Intel Core i9-13900K review - Introduction

Intel Core i9 13900K review
Intel's flagship CPU has eight performance cores and 16 Energy friendly ones

This series of processors has been the subject of rumours, performance assessments, and other forms of speculation. Finally, Intel has released its new Raptor Lake-based CPU architecture, and we are taking a look at the Core i9 13900K as our first step. There is no doubt that the new flagship model will shine. The year will close with a bang with new AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA products. Over the summer, nearly all specifications leaked the products you see launched today. Today is about the processor and motherboards.

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 is releasing the 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, and it will be available with integrated UHD Graphics 770 for $589 or without it for $564.  

	Cores		Caches		Clock Frequencies				GPU	Power usage
Processor	p	E	L2	L3	Base P	Turbo P	Base E	Turbo E	Model	Base	Turbo
Core i9-13900K	8	16	32MB	36MB	3.0GHz	5.8GHz	2.2GHz	4.3GHz	UHD 770	125W	253W
Core i7-13700K	8	8	24MB	30MB	3.4GHz	5.4GHz	2.5GHz	4.2GHz	UHD 770	125W	253W
Core i5-13600K	6	8	20MB	24MB	3.5GHz	5.1GHz	2.6GHz	3.9GHz	UHD 770	125W	181W

Raptor Lake processors feature 2MB L2 cache per P-core, while Alder Lake processors have 1.25MB per P-core. The CPUs now have 4MB of L2 cache per E-core cluster, up from 2MB previously. Additionally, the total amount of L3 cache is raised to a maximum of 36MB. Intel claims a 15% improvement in single-threaded performance and a 41% improvement in multi-threaded performance. These enhancements are primarily the result of higher frequency and thread count. The new Z790 high-end platform from Intel features a more significant number of PCIe Gen4 lanes and USB 3.0 Gen 2x2 20 Gbps ports. In this review we'll address the flagship Core i9 13900K; it has eight performance cores (16 threads) and 16 Energy friendly cores (no hyperthreaded) offering you a staggering 32 threads.