A Brief Note on Intel Core i9 13900K
Since Intel came out of the quad core bubble, it always had a catch up game with AMD, who with their “Ryzen” CPUs hit the ball out of the park. While it played around with higher core count CPUs until the Intel 11th Gen Rocket Lake processors, Intel entered a territory that was once the “trademark” stuff of ARM processors (big.LITTLE architecture). We are talking about the combination of powerful cores and power efficiency cores. Intel calls them Performance or P Cores and Efficiency or E Cores. This lead to a hybrid architecture, starting with their 12th Gen CPUs code named Alder Lake.
Architecture
The Hybrid Architecture from the 12th Gen Alder Lake processors was a success. Making further improvements, Intel launched the Raptor Lake 13th Gen CPUs, with the Intel Core i9 13900K leading the chart. Similar to the previous gen’s counterpart, the Intel Core i9 12900K, the 13900K also has 8 Performance (P) Cores with support for multithreading. But the efficiency cores doubled. While the 12900K has only 8 Efficiency (E) Cores, the Intel i9 13900K has 16 Efficiency (E) cores. As efficiency cores doesn’t support multithreading, the Intel Core i9 13900K has a total 32 threads (16 P + 16 E). The microarchitecture of the 13th Gen CPUs are the updated Raptor Cove P Cores and Gracemont E Cores. Under the hood, the “Raptor Cove” cores have a 15% single-threaded performance gain when compared with the previous gen’s “Golden Cove” cores. The E cores are same for both 12th Gen and 13th Gen CPUs. The base clock speed of the P and E Cores of 13900K are 3 GHz and 2.2 GHz respectively. This is lower than the 3.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz of the 12900K. But the turbo clock has seen a significant bump. For the 12900K, the turbo clocks of P and E Cores are 5.1 GHz and 3.9 GHz respectively. But for 13900K, there is roughly a 6% boost in the turbo clock for P core at 5.4 GHz and a 10% boost for E Cores at 4.3 GHz. Intel made the 13th gen Raptor Lake processors using the same LGA 1700 Socket as the 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs. So, if you have a decent motherboard, then the upgrade cost will be less.
Memory and Cache
The Intel Core i9 13900K CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM types in dual channel mode. While the DDR4 frequency is same as 12th gen’s DDR4-3200, DDR5 saw a huge improvement with support for DDR5-5600 (12th Gen maxed out at DDR5-4800). Support for DDR4 means, you don’t need to make a significant investment, if you already own a decent DDR4 RAM kit. But the industry is moving towards DDR5 and the cost of DDR5 RAM kits is slowly coming down. The main change between the 12th Gen Alder Lake processors and the 13th Gen Raptor Lake processors is in the implementation of the Cache. Each P core of the 13900K Processor gets 2 MB L2 Cache (this was only 1.25 MB for 12th Gen Processors). One module of E cores gets 4 MB L2 Cache (again a huge bump from only 2MB per module for 12th Gen). If you aren’t familiar with the E Core modules, Intel grouped four E Cores into a cluster that share the L2 cache. So, in 13900K, you get 4 MB for four E Cores. This makes the total L2 Cache of 13900K at 32 MB. It also has 36 MB L3 Cache, which is common for all the cores.
PCIe and Power
The Intel Core i9 13900K processor has 20 PCIe lanes from the CPU. Of these, 16 are PCIe Gen 5 while the remaining 4 are Gen 4. The final configuration of the PCIe lanes will depend on the motherboard you select and the corresponding chipset. Similar to the Alder Lake processors, even the 13th Gen Raptor Lake processors are fabricated using the “Intel 7”. Even though Intel calls it “Intel 7”, it is technically a 10 nm node. The base processor power of Intel Core i9 13900K CPU is 125W while the maximum turbo power is 253W.
Specifications of Intel Core i9 13900K
Intel Core i9 13900K Review
Now that we have seen some basic information about the 13900K, let us proceed with the review of the Intel Core i9 13900K processor. We will see the benchmark results for synthetic applications, mainstream applications, and games. We will also see some numbers regarding the thermals and power consumption. (8 * 2 MB = 16 MB) 4MB per E Core Module (4 * 4 MB = 16 MB) 4 PCIe 4.0 Lanes
Test System
We will be testing the Intel Core i9 13900K CPU against similar tier processors from both Intel and AMD. Before we begin, here is a quick look at our Intel and AMD test systems.
Application Benchmarks
Cinebench R23 Multi-Core (Higher is Better)
Let us start with the most popular benchmark tool, the Cinebench R23. After the 10-minute multicore loop test, we got a score of just under 40000 points. If we compare this with the AMD Ryzen 7950X, then the performance is very similar albeit slightly better. But if you compare the performance of Intel Core i9 13900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K and AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, then the former boasts a 32% performance improvement.
Cinebench R23 Single-Core (Higher is Better)
Coming to the single core performance in the Cinebench R23, the story changes a bit. The single-core performance of the Intel Core i9 13900K is 8% better than the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. There is a 5% improvement over the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X. The interesting thing here is the single core performance of the Intel Core i7 13700K is similar to the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Multi-Threaded/Overall (Higher is Better)
Next, we have another popular benchmark tool from PassMark, the CPU Mark. The following results show the overall or multi-threaded CPU Mark Score of all the processors in this test. While the Intel Core i9 13900K shows a lot of improvement over the Intel Core i9 12900K, it falls short in front of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X where is shows a 5% performance gain over 13900K.
PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Single-Threaded (Higher is Better)
Coming to the single threaded performance in CPU Mark, the story reverses as both the Intel Core i9 13900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K beats the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. Unsurprisingly, the AMD Ryzen 7900X and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X also offers a very similar performance.
Blender Open Data Render Time (Lower is Better)
Another popular open-source tool is Blender. For the next couple of tests, we will see the render times and number of samples per minute in Blender version 3.4. The Intel Core i9 13900K took 20 seconds over 6 minutes while the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X took just 5 minutes and 38 seconds.
Blender Samples Per Minute (Higher is Better)
The results for number of samples in a minute for Blender Render is also very similar to the render time results where the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X has a good lead over the Intel Core i9 13900K. Here you can see the samples per minute score across the three test scenes: monster, junkshop, and classroom.
Adobe Photoshop 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)
The Adobe suite has a couple of important tools that many creators and artists use. We will start with the Adobe Photoshop 2022. It has a built-in Puget System Standard Benchmark. If you look at the overall scores, the Intel Core i9 13900K has a significant lead over the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. The performance of Intel Core i7 13700K, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, and AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is very close.
Adobe Premier Pro 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)
Next application in the Adobe suite is the Premier Pro 2022. The results in this test are slightly better for AMD as the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X comes very close to the Intel Core i9 13900K.
7-Zip File Manager Compression (Higher is Better)
One of the popular and widely used open-source applications is the 7-Zip File Manager. It helps in archiving files. For this test, we are performing the built-in benchmark feature. Here is the result in million instructions per second (MIPS) for compressing using a standards 32 MB dictionary size and 10 passes.
7-Zip File Manager Decompression (Higher is Better)
In decompression, the AMD Ryzen CPUs dominate the charts with AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and Ryzen 9 5950X comfortably beating the Intel Core i9 13900K.
Chromium Code Compilation Time (Lower is Better)
Developers working on large projects need a stable multi-threaded system with a powerful CPU. So, we tested the code compilation performance by taking the open-source Chromium project code. The performance of Intel Core i9 13900K is very good but ultimately falls short in front of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.
Corona 1.3 Render Time (Lower is Better)
The last “application” benchmark is the Corona 1.3, which is a high-quality shading engine for production rendering. Let us now see the rendering time of different Intel and AMD CPUs. Both Intel Core i9 13900K and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X render in just 38 seconds.
Gaming Benchmarks
Let us move to some gaming performance. We tested some popular titles at a resolution of 1920 × 1080 (1080p) as anything beyond, the GPU will dominate the performance. We are running all the games in DirectX 12 with Ray Tracing and DLSS off.
Far Cry 6
Resolution: 1920 × 1080 DirectX 12 Game Setting: Ultra DirectX Raytracing: Off
The first game is Far Cry 6. Here, the Intel Core i9 13900K shows its dominance over AMD counterparts. Here are the rounded off average frames and also 1% low fps.
Cyberpunk 2077
Resolution: 1920 × 1080 DirectX 12 Game Setting: Ultra Texture: High Ray Tracing: Off DLSS: Off
Next, we have another popular title, Cyberpunk 2077. The story is the same, where current gen Intel CPUs can pump over 140 fps on average while the Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs struggle to push past 130 fps.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Resolution: 1920 × 1080 DirectX 12 Game Setting: High DLSS: Off
Last but not least, we tested the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and the Intel Core i7 13700K put up some fight but ultimately fall short of the Intel Core i9 13900K. What surprised in this game is the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D beating all the current gen Intel and AMD flagships. Based on this result, we are very excited to get our hands on the upcoming Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs with 3D V-Cache.
Clock Speed
We ran the AIDA64 Stress Test for 10 minutes and here are the maximum frequency and average frequency of all cores.
CPU Temperature
During the same AIDA64 Stress Test, we monitored the CPU Temperatures with Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Elite Liquid CPU Cooler. Here are the CPU temps for your reference.
Power Consumption
During the Blender render, we measured the CPU Package Power Draw using the HWiNFO tool. The following table consists of the peak CPU Package Power Draw as reported by HWiNFO.
Final Verdict
With a retail price of $640 and the performance it offers, the Intel Core i9 13900K seems like a decent CPU from Intel. But if you take a look at the power consumption and the thermals, we are no impressed. If your workload involves multithreaded applications that need a lot of CPU computational power, then the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X seems like a better choice than the Intel Core i9 13900K. Even though former is expensive that needs a new DDR5 Memory and AM5 Motherboard, it runs 5°C cooler and consumes 100 Watts less. When it comes to gaming, the performance difference between the Intel Core i9 13900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K is very less. The latter runs a little cooler while consuming less power. Overall, while the we are impressed with the performance both in terms of gaming and productivity workloads of the Intel Core i9 13900K, its power consumption and thermals might be a concern. This might not a deal breaker, especially if your workload involves primarily productive applications. Comment * Name * Email * Website
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