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.
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kwohlt - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
I'm sure they're at least part of the reason why RPL has much lower idle power draw than Zen4, but their real purpose is to provide 4 threads for the same die area and power draw as a P core to scale MT workloads. ReplyRyan Smith - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
Bingo. They're for area efficiency reasons, not power efficiency reasons. Replytipoo - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
The X3D continues to impress in many areas doesn't it Replymeacupla - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
It's going to be a slaughter when 7000X3D series comes out... Replynandnandnand - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
The wins/ties/near-losses for Zen 4 and 5800X3D show the way. 7800X3D will come in like a wrecking ball. Replybrucethemoose - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
Typo at the bottom of page one: "Ryzen 5 7600K" ReplyTimSyd - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
Pricing is wrong. Like many AT are quoting Intel's 1000unit tray prices as the MSRPs. Tray prices are not the retail prices.NewEgg shows the retail price for the 13900k as US$659 Reply
Mr Perfect - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
MSRP is just suggested retail price, it's not enforced. In this instance Newegg appears to be pricegouging, as a boxed retail i9-13900K can be bought at the $569 price from other retailers, like Microcenter. Replynandnandnand - Thursday, October 20, 2022 - link
Intel did NOT provide MSRPs for Raptor Lake:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_Lake#Raptor_L...
"Price reflects Recommended Customer Price (RCP) rather than MSRP. RCP is the cost per unit, in bulk sales of 1000 units or more, to OEMs, ODMs, and retail outlets when purchasing from Intel. Actual MSRP is higher than RCP" Reply
bji - Friday, October 21, 2022 - link
Microcenter is not a comparable retailer, ever. They only sell at those prices to local markets. You might as well compare prices of Amazon to that of Crazy Eddie's CPU Barn that sells only in one neighborhood of St. Louis. Reply