Intel Core i9-13900K / i5-13600K review: the king of processors dominates the performance again

The 13th generation Intel Core desktop processor codenamed Raptor Lake has been officially launched. Although it seems that compared to the previous generation products, it is only a simple increase in the number of it’s clocks and cores, the measured performance has amazingly killed the Quartet Game performance mid-level products It can also surpass the previous generation flagship, let’s see how it does.

Architecture and Specifications

Strictly speaking, the computer micro-architecture of Raptor Lake has not changed significantly compared to the previous generation of Alder Lake, but the storage memory capacity has increased significantly.

Including expanding the P-core’s L2 cache from 1.25 MB to 2 MB per core, the E-core’s L2 cache doubled from the original 2 MB to 4 MB per cluster (4 cores), and the shared L3 expanded by each Cache cores (Intel Smart Cache) from 30MB to 36MB.

In addition, with the continuous improvement of the process, the P-core and E-core of Raptor Lake can have higher clocks, and even the E-core cluster can be doubled from the original 2 groups to 4 groups, which is the largest Holds 16 E-cores. These factors add up and become the cornerstone upon which practical application performance can grow.

test environment

In the next test, we aimed at the Core i9-13900K / i5-13600K processors provided by Intel, and found the previous generation of the Core i9-12900K / Core i5-12600K single-level products, in as well as the competitive AMD Ryzen 9 7950X / 7900X. Compete with the Ryzen 5 7600X and NVIDIA’s latest flagship graphics card, GeForce RTX 4090 Founding Edition.

rendering operation

From the well-known Cinebench R20 / R23 perspective, the single-core score of the Core i9-13900K has once again reached a new peak, which is 12% higher than the Core i9-12900K, and also ahead of the Ryzen 9 7950X by about 9%~ 10%, and the Core i5-13600K’s The single core is about to catch up with the Core i9-12900K.

In terms of multi-core, the Core i9-13900K has an explosive growth of 47% in Cinebench R20 / R23 than the Core i9-12900K, and it also has a small lead of 3% to 6% in the face of the Ryzen 9 7950X. However, in multi-core rendering applications such as Blender 3, V-Ray 5, and Cocona, compared to the Ryzen 9 7950X, it remains flat to a slightly lagging level of 3% to 7%.

Video editing / encoding / decoding

For video editing, we used PugetBench from Puget Systems to test against the two major editing software currently on the market, Adobe Premiere Pro and Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve.

The GPU resources used in the DaVinci Resolve test process are relatively small, so the CPU affects the performance of a large portion. In terms of results, we can see that the Core i9-13900K has grown by 27%~28% compared to the Core i9-12900K, and it is also about 11%~13% ahead of the Ryzen 9 7950X.

What is more surprising is that the Core i5-13600K even leads the Core i9-12900K by 7%~9%, and even lags behind the Ryzen 9 7950X by only 3 % ~ 6%.

The Premiere Pro scores vary relatively little, but the Core i9-13900K still leads the pack, narrowly beating the Ryzen 9 7950X. The Core i9-12900K is a little further behind but on par with the Ryzen 9 7900X, and the Core i5-13600K is about 8% behind them.

Comprehensive effectiveness

In the CrossMark commercial application software test, the Intel camp processor achieved better overall results with better productivity and response rate.

Geekbench lists the single-core and multi-core results separately. In terms of single core, the Ryzen 9 7950X narrowly beats the Core i9-13900K by less than 1%, and the Ryzen 9 7900X and Ryzen 5 7600X also get better results, slightly better than other Intel processors. .

Multi-core score distribution is similar to core rendering.

3DMark

Since Intel processors are more likely to achieve good CPU scores in the Time Spy test that simulates DirectX 12 games, Intel processors also have an advantage in the overall score.

CPU Profile score is similar to multi-core rendering It is worth noting the 16 thread part. Since Ryzen 9 7950X / 7900X has more large cores, both scores are better than the Core i9-13900K.

