-13900K supports a maximum of 241W. There are 24 cores (8P+16E) and 68 MB of combined L2 and L3 cache. This SKU's highest boost frequency is 5.8 GHz.

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).

When all is said and done, the Core i9-13900K packs 55% more cache than the 12900K, both using the same Intel 10nm process, though the total die area has only increased by 24% to 257mm2. This is a much bigger CPU that clocks up to 12% higher at 5.8 GHz, so I shudder to think what power and thermals are going to look like, and of course, that's something we'll be looking at soon.

A few other updates with Raptor Lake include the change to DDR5 memory support, increasing from DDR5-4800 to DDR5-5600, while retaining DDR4-3200 memory support. The same 16 lanes of PCI Express 5.0 and 4 lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the CPU are supported, too.Do I Need to Buy a New Motherboard?

Although the new Z790 motherboards are definitely appealing, you don’t need to buy a new motherboard. All of the current 12th Gen chipsets support the new 13th Gen CPUs, meaning you don’t technically need to upgrade to a new motherboard. Intel has kept the LGA1700 socket, which means you can install a new CPU into your board with a simple BIOS update.

ASUS ROG Strix Z690-A WiFi D4

This means your 12th Gen supported CPU coolers will also work on the new boards, easing cooler compatibility. We would expect the socket to change for the 14th Gen launch, in line with Intel’s ‘tick tock’ architecture roadmaps to date.

Intel Core i9 13900K Compatibility

The Core i9 13900K is currently the top-end option available on launch, with an additional ‘KF’ SKU also launching with the same specs, just without integrated graphics. Intel did announce during their keynote that we would see limited edition models launch at some point in the future with 6GHz+ speeds out of the box, which will be even more impressive. The 13900K is well positioned to be paired up with the best components that money can buy, which means an Nvidia RTX 4090 would not go amiss in a high-end PC build with this CPU. Alternatively, pairing  RTX 3090Ti  Rtx3080 if you want to spend a little bit less.

With regards to motherboard options, you have a lot of options at your disposal, as all of the 12th Gen chipsets are compatible with the new 13th Gen CPUs. However, we’d recommend sticking to the Z690 and Z790 ranges so that you can get the best performance when it comes to overclocking and features. As much as the other chipset options have an ample amount of features on offer, you won’t be able to get fully unlocked overclocking on any non ‘Z’ series chipsets.