Intel Core i9-13900K and i5-13600K Review: Raptor Lake Brings More Bite
by Gavin Bonshor on October 20, 2022 9:00 AM ESTGaming Performance: 720p And Lower
The reason we test games in CPU reviews at lower resolutions such as 720p and below is simple; titles are more likely to be CPU bound than they are GPU bound at lower resolutions. This means there are more frames for the processor to process as opposed to the graphics card doing the majority of the heavy lifting.
There are some variances where some games will still use graphical power, but not as much CPU grunt at these smaller resolutions, and this is where we can show where CPU limitations lie in terms of gaming.
We are using DDR5 memory on the Core i9-13900K, the Core i5-13600K, the Ryzen 9 7950X, and Ryzen 5 7600X, as well as Intel's 12th Gen (Alder Lake) processors at the following settings:
- DDR5-5600B CL46 - Intel 13th Gen
- DDR5-5200 CL44 - Ryzen 7000
- DDR5-4800 (B) CL40 - Intel 12th Gen
All other CPUs such as Ryzen 5000 and 3000 were tested at the relevant JEDEC settings as per the processor's individual memory support with DDR4.
Civilization VI
World of Tanks
Borderlands 3
Grand Theft Auto V
Red Dead Redemption 2
F1 2022
Hitman 3
Total War: Warhammer 3
Cyberpunk 2077
Digesting our results at 720p (and lower) resolutions, we can see that things are quite competitive at the top end, especially with the Core i9-13900K and the Core i9-12900KS across most of the games. Some of the games from our testing look to benefit from a different variable, whether that is core count, quality of cores versus core count and frequency; L3 cache size, or a mixture of all three.
In World of Tanks, the majority of the field of processors on test look to be within a certain margin depending on frequency, IPC, and core count. The Ryzen 9 7950X does well here, although the latest Raptor Lake chips seem to be hovering around the levels of performance as the previous 12th Gen Core chips. In Civ VI, the latest AMD Ryzen 7000 and their Zen 4 cores dominate the field, while the 5800X3D and R9 5950X are also competitive. Behind these come the Intel chips with the Core i9-13900K performing the best of those.
Overall, it's a bit of a mixed bag at 720/480p in terms of performance. There are cases where Raptor Lake performs well, but equally, the same can be said for the Ryzen 7000 chips. But ultimately, none of the top chips here have a 95th percentile frame rate lower than 170fps in any action game, while the more unique Civlization 6 never drops 114fps. Which is to say that these high-end CPUs aren't likely to be a gaming performance bottleneck any time soon – getting a GPU that can keep up at higher resolutions is going to be the harder task.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
169 Comments
View All Comments
nandnandnand - Monday, October 24, 2022 - link
I can see a couple of things that make sense:1. Buy onto the platform early, upgrade very late. Like 1700X to 5800X3D. Except that didn't work for every motherboard on AM4.
2. Buy a budget chip, upgrade to an expensive chip 1+ gen later. The Ryzen 5 7600X is currently the cheapest but at $300 it doesn't really qualify.
Nobody should buy AM5 or Raptor Lake (new system) right now. Wait for 7800X3D/Zen5 and Meteor Lake. Reply
Kangal - Monday, October 24, 2022 - link
This.Initially the r7-1700 and x370 offered mixed value, and the upgrade path looked great. But AMD wasn't able to properly fulfil their AM4 promise.
So perhaps AMD realised their issues, and fixed things for AM5. So perhaps but the most expensive motherboard and the best value cpu to upgrade the cpu later. Or maybe nothing has changed, since AMD is so far ahead of Intel when it comes to motherboard relevancy.
So for new system builders, you can blow the budget and go all-in on a new Intel + Nvidia tower. For the best value builders, customising an older AMD (5800x3D) and RDNA is the way to go. For the risk takers, you can overpay for things that are going to last, and cut-back on things you know yobare going to upgrade (gpu, cpu, more storage).
Reply
GeoffreyA - Tuesday, October 25, 2022 - link
The promise of upgrading is great, but sometimes doesn't work out as planned. I built a 2200G + B450 Tomahawk in 2019, with the hope to upgrade to a 6-core APU later on. Now, the 5600G is the one to go for, but has considerable issues when joined with the Tomahawk. So, I tend to think I'll just wait for a whole new system, AM6 perhaps, who knows? Replytvdang7 - Sunday, October 23, 2022 - link
Is it to much for the reviewer to add the 7900x and 7700x into the graphs just so we know what we are dealing with ? ReplyRyan Smith - Monday, October 24, 2022 - link
We do not currently have those chips. AMD has only sampled the top and bottom SKUs.We'll get them eventually through other means. We just don't have them right now. Reply
o01326 - Sunday, October 23, 2022 - link
Just signed up to comment this: why are you benchmarking Civ IV by FPS? ReplyTheinsanegamerN - Monday, October 24, 2022 - link
The same reason they were, up until this review, still using a 2080ti for their CPU gaming benchmarks. Replycoolkwc - Monday, October 24, 2022 - link
this review is failed, don't even post what's the core temperature under stress? So difficult to get that reading huh? ReplyAnnnonymmous - Monday, October 24, 2022 - link
Transient power spikes with an RTX 4090 and 13900K mean you will need at LEAST a 1500w power supply to prevent random computer shutdowns. That's crazy! Of course, this will only happen when you are running a game 4K, Max Settings, with Ray Tracing enabled. Still, getting 1,000-1,200w spikes is crazy! Replytrueonefix - Monday, October 24, 2022 - link
Awesome Reply