Game performance

Gaming performance is the most surprising aspect of the 13th generation Intel Core processor. When the previous NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 evaluation was performed on the Core i9-12900K platform, it was found that many games encountered CPU-bound (CPU-bound) in medium and low resolutions. limited), this time the Core i9-13900K finally squeezed out more performance.

For example, the 1080p resolution of a first-person shooter game like “CS:GO” must be a CPU performance bottleneck. This time, the Core i9-13900K directly made the frame rate exceed the 800 fps mark and reached 850 fps. , even the Core i5-13600K has a good score of 798.73 fps, which is much higher than the opponent.

And “Rainbow Six Siege” (Rainbow Six Siege), AMD CPU gets better results in 1080p, but Core i9-13900K and Ryzen 9 7950X / 7900X stop before 800 fps, after the resolution is increased, Intel CPU Instead, it started to get better results.

Among the remaining 20 AAA games, AMD CPU only has an advantage in “FINAL FANTASY XIV: Endwalker” and “Hitman 3” (Hitman 3), and Intel CPU dominates the rest of the games.

In the Full HD 1080p and WQHD 1440p resolution environment, the average performance of the Core i9-13900K leads the Ryzen 7950X / 7900X by 9%, and it also increases by 7%~8% compared to the Core i9- 12900K.

Among them, the most surprising is the Core i5-13600K The game performance is slightly ahead of the Core i9-12900K. The Full HD 1080p resolution environment is even ahead by an average of 2%, and of course, it is also ahead of the Ryzen 7950X / 7900X by almost 3%. We guess the main reason is that L2 and L3 cache memory has been expanded, and the Core i9-12900K can only reach 5.2 GHz for a single core, and the full core operation will drop to 4.9 GHz, while the Core i5- 13600K can support all the cores at 5.2 GHz 5.1 GHz, the result is formed after superimposing the two stages.

Power consumption and temperature

It can be said that power consumption is the relative shroud of Intel Core processors of the 13th generation. After all, the operating clock and the number of cores have increased, and the power consumption limit of the motherboard has been fully unlocked. The Core i9-13900K burns in Prime95. The power consumption will immediately reach 375W, even the burn-in AIDA64 FPU will get 314W, and the temperature will start to drop when the temperature reaches 100°C.

However, the above situation only occurs in the severe burning test. The general use situation can still be used as usual, but at least it needs to be equipped with an integrated water-cooled heat dissipation system with 360mm radiator, and a good system. chassis ventilation environment.

The maximum power consumption of the Core i5-13600K in FPUs Prime95 and AIDA64 reaches 214W and 157W respectively, although it is slightly higher than the Core i5-12600K, but it is still acceptable when the performance will improve significantly.

Summarize

Although the core architecture has not changed significantly, the 13th generation Intel Core Raptor Lake processor relies on a more advanced process, the top Core i9-13900K pushes the operating clock to a maximum of 5.8 GHz, and a number the cores are also stacked to 8 P-cores + 16 E-cores. In addition, the expansion of L2 and L3 cache capacity brings better game performance, completely unleashing the performance of the top GPU, and even making the Core i5-13600K’s mid-level game performance surpass the previous generation’s flagship.

Unfortunately, with the skyrocketing exchange rate of the US dollar, the retail price of the 13th generation Intel Core processor in Taiwan is much higher than the previous generation, but since it is still compatible with current Intel 600 series chipset motherboards , if not If the PCIe 4.0 SSD needs to be fully inserted, you can consider matching the Z690 / B660 motherboard with a relatively affordable price, but you must pay attention to whether the motherboard and the power supply can handle the higher power consumption before buying .

Having said that, considering the measured results in various aspects, the Intel Core i9-13900K processor is undoubtedly the king of contemporary performance. If you want to get the most fierce game performance, in addition to the top GPU, the top CPU this is also indispensable.