Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake Family To Feature World’s First 6 GHz CPU, 8 GHz+ World Record Achieved Too
According to Intel, the 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs were never officially planned for launch until 2 years ago when the plans for the Meteor Lake desktop slipped a bit. As such, the engineering team decided to offer an intermediate CPU family, now known as Raptor Lake, to be launched after Alder Lake and optimize the foundations set by Alder Lake, Intel’s first Hybrid CPU design. The result is a massive bump in clock speeds which makes the Raptor Lake family the first to feature a 6 GHz CPU and also achieve overclocking frequencies beyond 8 GHz after more than a decade. The first 8 GHz confirmation was reported by us last week which you can read more about here. 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 Based on 10nm ESF ‘Intel 7’ process node Up To 6.0 GHz clock speeds Up To 41% Multi-Thread Performance Improvement Up To 15% Single-Thread Performance Improvement 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 (x4 reserved for PCH) Enhanced Overclocking Features 125W PL1 TDP / 253W PL2 TDP AI PCIe M.2 Technology Q4 2022 Launch (October)
Intel has also highlighted the product development life cycle of its CPUs & starting with a definition stage to retail on-shelf. the process takes around 2-2.5 years. The first A0 Tape-In happens around 6 months from the definition stage and the first power-on is achieved around 1.5 years from the design phase. The Tape-In and Power-On cycle happens at the Fab while the post-silicon validation and manufacturing happen in the last year or so with the chip going through at least four stages:
ES1/Alpha - Board Bring Up & Early Validation ES2/Beta - Alpha/Beta Validation QS - Qualifaction Sampling Validation PRQ/PV - Production Pilot & Testing
The chips are then sent out to the first customers and finally hit retail (on-shelf) after 2-2.5 years of development. So far, IDC has managed to bring the majority of its desktop and mobile products to the shelf within the 1st-month window and only three products have slipped into a 2-3 month window (Skylake Desktop, Ice Lake Mobile, Comet Lake Desktop). There’s no product that has missed its retail window. 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. There’s currently no details regarding the Intel 6 GHz Raptor Lake CPU but it is likely to be the Core i9-13900KS. The Core i9-12900KS already boosted the speeds of CPUs to 5.5 GHz and now, the 13th Gen successor will be offering a 500 MHz speed boost to 6 GHz, making it the fastest frequency for a retail chip.
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. News Source: TekStrategist
