Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs & Z790 Platform To Be Announced on 27th September, Launch on 20th October

With AMD finally having unveiled its Ryzen 7000 CPUs & AM5 platform, it’s time to switch gears to Intel’s 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs & the Z790 platform.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs To Launch on 20th October, To Include Z790 Motherboards & Unlocked SKUs

The latest information has been leaked by @wxnod who managed to get his hands on a full Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake schedule from a presentation in China. As per the presentation, it looks like Intel will be officially introducing the Raptor Lake chips on the 27th of September (28th in Taiwan) and the launch will take place around a month later on the 20th of October. Meanwhile, Intel will be taking pre-orders for the chips. Based on the information we have:

Intel Raptor Lake-S Processors & Intel Z790 Chipset: Enthusiast Consumer K & KF CPUs Only

• Product Information Embargo Date: 27th September 2022 @ 9:20 am PT (Intel Innovation ’22)
• Sales Embargo Date: 20th October 2022 @ 06:00 am PT

Intel Raptor Lake-S Processors Commercial & Entry Workstation

• Product Information Embargo Date: 19th February – 18th March 2023
• Sales Embargo Date: 19th February – 18th March 2023

Do note that AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs & AM5 platform will be hitting retail shelves the same day as Intel’s announcement. As per the schedule, Intel will begin taking pre-orders for the Core i9-13900K (F) on the 27th of September while pre-orders for the Core i7-13700K (F) and Core i5-13600K (F) are going to open on the 13th of October. Currently, we don’t have the embargo date but this means the blue team will have their next-gen parts launching almost a month after AMD’s Zen 4 lands on the desktop PC platforms.

Intel’s 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs will utilize the hybrid core design, featuring a mix of Performance-Optimized ‘P’ and Efficiency-Optimized ‘E’ cores. For the new chips, Intel will be using a brand new P-Core known as Raptor Cove which will replace the Golden Cove cores featured on the Alder Lake CPUs. For The E-Core, Intel will retain the existing Gracemont core architecture but it will come with minor improvements. Following are some of the main changes you should expect:

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop CPUs Expected Features:

• Up To 24 Cores & 32 Threads
• Brand New Raptor Cove CPU Cores (Higher P-Core IPC)
• Based on 10nm ESF ‘Intel 7’ process node
• Up To 6.0 GHz clock speeds (expected)
• Double The E-Cores on certain variants
• Increased Cache for both P-Cores & E-Cores
• Supported on existing LGA 1700 motherboards
• New Z790, H770, and B760 motherboards
• Up To 28 PCIe Lanes (PCH Gen 4 + Gen 3)
• Up To 28 PCIe Lanes (CPU Gen 5 x16 + Gen 4 x12)
• Dual-Channel DDR5-5600 Memory Support
• 20 PCIe Gen 5 Lanes
• Enhanced Overclocking Features
• 125W PL1 TDP (Flagship SKUs)
• AI PCIe M.2 Technology
• Q4 2022 Launch (October Possibly)

So starting with the lineup, there are a total of 14 SKUs which include four Core i9 models, four Core i7 models, five Core i5 models, and a single Core i3 model. There are three revisions of the CPUs which start with H-0 for the only Core i3 model, C-0 for the Core i5-13400, Core i5-13500 & Core i5-13600 while the rest are based on the B-0 revision.

The H0 and C0 revisions might have similar silicon and die structures as existing Alder Lake parts minus the upgraded cache from the Raptor Lake designs while the B0 silicon might have the added cache.

Intel Core i9-13900K 24 Core Raptor Lake CPU Specs

The Intel Core i9-13900K is the flagship Raptor Lake CPU, featuring 24 cores and 32 threads in an 8 P-Core and 16 E-Core configuration. The CPU is configured at a base clock of 3.0 GHz, a single-core boost clock of 5.8 GHz (1-2) cores, and an all-core boost clock of 5.5 GHz (all 8 P-Cores). The CPU features 68 MB of combined cache and a 125W PL1 rating that goes up to 250W. The CPU can also consume up to 350W of power when using the “Extreme Performance Mode” which we detailed a few hours ago here.

• Core i9-13900K 8+16 (24/32) – 3.0 / 5.8 GHz – 66 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 250W+ (PL2)?
• Core i9-12900K 8+8 (16/24) – 3.2 / 5.2 GHz – 30 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 241W (PL2)

Intel Core i7-13700K 16 Core Raptor Lake CPU Specs

The Intel Core i7-13700K CPU will be the fastest 13th Gen Core i7 chip on offer within the Raptor Lake CPU lineup. The chip features a total of 16 cores and 24 threads. This configuration is made possible with 8 P-Cores based on the Raptor Cove architecture and 8 E-Cores based on the Grace Mont core architecture. The CPU comes with 30 MB of L3 cache and 24 MB of L2 cache for a total combined 54 MB cache. The chip was running at a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. The all-core boost is rated at 5.3 GHz for the P-Cores while the E-Cores feature a base clock of 3.4 GHz and a boost clock of 4.3 GHz.

• Core i7-13700K 8+8 (16/24) – 3.4 / 5.3 GHz – 54 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 244W (PL2)?
• Core i7-12700K 8+4 (12/20) – 3.6 / 5.0 GHz, 25 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 190W (PL2)

Intel Core i5-13600K 14 Core Raptor Lake CPU Specs

The Intel Core i5-13600K features a total of 14 cores which include 6 P-Cores based on the Raptor Cove and 8 E-Cores based on current Gracemont cores. That’s the same P-Core count as the Intel Core i5-12600K but the E-Core count has been doubled. So we are looking at a 40% core count bump and a 25% thread count bump vs the Alder Lake Core i5-12600K. The CPU comes with 24 MB of L3 and 20 MB of L2 cache for a combined total of 44 MB cache. Clock speeds are set at 3.5 GHz base, 5.2 GHz boost, and 5.1 GHz all-core boost while the E-Cores operate at 3.5 GHz base & 3.9 GHz boost clocks.

• Core i5-13600K 6+8 (14/20) – 3.5 / 5.1 GHz – 44 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) /180W (PL2)?
• Core i5-12600K 6+4 (10/16) – 3.6 / 4.9 GHz – 20 MB Cache, 125W (PL1) / 150W (PL2)

Moving over to the rest of the SKUs, we obviously have the lower TDP optimized 65W Non-K SKUs. The Intel Core i5-13400 seems to be a nice upgrade from the Core i5-12400 as it now offers a total of 4 E-Cores besides the 6 P-Cores which should help boost the multi-threaded performance. The Core i5-13500 is another upgraded variant that offers a step up to 6 P-Cores and 8 E-Cores unlike the Core i5-12400 and Core i5-12500 which shared an identical configuration without any P-Cores. The Core i3 lineup only features 1 SKU and that’s the Core i3-13100 which will retain its 4-core and 8-thread layout.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake-S Desktop CPU Family:

The Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop CPUs including the flagship Core i9-13900K is expected to launch in October on the Z790 platform. The CPUs will be going up against AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPU lineup which also launches in Fall 2022.